Shargar

“ Day after day passed in the delights of labour, broken for Robert by The Arabian Nights and the violin, and for Shargar by attendance upon Miss Lammie, till the fields lay bare of their harvest, and the night-wind of autumn moaned everywhere over the vanished glory of the country, and it was time to go back to school. ”

“ Amongst these boys were Robert and Shargar. Sky-revealing windows and locked door were too painful; and in proportion as the feeling of having nothing to do increased, the more uneasy did the active element in the boys become, and the more ready to break out into some abnormal manifestation. Everything—sun, wind, clouds—was busy out of doors, and calling to them to come and join the fun; and activity at the same moment excited and restrained naturally turns to mischief. ”

“ Could he believe his eyes? A feeble light was burning in the shed. Some other poverty-stricken bird of the night, however, might be there, and not she who could perhaps guide him to the goal of his earthly life. He drew near, and peeped in at the broken window. A heap of something lay in a corner, watched only by a long-snuffed candle.
The heap moved, and a voice called out querulously,
'Is that you, Shargar, ye shochlin deevil?'
Falconer's heart leaped. He hesitated no longer, but lifted the latch and entered. He took up the candle, snuffed it as he best could, and approached the woman. ”

“ Look: wherever a space is for a moment vacant, there falls a shadow, as grotesque, as strange, as full of unutterable things as any shadow on a field of grass and daisies.'
'I remember feeling the same kind of thing in India,' returned Shargar, 'where nothing looked as if it belonged to the world I was born in, but my own shadow. In such a street as this, however, all the shadows look as if they belonged to another world, and had no business here.'
'I quite feel that,' returned Falconer. ”

“ The solitariness of the night, the uncanniness of the moon, prevents most people from wandering far: Robert had learned long ago to love the night, and to feel at home with every aspect of God's world. How this peace contrasted with the nights in London streets! this grass with the dark flow of the Thames! these hills and those clouds half melted into moonlight with the lanes blazing with gas! He thought of the child who, taken from London for the first time, sent home the message: 'Tell mother that it's dark in the country at night.' Then his thoughts turned again to Shargar's mother! ”

“ He seems ubiquitous, flashing all round the Shark's jaws as if there were twenty of him at least. But when half a dozen men, "tailing on" to the rope, drag the Shark slowly upward out of the sea, the faithful little Pilot seems to go frantic with—what shall we call it?—dread of losing his protector, affection, anger, who can tell? The fact remains that during the whole time occupied in hauling the huge writhing carcase of the Shark up out of the water the Pilot-fish never ceases its distracted upward leaping against the body of his departing companion. ”

“ One fellow saw her standing by the head of the after-cabin stairs, when he went aft to strike the bell a moment before—another heard the splash—but when the boats were dropped, nothing was to be seen on the long, dazzling swell of the sea but the back-fin of a large blue shark, veering slowly round between the boats and the ship, as if he had missed his prey—except it were a gull asleep, with its head under its wing—or the fresh branches of a tree, drifting toward the mouth of the Gulf, on the current of the dry monsoon. ”

“ Then such a vicious-looking tail! Oh, you had better keep clear of an angel-fish.
A toad-fish looked like an enormous, swimming toad. Bless me! I caught sight of a shark as I came well out into the ocean. He was more than twenty feet long. Think of that! But they are thirty feet sometimes. His great, fleshy, powerful tail takes him along as he looks from side to side for his prey. I saw his pointed nose and his rows of awful teeth, one over another.
There are sharks that can bite a man in halves. Once in awhile we see a shark in our Mediterranean, but they do not abound there. ”

“ The superior glutton is the shark,—that mouth with fins, that natatory intestine which swallows with equal indifference the dead and the living, flesh and wood, cleanses the waters of life and leaves a desert behind its wriggling tail; but this destroyer brings forth only one shark that is born armed and ferocious ready from the very first moment to continue the paternal exploits, like a feudal heir.
Ferragut's wandering life as a pilot abounded in dramatic adventures,—a few always standing out clearly from his many confused recollections of exotic lands and interminable seas. ”

“ Like ravening wolves the sharks dashed upon their prey, and ere the people had time to give more than a despairing cry, those hideous jaws and gleaming cruel teeth had sealed their fate. Maddened with fear, the rest of the people threw everything out of the six other canoes to lighten them, and as the bundles of mats and baskets of food touched the water the sharks seized and bit, tore and swallowed. ”

“ Sharks from five to seven feet long like to sleep in some coral caves beneath the surface of the water in a deep and spacious lagoon- These haunts are known to the natives of the island, and when they go shark hunting, a party of them takes a boat and pulls out to the place where the sharks repose. An expert diver, to whom apparently is given all the honor and glory, and also all the danger, first ascertains that they are "at home" in their caves and sleeping soundly. Then he leaps overboard, dives down to them and nooses the tail of the shark that is nearest to him. ”

“ This wily and experienced shark, not daring to turn and expose his more vulnerable parts to the formidable sword of his enemy, lashed at him with his heavy tail, as a man uses a flail, working the water into a syllabub. Meanwhile, in honour, I suppose, or in the love of fair play, his seven compatriot sharks stood aloof, lying to with their fins, in no degree interfering in the fray. Frequently I could observe, by the water's eddying in concentric ripples, that the great shark had sunk to the bottom, to seek refuge there, or elude his enemy by beating up the sand ”

“ The harbor sharks live on what they get near shore, stuff thrown overboard from boats, and they grow very large and lazy. But, farther out to sea, they don't get so much to eat, and they'll take a hook and bait almost as soon as it's thrown into the water. The men sometimes go shark-fishing for sport."
"It might be sport, under the right circumstances," said Jack, with a rueful laugh. "Next time I'll know better, than to, handle a shark line without gloves."
"So shall I," agreed Cora, as she looked at her skinned knuckles. ”

“ Possibly the bottom, which was clear, was favourable for his enemy; whose blow, if he succeeds in striking while the shark is descending, is fatal. I think he had struck him, for the blue shark is seldom seen in shoal or discoloured water; yet now he floundered on towards the bottom of the bay, madly lashing the water into foam, and rolling and pitching like a vessel dismasted. For a few minutes his conqueror pursued him, then wheeled round and disappeared; while the shark grounded himself on the sand, where he lay writhing and lashing the shore feebly with his tail. ”

“ All the roaring and swearing that goes ringing through the trees only serves to convince Shark that he is in the right; and he is only stopped in his wild career by the fortunate fact that the Saint, who has lagged far in the rear, steps in the way, cajoles Shark into listening to his advice, and, with a big stick and a few of the most gorgeous expletives of which he is eminently the master, persuades the errant hound of his mistake. ”

“ A shark’s eyes as he turns sideways under your vessel’s counter and looks up to see if any one is coming are ghastly, green, and cruel; but this thing’s eyes were all these and much more. I felt that the Book of Revelation was incomplete without him, and his gaze haunts me yet. Although quite sick and giddy at the sight of such a bogey, I could not move until the awful thing, suddenly waving what seemed like mighty wings, soared up out of the water soundlessly to a height of about six feet, falling again with a thunderous splash that might have been heard for miles. ”

“ You know Colombo, and how the native boys dive for coins in the shark-infested bay. Of course, it is only among the ground sharks and fish sharks that they venture. It is almost uncanny the way they know sharks and can sense the presence of a real killer—a tiger shark, for instance, or a gray nurse strayed up from Australian waters. Let such a shark appear, and, long before the passengers can guess, every mother's son of them is out of the water in a wild scramble for safety.
“It was after tiffin, and Miss Caruthers was holding her usual court under the deck-awnings. ”

“ One of the niggers elected to come with me, and we swam along silently, side by side, now and again putting our faces into the water and peering about for sharks. The screams of the man who stayed by the canoe informed us that he was taken. I was peering into the water when I saw a big shark pass directly beneath me. He was fully sixteen feet in length. I saw the whole thing. He got the woolly-head by the middle, and away he went, the poor devil, head, shoulders, and arms out of the water all the time, screeching in a heart-rending way. ”

“ He eats the cuttle-fish, molluscs, and fishes; among others, flounders and cod-fish. But the prey which has the greatest charm for him is man; the shark loves him dearly, but it is with the affection of the gourmand. It even manifests, according to some authors, a preference for certain races. If we may believe some travellers, when several varieties of human food comes in its way, the shark prefers the European to the Asiatic, and both to the negro. Still, whatever may be the colour, he seeks eagerly for human flesh, and haunts the neighbourhood where it hopes to find the precious morsel. ”

“ After some time a shark-hook, baited with pork, was flung out. The Shark, attended by four Pilot-fish, repeatedly approached the bait; and every time that he did so, one of the Pilots preceding him was distinctly seen from the taffrail of the ship to run his snout against the side of the Shark's head to turn it away. After some farther play, the fish swam off in the wake of the vessel, his dorsal fin being long distinctly visible above the water. ”

“ The humane or utilitarian reader will be glad to hear that the shark [Pg 228] is not utterly useless after death. The professional fishermen extract a considerable quantity of excellent oil from the liver; and the fins cut off, cured, and packed, become an article of trade with China—whose people, for reasons best known to themselves, delight in gelatinous food. The most hideous to behold of the shark tribe is the wobegong, or woe-begone as the fishermen call it. Tiger-shark is another of the names of this fish. ”

“ I sang out to the two men who were in the boat receiving the oysters as they came up to seize a couple of oars and violently splash the surface of the water with them, in the hope that the sound would drive the brute away—for, after all, the shark, voracious as it is, is a timid creature, easily frightened by any sudden or unaccustomed noise. ”

“ The sharks are supposed to sleep in rather shoal water under projecting pieces of coral with their heads just protruding, When a Gilbert-Islander sees one in this position he dives down with a small stick in his hand and gives the fish a tap on the nose, repeating it until the shark, for comfort's sake, changes his position and leaves his tail where his head had been. ”

“ Does the Pilot-fish love the Shark? Does it even know that the Shark is a Shark, a slow, short-sighted, undiscriminating creature whose chief characteristic is that of never-satisfied hunger? In short, does the Pilot-fish attach itself to the Shark as a pilot, with a definite object in view, or is the attachment merely the result of accident? ”

“ On the African coast the negroes attack the shark in his own element, swimming towards him, and seizing the moment when he turns himself to rip up his belly with a sharp knife. This act of courage and audacity cannot, however, be said to be shark-fishing. [520] The fishing operation is conducted as follows:—Choosing a dark night, a hook is prepared by burying it in a piece of lard, and attaching it to a long and solid wire chain; the shark looks askance at this prey, feels it, then leaves it; he is tempted by withdrawing the bait, when he follows, and swallows it gluttonously. ”

“ The shark betrays its presence by its black dorsal fin above the surface of the sea. When the fin disappears the danger increases, becomes terrible; the fear of the swimmer in the vicinity of that black, unseen peril overmasters him. ”

“ First shark that makes a slip is to call the skipper and be sent adrift with one oar and nothing else. And all, my friend, after you had pledged your honor to your mother, your God, yourself, and your friends, to be a true and honorable shark. It isn't the hot sun broiling you and covering you with bursting blisters, and changing the marrow of your bones to melted iron and your blood to hissing lava—it isn't the sun that hurts ”

“ At the same instant a huge, dark body shot through the water and then there was a whitish gleam as the monster shark turned on its back with its jaws open displaying a triple row of saw-like teeth.
"Quick, shoot him," cried Captain Hazzard.
But nobody had a rifle or revolver. Frank hastily darted into his cabin for his magazine weapon but when he reappeared there was only a crimson circle on the water to mark where the terrible, man-killing shark had vanished with his prey. ”