The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-28

when he came in slantWise from above,
 and I caught a glimpse of his great
 blunt muzzle and crescent jaws, ragged
 with arrowhead teeth, I would make
 one gasping VOW that if got up safely,
 no money would ever get me down again.
 | But once out of water and on the tug, among the men, hadn't the spunk | to speak. Two words to the boss and he'd have had the shark put out of bus mess in no time, some way or other. 1 Not one diver in twenty has his right l courage under water, but l was too | young to acknowledge that then. 1 1 pretended that I was rather interested
 in watching him.
 T don't suppose fooled them much. Ttvey the engineer, seemed to guess the truth of the matter, anyway, and with an old mans delight in picking on a younger one he did what he could to
 add to my misery. He'd throw out his
 greosy waste whenever the brute came
 round, by way of keeping it from de-
 serting. And sometimes when l was
 up he'd pitch it 8 piece of pork nailed
 to barrel stave. Its jaws would clash
 on it like bear trap, and the old fel-
 low would chuckle horribly and say:
 Wait till ye get absent-minded some
 time down below and move your arm
 too sudden. You'll find that every
 thing that moves quick is pork to him.
 Then the next time the brute came
 near me I would sit all hunChed togeth-
 CT, and as I felt him nose me- now this
 r,t1J 1Jo l-,N T 2 f,-l,N spurt of ice water, Once he brushed me with his elephants ear of a forward fin and rolled his great girth against me as
 he turned. I stiffened out with a jerk that almost split me off the slings.
 Well, that sort of thing couldn't go on, and it didn't, but the end of it came from direction and with a suddenness hadn't had any rope of. As you may know, a good many Key West spongers, when regular business is slack do a little tiger killing For a sharks about half liver, and it tries out gal lons to a cod's gills, though, of course, the quality's inferior. Now, it seemed the Batabano people were in the habit 1 of doing some occasional sharklng, too. |
 One night when we'd been singing, l their captain turned to me and asked if [ I wanted some 'fon-a.' I said l did. | What did he do then but offer me the | use of his harpoon and line and two | dollars for my time if I'd get him my | man eater. I accepted the offer quickly . enough and the other men were keen <. for the sport.
 Early the next morning the spongers brought over their line. There was q hundred fathoms of it with a six-foot spood of steel chain and a regular old time blubber spade of a harpoon. The men rigged the small windlass for a reel, and I had them set 1t we'll up in the obw, figuring to avoid fouled lines. Then l put on extra weight, for my dea after making my strike was to lrop from the slings like a plumb, and then lie low on the bottom l started Town in sort of joyous excitement.
 T hadn't much more than laid the ron down beside me and got to wark when my groper chickens melted out ,f sight, I felt the water push against ny back and I knew the brute was 'nce more behind me.
 q turned but gradually as a jack crew. His great torpedo-shaped head lung we'll within reach. If l could get i'm through that pulpy mackerel rown! But he suddenly drew back. l , aw I would have to do some shadow atching. The excitement made me ool He hove to, and began to throw lis lazy curves about me. That gave ne broadside chances, but I wouldn't ( ake them. Then. seemingly without ' he slightest fear, he turned and came traight in on me.
 1T threw up the iron. His vicious ottle-green eyes caught the quick movement with one hungry flash, and F he next moment the huge curve of luddy white was whirling over and at le! < "I struck wildly just below the . reef of jaws, and threw my 4 alf off the slings with an unnerved yell z, ? terror that roared and boomed about " helmet as I went the twenty feet to < le bottom. Then I dattened myself s aside big firkin-ike 'logger-head' ,onge and lay gasping. -, The Nantucket sharking boats are N ot only built solid as ice-crushers, but o e covered with heavy steel wire mesh o z as we'll For even the six and 7, ght-foot wolves they go after will of q n turn when struck and try to tear T, e little craft to pieces in their fury.
 I'd known that then, I'd have eaten Il I'd slept with all the tigers in the Ca bbean before I tried any under-sea h ~ 'I could feel something saving and m opping at my hose and line, and fear il one forced me to turn over and see CT nat 1t was. The water above me was h one swirlng draw and surge, like the er uble maelstrom Whirl from the screws tl an ocean steamer, but there was It. sl sand to rise from the bottom and I pt uld take in the situation with horrible pf si I had simply set the brute mad with fiji ge, and not having me to vent it on, br had flung himself at the sings. The CT nging stage was already jerking Xxi out in ragged spllnters and as he br ped and twisted and doubled, his CT vs caught and gnashed it through dr ain and again. Then he threw him f against the side of the Belle, rip lg and striking and pitching about Q twenty rabid partners. When he o,,,
 his tail go it was like bunch of % stic thick as a tree loosed off at full 4o