The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-07-06
FOUGHT SHARK UNDER WATER
.rTER BEING NOsED By THE MON
sTER FOR SEVERAL DAYS.

~. Sea Tiger and Trouble Began.
INIT the Man Escaped Harm and
came Up quite as Red-Headed as
Ever.
From the Youths Companion.
The old diver was putting a rubber
,otch on one of his sons suits.
1T amt what you could call
tight handsome piece of tailoring, is
~" he said 1.-THE waists just triAe
,oo much like a sea cows, and as for
me trousers, an elephants amt much
baegier. 1 don't wonder that when, a
man gets into clothing like this. and
then crowns it with head piece like
a wall-eyed lookout lamp, a shark
never takes him for anything human
and eatable.
NO, a shark won't touch man in
armor.' And they're not so mighty
fierce after human flesh out of it. On
black coast the natives II tell you
they can run the surf and dive for
coins without much danger, because
sea tigers hardly ever touch any but
white men; and almost all whites in
shark waters have firm belief that
dark meat is the only sort the bruteS
care about.
LAS for their cruelty-though I've
got a shuddering, vivid recollection
Of the fury of one of them when
wounded-I don't believe much in that,
either. When they make a kill they
tear it to pieces and down it the
quickest they can, which isn't more
brutal than nature! Indeed, what's
made me sick a hundred times has
been the cruelty of sailors and fisher
men toward them. l like fish in a pan
lust a little better than l like them
in the water. But it's worse ami
NAL team I've ever run across that
deserves torture. And sea beasts are,
as a rule, the most harmless, easy
going, good natured tribe imaginable
MY only adventure with shark
was in the spring when l hired with
a regular wrecking company, and had
my first job south of Cuba. That was
the raising of the famous Georgia
Belle, which was about the unlucklest
and costliest yacht that ever kept
millionaire from worrying lest he'd die
rich.
"On this occasion she'd run on one
of those saW-tooth reefs off Cayo
Largo in the Jardinillos; and after
giving her owner and his friends just
time enough to get away in the boats
she'd backed off and took to the bot
tom, first bow and then stern. When
/ climbed down to look at her found
thirty feet of her forward sheathlng
from keel to cutwater riddled and torn
like a biscuit-tin target. And the
first part of my job was to sling my
self over her side, like house painter
from a roof, and put sticking plas-
ter of concrete and canvas over every
one of those thousand odd holes. 1t
was a months contract, and promised
to be d mighty tedious one, too.
But up above we had considerable
diversion Not only were there the
crews of the tug, the derrick and sup
ply boat, but there were Ratabano
sponging sloop raking off the reef and
her officers used to come over evenings
and entertain us with music. They had
only a cranky mouth organ and
broken guitar, but we all used to join
in the choruSeS.
Whether it was the racket or the
refuse from the cooks galley we
brought ourselves a visitor. The third
day L was down heavy shadow sud-
denly swung over my head. At first
! thought the tug had warped round;
but when I looked UP l saw fish that
seemed as big as a torpedo boat. 1t
hung above ME there in the under-sea
twilight slowly furling and unfurling
its tail like propeller standing up
against a tideway.
Il knew what 1t was. My whole in
ner machinery seemed to stop short,
my blood went cold and heavy as mer-
curry, and l clutched at my sling ca
bles to-keep myself from falling. What
ia heard of man in armor being
safe from sharks went out of my head
like the bubbles from my helmet; and
when at last the sea tiger Slowed
around and slid quietly off through
the black blue wall of ocean behind
me l caught at the signal line as If
l were drowning.
TIP on the tug, though, they only
thought it was a great joke. They had
seen the man-eaterl The mate said he
seemed to him about the length of the
Great Eastern, and the mouth on him
looked like church door hung with
icicles. Tivey, the engineer, declared
1t was true that sharks had the power
OF throwing off electricity, for at first
1T was as if they, had a galvanized
jumping jack at the end Of the life line.
1t ended with my going down again,
looking silly, and feeling mighty quaky
about the middle. But L wasnt
troubled again that day.
Yet next morning the shark was
around and off and on through that
week. He was always alone. 1t was
the small fish, though that always gave
me the first warning. AS 1 scraped the
Bellies Sheathing, a dozen or more lit
tie 'gropers' were all the time at my ell
bows on the watch for broken shellfiSh
and barnacles, like chickens after
worms when you're spading a garden;
and all of a sudden they'd whip away
and next moment the shadow would
sWoop in over me. I'd work myself
around sidewise on the sings, turning
slow as the hands of a clock, for fear
he'd notice me-though 1 knew his eyes
were placed so he could only see level
and upward-and then I'd grip myself
tight and watch him through the ghost
sunlight.
Yet for all my fright, couldn't help
being fairly fascinated by the way he
handled himself. No fish seen from
under water seems able to make an un-
graceful move, and that great eighteen
footer threw off curves like a show PEN
man doing decorative birds. 1 suppose
it's because a shark has kind of elias
tic cartilage instead of bone, but
know no eel was ever freer in its mo-
tons. And he could turn, not only in
his own length, but IS if on a pivot,
though how in nature he could do 1T
with nothing but fins and tail beat me-
but the times when he came in be-
hind me or dropped down from the sur
face to see me working-those were
minutes when the only feeling I had
was cold, sick dread. He would hang
there, his nose almost under my arm,
or over my shoulder could feel the
water move with him he was so close
and look ON like a-big dog watching a