When it had risen some
two inches, the shark, enraged at my escape, came to the surface, and
turning on its side, bit at the tub so that I heard its teeth grate
on the wood and iron bands, causing it to heel over and to spin round,
shipping more water as it heeled. Now I must bail afresh, and had the
fish renewed its onset, I should have been lost. But not finding wood
and iron to its taste, it went away for a while, although I saw its fin
from time to time for the space of some hours. I bailed with my hands
till I could lift the water no longer, then making shift to take off my
boot, I bailed with that. Soon the edge of the cask stood twelve inches
above the water, and I did not lighten it further, fearing lest it
should overturn. Now I had time to rest and to remember that all this
was of no avail, since I must die at last either by the sea or because
of thirst, and I lamented that my cowardice had only sufficed to prolong
my sufferings.
Then I prayed to God to succour me, and never did I pray more heartily
than in that hour, and when I had finished praying some sort of peace
and hope fell upon me. I thought it marvellous that I should thus have
escaped thrice from great perils within the space of a few days, first
from the sinking carak, then from pestilence and starvation in the bold
of the slave-ship, and now, if only for a while, from the cruel jaws of
the sharks.
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