"Wait till we get off the coast of Southern
California. Then we'll pick up the flying fish."
We came abreast of Southern California, abreast of the Peninsula of
Lower California, abreast of the coast of Mexico; and there were no
flying fish. Nor was there anything else. No life moved. As the
days went by the absence of life became almost uncanny.
"Never mind," I said. "When we do pick up with the flying fish
we'll pick up with everything else. The flying fish is the staff of
life for all the other breeds. Everything will come in a bunch when
we find the flying fish."
When I should have headed the Snark south-west for Hawaii, I still
held her south. I was going to find those flying fish. Finally the
time came when, if I wanted to go to Honolulu, I should have headed
the Snark due west, instead of which I kept her south. Not until
latitude 19 degrees did we encounter the first flying fish. He was
very much alone. I saw him. Five other pairs of eager eyes scanned
the sea all day, but never saw another. So sparse were the flying
fish that nearly a week more elapsed before the last one on board
saw his first flying fish. As for the dolphin, bonita, porpoise,
and all the other hordes of life - there weren't any.
Not even a shark broke surface with his ominous dorsal fin. Bert
took a dip daily under the bowsprit, hanging on to the stays and
dragging his body through the water. And daily he canvassed the
project of letting go and having a decent swim. I did my best to
dissuade him. But with him I had lost all standing as an authority
on sea life.
"If there are sharks," he demanded, "why don't they show up?"
I assured him that if he really did let go and have a swim the
sharks would promptly appear. This was a bluff on my part. I
didn't believe it. It lasted as a deterrent for two days. The
third day the wind fell calm, and it was pretty hot. The Snark was
moving a knot an hour. Bert dropped down under the bowsprit and let
go. And now behold the perversity of things. We had sailed across
two thousand miles and more of ocean and had met with no sharks.
Within five minutes after Bert finished his swim, the fin of a shark
was cutting the surface in circles around the Snark.
There was something wrong about that shark. It bothered me. It had
no right to be there in that deserted ocean. The more I thought
about it, the more incomprehensible it became. But two hours later
we sighted land and the mystery was cleared up. He had come to us
from the land, and not from the uninhabited deep.
