We Could Hear The Crack Of The
Pilot's Carbine Every Few Minutes, Borne Down To Us By The Freshening
Breeze,
And the agonising "coo-ehs" of poor Wordsworth, whose ankles were
already hidden by the advancing waters; added to this,
We had only two
oars, and the wind, now pretty strong, was dead in our teeth. I was
steering, and Jim was standing up in the bows with his carbine for a shot,
if the shark offered such an opportunity. As we neared the rock we could
distinctly see the black fin within six feet of the narrow ledge on which
the poor fellow was standing, and only when we approached to within a
couple of boats' lengths, did the ferocious brute sail sullenly out to sea,
pursued by a harmless bullet from Jim's rifle. Poor Wordsworth dropped
into the boat fainting from terror, exhaustion, and loss of blood, for,
although he was unconscious of it all the time, in his convulsive grip, the
sharp oyster-shells had cut his hands to the very bone. A good glass of
grog and some hot tea - the bushman's infallible remedy - soon brought
him round, but the scars on his hands and knees will accompany him to his
grave. He afterwards described the glances that the shark threw at him as
perfectly diabolical, and confessed that he it not been for the cheery
hails of the pilot, he should most certainly have relinquished his hold,
and met with a death too horrible to contemplate.
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