Chapter 44

CHAPTER XLIV.

JANUARY 15th.--After this further shattering of our excited hopes
death alone now stares us in the face; slow and lingering as that
death may be, sooner or later it must inevitably come.

To-day some clouds that rose in the west have brought us a few
puffs of wind; and in spite of our prostration, we appreciate the
moderation, slight as it is, in the temperature. To my parched
throat the air seemed a little less trying but it is now seven
days since the boatswain took his haul of fish, and during that
period we have eaten nothing even Andre Letourneur finished
yesterday the last morsel of the biscuit which his sorrowful and
self-denying father had entrusted to my charge.

Jynxtrop the negro has broken loose from his confinement, but
Curtis has taken no measures for putting him again under
restraint. It is not to be apprehended that the miserable fellow
and his accomplices, weakened as they are by their protracted
fast, will attempt to do us any mischief now.

Some huge sharks made their appearance to-day, cleaving the water
rapidly with their great black fins. The monsters came close up
to the edge of the raft, and Flaypole, who was leaning over,
narrowly escaped having his arm snapped off by one of them. I
could not help regarding them as living sepulchres, which ere
long might swallow up our miserable carcases; yet, withal, I
profess that my feelings were rather those of fascination than of
horror.

The boatswain, who stood with clenched teeth and dilated eye,
regarded these sharks from quite another point of view. He
thought about devouring the sharks, not about the sharks
devouring him; and if he could succeed in catching one, I doubt
if one of us would reject the tough and untempting flesh. He
determined to make the attempt, and as he had no whirl which he
could fasten to his rope he set to work to find something that
might serve as a substitute. Curtis and Dowlas were consulted,
and after a short conversation, during which they kept throwing
bits of rope and spars into the water in order to entice the
sharks to remain by the raft, Dowlas went and fetched his
carpenter's tool, which is at once a hatchet and a hammer. Of
this he proposed to make the whirl of which they were in need,
under the hope that either the sharp edge of the adze or the
pointed extremity opposite would stick firmly into the jaws of
any shark that might swallow it. The wooden handle of the hammer
was secured to the rope, which, in its turn, was tightly fastened
to the raft.

With eager, almost breathless, excitement we stood watching the
preparations, at the same time using every means in our power to
attract the attention of the sharks. As soon as the whirl was