I could
not swim so rapidly now, for a large part of my effort was devoted to
keeping track of him. I was watching him when he made his first attack.
By good luck I got both hands on his nose, and, though his momentum
nearly shoved me under, I managed to keep him off. He veered clear, and
began circling about again. A second time I escaped him by the same
maneuver. The third rush was a miss on both sides. He sheered at the
moment my hands should have landed on his nose, but his sandpaper hide
(I had on a sleeveless undershirt) scraped the skin off one arm from
elbow to shoulder.
By this time I was played out, and gave up hope. The schooner was still
two hundred feet away. My face was in the water, and I was watching him
maneuver for another attempt, when I saw a brown body pass between us.
It was Otoo.
"Swim for the schooner, master!" he said. And he spoke gayly, as though
the affair was a mere lark. "I know sharks. The shark is my brother."
I obeyed, swimming slowly on, while Otoo swam about me, keeping always
between me and the shark, foiling his rushes and encouraging me.
"The davit tackle carried away, and they are rigging the falls," he
explained, a minute or so later, and then went under to head off another
attack.
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