Suddenly
he sank below it, and vanished altogether from our sight! We gazed
anxiously down at the spot where he had disappeared for nearly a
minute, expecting every moment to see him rise again for breath; but
fully a minute appeared, and still he did not reappear. Two minutes
passed! and then a flood of alarm rushed in upon my soul, when I
considered that, during all my acquaintance with him, Jack had never
stayed under water more than a minute at a time; indeed, seldom so
long.
"O Peterkin!" I said, in a voice that trembled with increasing anxiety,
"something has happened. It is more than three minutes now." But
Peterkin did not answer, and I observed that he was gazing down into
the water with a look of intense fear mingled with anxiety, while his
face was overspread with a deadly paleness. Suddenly he sprang to his
feet and rushed about in a frantic state, wringing his hands, and
exclaiming, "O Jack, Jack! he is gone! It must have been a shark, and
he is gone for ever!"
For the next five minutes I know not what I did; the intensity of my
feelings almost bereft me of my senses. But I was recalled to myself by
Peterkin seizing me by the shoulders and staring wildly into my face,
while he exclaimed, "Ralph! Ralph! perhaps he has only fainted. Dive
for him, Ralph!"
It seemed strange that this did not occur to me sooner. In a moment I
rushed to the edge off the rocks, and without waiting to throw off my
garments, was on the point to spring into the waves, when I observed
something black rising up through the green object.
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