It was some time before he would succumb to the murderous attacks of his enemies.

He wreaked his vengeance on the ropes around him, and severed them with his sharp teeth as completely and smoothly as if they had been cut with a knife.

But when his head was nearly cut off, and his skull beat in by the cook's axe and handspikes, the shark, finding further resistance impossible as well as useless, resigned himself to his fate.
Sharks not unfrequently follow a vessel in moderate weather for several days, and in tropical latitudes sometimes lurk under a ship's bottom, watching a chance to gratify their appetites.

For this reason it is dangerous for a person to bathe in the sea during a calm, as they are by no means choice in regard to their food, but will as readily make a meal from the leg of a sailor as from the wing of a chicken.
Mr.Thompson related a case which occurred on board a vessel belonging to Portsmouth, the year before, and to which he was a witness.

One Sunday morning, in the warm latitudes, while the sea was calm, a young man, on his first voyage, quietly undressed himself, and without a word to any one, thoughtlessly mounted the cathead and plunged into the water.