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, "Oh, 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 shoulder 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.