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 passed, 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.
"Oh, 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, "Oh, Jack, Jack! he is gone! It must have been a shark, and he is gone forever!"
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. In a moment I rushed to the edge of 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. In another moment Jack's head rose to the surface, and he gave a wild shout, flinging back the spray from his locks, as was his wont after a dive. Now we were almost as
