"You have brought us good luck," said Syphax to his guest, as they shared the last meal after a day's hard work. "In all my experience--and it goes back sixty years at least--I don't remember getting such sport so soon. Another day or two of this and we shall have a full cargo, and may go home again."
He had hardly spoken when his eye was caught by a strange appearance in the water,--strange, that is, to Cleanor, but only too familiar and intelligible to the old man.
"Ah!" he cried, "I thought that it was too good to last. Do you see that eddy yonder? And look, there is the brute's back-fin."
"A shark, of course," replied the old man. "They never bode any good to anyone. Dagon only knows where we shall find the tunnies again. They will be leagues away from here by sunrise to-morrow, and there is no telling what way they will go. However, we have done pretty well, even if we don't see them again this moon. To-night we will lie-to; it will be time enough in the morning to decide what is to be done."
Cleanor had begun to fear that his experiment might turn out to be a failure. Nothing, he knew, would induce the old man to sail another league away from home when once his cargo had been completed. Accordingly he had hailed the shark's appearance with delight as soon as he comprehended what it meant, and now he turned to sleep with a lighter heart.
Again did the old fisherman show himself a true prophet. The next morning, and for many mornings afterwards, not a tunny was to be seen. The weather, however, continued fine, and the little craft made its way in a leisurely fashion towards the north-east, a sharp look-out being kept by day, and, as far as was possible, by night, for the object of pursuit.
Two days had passed in this way when masses of floating sea-weed and flocks of gulls began to warn the captain that he was drawing near the land.
"We have been on the wrong tack," he said to Cleanor, "and must put her head about. We are more likely to find the fish in deep water than here."
"Almost within sight of Lilybaeum, as far as I can guess."
Cleanor felt that it was time to act. "Will you do me a favour?" he said.
"Certainly," replied the old man, "if I possibly can."
"That is easy enough, if I am not wrong in my guess as to our whereabouts. How long do you want to stay? I should not like to lose this fine weather. As for landing, I should have had to do that in any case, for we are getting short of water."