In Search of an Unknown Race — page 206: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

192 VAN. copper on the bottom, which glittered like gold in the sun-rays. At almost the same instant his eyes rested on an object by no means so agreeable, and his heart, which had leapt into his throat at the sight of the ship, sank correspondingly low as the dorsal fin of an immense shark suddenly rose directly ahead of the spar. But a moment later an ejaculation of surprise escaped Van's cracked and bleeding lips. The mystery of the motive power which had borne him through the long night hours was solved. As the monster sank a few feet beneath the transparent surface, Van saw that a rope grummet, kept in place by an iron log chain, arranged like the bit of a bridle in the jaws of the shark, had been shoved over its huge head. Attached to this were two short warps made fast.to the spar itself. Burned into the wood near the slings of the broken spar was the inscription ‘‘H.M.S. Bellerophon.” And Van at once understood that some of Her Majesty's sailors, having captured a shark, had harnessed him up for their own diversion. ‘Thus hampered, the great fish was practically harmless. It could not dive to any depth, nor capture any prey, and must eventually die of starvation, or perhaps fall a victim to some of its own species. This last often happens to a shark thus “toggled,” to use the sailor’s phrase. But Van had no time to speculate on the shark’s predicament or possible fate. ‘The course it was tak- ing, he saw at a glance, was away from the coming ship. So casting himself adrift, he threw his arms feebly in the air as he was raised to the summit of the (E(0) GOMmIiGchooks