However, one after the other took a run, and then a "header" off the rocks into the deep blue water beneath.

In the long line of bathers was a fine lad of fifteen, the son of one of the sergeants of the regiment; and with the emulation of his age he ranked himself among the men, and on arriving at the edge he plunged head-foremost into the water and disappeared.

A crowd of men were on the margin watching the bathing; the boy rose to the surface within a few feet of them, but as he shook the water from his hair, a cloudy shadow seemed to rise from the deep beneath him, and in another moment the distinct outline of a large shark was visible as his white belly flashed below.

At the same instant there was a scream of despair; the water was crimsoned, and a bloody foam rose to the surface--the boy was gone! Before the first shock of horror was well felt by those around, a gallant fellow of the same regiment shot head first into the bloody spot, and presently reappeared from his devoted plunge, bearing in his arms one-half of the poor boy.

The body was bitten off at the waist, and the lower portion was the prize of the ground shark.
For several days the soldiers were busily employed in fishing for this monster, while the distracted mother sat in the burning sun, watching in heart-broken eagerness, in the hope of recovering some trace of her lost son.