BILLY'S NARROW ESCAPE.
By daybreak the fury of the hurricane had blown itself out and the sun
rose on a sea that while still storm-tossed was moderate compared to
the terrific upheaval of the preceding night; by noon, in fact, so
suddenly did the wind drop, the Bolo was nosing her way along through
what seemed a glittering, sunlit desert of almost perfectly smooth
water.
"Let's get the lines out and troll; we might catch a shark," was
Billy's sudden suggestion.
"Right you are," assented Bluewater Bill. "There's lots of them in
these waters--savage critters, too. It's a charity to catch them."
Suddenly he broke into song:
"Oh, sharks have teeth and whales have tails,
Cows have horns and so have snails,
But of all the fish in the ocean blue
The very worst is the green gaboo."
"What on earth is a gaboo?" demanded Frank, who with the others was
lolling about the cockpit under the awning, which had been re-rigged.
"Why," said Bill, scratching his head, "a gaboo is--well now, let's
see--ah, yes, a gaboo is a good rhyme for blue."
"If you do anything like that again we shall have to hold a
court-martial and have you thrown overboard to feed your gaboos,"
laughed Frank.
"Well, that's what you call poetic license," protested Bill.
"From now on, yours is revoked," declared Frank, "but, seriously,
Bill, do you know anything about shark fishing?"
"Do I?" demanded the old shellback. "Well, when I was in these very
waters in the Scaramouch we caught one with a bit of pork that
weighed--the shark, I mean, not the pork--I forget just what, and
wouldn't say, for fear you might think I was prevastigating, but it
was twenty-four foot long."
"Oh, come, Bill, not twenty-four," protested Harry.
"That's what it was," stoutly asserted Bill, rummaging in a locker for
a shark-hook.
"Why, the biggest shark recorded is only eighteen feet in length,"
protested Billy.
"Don't know nothing 'bout records, Master Billy, but I do know that
this yar varmint was twenty-four."
"Did you measure him?" asked Frank.
"Not much," snorted Bill, "he'd have measured us, and we'd have soon
measured our length if we'd tried. But now if any one has a bit of fat
pork, I wouldn't be a bit surprised but we can fish up one of them
finny monsters."
Accordingly a bit of pork was secured from the galley stores and
placed on the shark-hook, a huge affair as big as the hook used to
hang meat on in butcher shops. To its hank was shackled a bit of stout
chain, about two feet long. To this, Bill affixed a stout rope, and
let the line trail out astern about fifty feet.
"Now, Billy Barnes, since you was so skeptical, you hold the line,
and, when you feel a tug, take a turn around the cleat here or he'll
yank you overboard."
"Yank me overboard," cried Billy, incredulously. "Oh, get out, Bill!
What do you think I am--an old woman?"
Bill said nothing, but cut himself a big bit of chewing tobacco and
stuffed it into his face. Frank would not have allowed such a habit on
the Bolo, but he felt as he had deprived the old sailors of their
pipes, he could not cut off every luxury, so Bill was allowed to chew
in quiet content.
"Isn't this bully, just going right ahead like this after all the
terrible things that happened in the night!" exclaimed Harry, as the
Bolo cut along through the placid waters.
"Great," agreed Frank, "and yet I am glad in one way we ran into that
blow. Ben Stubbs assured me that we were not likely to get anything
worse in these latitudes, and the Bolo stood up to it as if she had
been a clipper."
"Yes; she certainly is a fine little ship," agreed the others.
All at once there came a yell from Billy Barnes.
The startled boys look up just in time to see him yanked bodily out of
the cockpit, over the counter and into the sea. To their horror, when
he struck the water he vanished; only to reappear a few seconds later,
however, with his head above the surface, and moving through the water
away from the boat at a terrific rate.
"Good heavens, what has happened!" exclaimed Frank, horror-struck at
the scene. The others were white and too unnerved at the sudden
accident to speak.
Only Bill and Ben Stubbs kept their heads.
"Let go of the rope," they bellowed.
Billy gave a despairing look back and then was rushed onward through
the water at a greater speed than ever.
"What is it--what has happened?" repeated Frank.
"Matter enough," was Ben's rejoinder, "he has evidently got that shark
line entangled in his clothing and when the monster gave a pull at the
hook it yanked him overboard."
"What are we to do?" cried Harry.
"Put on full speed and go about," cried Ben, suiting the action to the
word.
At top speed the Bolo rushed through the water after poor Billy, who
was still being borne along at a terrific rate by the hooked shark.
"Get ready to shoot the shark when he comes up," yelled Ben.
"But will he come up?" asked Frank.
"He's got to," was Ben's brief reply, "with that hook in him, he's as
good as dead. He won't keep under much longer now."
"Hold up, Billy," shouted the boys to their imperiled companion, but
the young reporter was too far gone and too choked with the water he
had swallowed in trying to keep his head above water to reply.
Frank dived into the cabin and reappeared with a heavy rifle. He
slipped into it a cartridge carrying an explosive bullet. Trembling
with eagerness, he took up his position on the bow of the speeding
Bolo, anxiously scanning the waters ahead for any sign of the shark's
reappearance.
Suddenly an ugly black fin loomed up, cutting through the water like
the conning tower of a submarine.
"Crack!"
The explosive bullet sped from the rifle, but either Frank's aim was
bad from nervousness or the powder charge was too heavy, the ball
struck the water fully a foot from the racing creature.
"Try again," said Ben consolingly, "I'll slow down the boat."
Luckily the shark had not dived and his fin still afforded a good
mark. It was moving so rapidly, however, that it was going to be a
difficult matter to hit the large body that moved beneath it.
Once more Frank rested the rifle and drew a careful sight on the fin.
He aimed a little ahead of it this time, with the result that there
was a terrific disturbance of the waters as the bullet sped home and
the wounded creature convulsed with the pain.
"Another," cried Ben; "good work."
Before Frank could fit another cartridge--his rifle was a
single-chambered one--the shark had dived, leaving only a crimsoned
pool on the smooth surface to bear testimony that he was wounded.
The boys uttered a groan of dismay as they saw the thrashing form
vanish and a second later saw Billy flash out of view.
It seemed impossible that their chum could survive being dragged to
the depths of the sea.
The shark, however, did not remain down long. It soon reappeared on
the surface, with Billy in tow, still thrashing the water into crimson
fountains with its fins and tail. Sometimes it leaped clear out of the
water in its agony.
"Bang!"
Another bullet sped from Frank's rifle, and this time the maddened
animal seemed to sense from whence came the attack, for it suddenly
charged furiously at the motor-boat.
Quick as thought, Ben Stubbs, who had seen its coming, leaned over the
side and with his seaman's knife in hand waited the moment when it
dived under the boat.
As it did so he gave a quick downward slash.
The rope that seemed to be pulling Billy to his doom severed under the
blade with a crack. The next minute the young reporter was able to
swim feebly to the side of the Bolo.
Badly weakened and unnerved by his experience he was pulled on board
and laid on a bunk in the cabin, where restoratives were administered
to him.
It was late in the evening before he was himself again, and he then
explained how he had been idly twisting the line in and out of a hook
on his belt when there came a sudden tug. Before he knew what was
happening he found himself rushing through the air and was then
immersed. Fortunately, he was a good swimmer and kept his head or
there might have been a more serious termination to his adventure.
"How big do you think that shark was, Billy Barnes?" Frank could not
help asking him mischievously later in the evening.
"Oh, at least fifty feet," was the young reporter's reply, delivered
in all seriousness.