ONE STRIKE AND OUT
The two young baseball players and the girls joined the throng that was
racing toward the stern.
A number of people were pointing wildly over the port side at a small
object some distance behind the ship.
They followed the pointing fingers and saw the head of a man who was
swimming desperately toward the receding ship.
The steamer, which had been taking advantage of the favorable weather and
had been ploughing ahead under full steam, found it hard to stop, although
orders had been given at once to shut off steam.
It was maddening to the onlookers to see the distance increase between the
giant ship and that bobbing, lonely speck far out in the waste of waters.
With all the celerity possible the great steamer swung round in a circle
and bore down upon the struggling swimmer, while at the same time
preparations were made to lower a boat as soon as they should be near
enough.
"They're going to save him!" cried Mabel, half-sobbing in her excitement.
"Oh, Joe, they're going to save him after all!"
It seemed as though there were no doubt of this now, for the man was
evidently a strong swimmer and seemed to be maintaining himself without
great effort, and it was certain that within the next few minutes the
boat, already filled with oarsmen and swaying at the davits, ready to be
lowered, would reach him.
Suddenly Clara, with a stifled scream, clutched at Jim's arm.
"Oh, Jim!" she cried, "what is that? Look, look----"
Jim looked and turned pale under his tan.
"Great heavens!" he cried. "It's a shark!"
The cry was taken up by scores.
"A shark! A shark!"
There, cleaving the water and coming toward the swimmer like an arrow at
its mark, was a great black dorsal fin which bespoke the presence of the
pirate of the seas.
The steamer had lessened speed in order to lower its boat, but the
momentum under which it was carried it within twenty yards of the
castaway.
Almost instantly the ship's boat struck the water, and the sinewy backs of
the sailors bent almost double as they drove it toward the swimmer.
From the crowded deck they could see his face now, pale and dripping, but
lighted with a gleam of hope as he saw the boat approaching. But the
horrified onlookers saw something else, that ominous, awful fin, that came
rushing on like a relentless fate toward its intended prey.
Some of the women were sobbing, others almost fainting, while the men,
pale and with gritted teeth, groaned at their helplessness.
It was a question now of which would reach the luckless man first, the
boat or the shark. The boat was nearer and the men were rowing like
demons, but the shark was swifter, coming on like an express train.
There must have been something in those faces high above him that warned
the man of some impending peril. He cast a swift look behind him, and then
in frantic terror redoubled his efforts to reach the boat.
"Oh, Joe, they'll be too late! They'll never reach him in time!" sobbed
Mabel. "Oh, can't we do anything to help him?"
Joe, as frantic as she, looked wildly about him. His eyes fell on a heavy
piece of iron, left on the deck by some seaman who had been repairing the
windlass. Like a flash he grabbed it.
It seemed as though the swimmer were doomed, and a gasp of horror went up
from the spectators as they saw that the boat would be too late.
For now the fin had disappeared, and they saw a hideous shape take form as
the monster came into plain sight, a foot beneath the surface, and turned
over upon its back to seize its prey.
Then Joe took a chance--a long chance, a desperate chance, an almost
hopeless chance--and yet, a chance.
With all the force of his powerful arm he sent the jagged piece of iron
hurtling at the fiendish open jaws.
And the chance became a certainty.
The missile crashed into the monster's nose, its most sensitive point. The
brute was so near the surface that the thin sheet of water was no
protection.
The effect was startling. There was a tremendous plunging and leaping that
lashed the waters into foam, and then the crippled monster sank slowly
into the ocean depths.
The next instant the ship's boat had reached the castaway, and strong arms
pulled him aboard, where he sank panting and exhausted across a thwart.
It had all happened with the speed of light. There was a moment of stunned
surprise, a gasp from the crowd, and then a roar went up that swelled into
a deafening thunder of applause.
Joe had reversed the baseball rule of "three strikes and out." This time
it was just one strike--and the shark was out!