CHAPTER XVIII
ONE STRIKE AND OUT
The two young baseball players and the girls joined the throng that wasracing toward the stern.
A number of people were pointing wildly over the port side at a smallobject some distance behind the ship.
They followed the pointing fingers and saw the head of a man who wasswimming desperately toward the receding ship.
The steamer, which had been taking advantage of the favorable weather andhad been ploughing ahead under full steam, found it hard to stop, althoughorders had been given at once to shut off steam.
It was maddening to the onlookers to see the distance increase between thegiant 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 circleand bore down upon the struggling swimmer, while at the same timepreparations were made to lower a boat as soon as they should be nearenough.
"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 wasevidently a strong swimmer and seemed to be maintaining himself withoutgreat effort, and it was certain that within the next few minutes theboat, already filled with oarsmen and swaying at the davits, ready to belowered, 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 atits mark, was a great black dorsal fin which bespoke the presence of thepirate of the seas.
The steamer had lessened speed in order to lower its boat, but themomentum under which it was carried it within twenty yards of thecastaway.
Almost instantly the ship's boat struck the water, and the sinewy backs ofthe sailors bent almost double as they drove it toward the swimmer.
From the crowded deck they could see his face now, pale and dripping, butlighted with a gleam of hope as he saw the boat approaching. But thehorrified onlookers saw something else, that ominous, awful fin, that camerushing 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, theboat or the shark. The boat was nearer and the men were rowing likedemons, but the shark was swifter, coming on like an express train.
There must have been something in those faces high above him that warnedthe man of some impending peril. He cast a swift look behind him, and thenin frantic terror redoubled his efforts to reach the boat.
"Oh, Joe, they'll be too late! They'll never reach him in time!" sobbedMabel. "Oh, can't we do anything to help him?"
Joe, as frantic as she, looked wildly about him. His eyes fell on a heavypiece of iron, left on the deck by some seaman who had been repairing thewindlass. Like a flash he grabbed it.
It seemed as though the swimmer were doomed, and a gasp of horror went upfrom 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 asthe monster came into plain sight, a foot beneath the surface, and turnedover upon its back to seize its prey.
Then Joe took a chance--a long chance, a desperate chance, an almosthopeless chance--and yet, a chance.
With all the force of his powerful arm he sent the jagged piece of ironhurtling at the fiendish open jaws.
And the chance became a certainty.
The missile crashed into the monster's nose, its most sensitive point. Thebrute was so near the surface that the thin sheet of water was noprotection.
The effect was startling. There was a tremendous plunging and leaping thatlashed the waters into foam, and then the crippled monster sank slowlyinto the ocean depths.
The next instant the ship's boat had reached the castaway, and strong armspulled 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 stunnedsurprise, a gasp from the crowd, and then a roar went up that swelled intoa deafening thunder of applause.
Joe had reversed the baseball rule of "three strikes and out." This timeit was just one strike--and the shark was out!