CHAPTER IIIA PERIL OF TROPICAL WATERS
Days and nights followed. All the time the boat continued to head into the south, and leagues upon leagues were placed behind them. Sometimes they were able to pick up glimpses of land far away to the west; and one night the boys were told that the flashlight they watched, so like a distant star, was Jupiter Light situated at the lower extremity of the Indian River in Florida. Off somewhere in the opposite quarter lay the Bahamas, and Old Nassau, of which they had read so often.
They were now getting down to a warm climate, and on this account spent as much time on deck as possible. Here the ocean breeze fanned their already ruddy cheeks, and they could watch the white-winged gulls and other sea birds flying in eccentric fashion here, there, and everywhere, now dipping to snap up a fragment of food cast overboard, and anon wheeling high overhead, or following the course of the speeding submarine as though keeping time with its progress.
Occasionally they met some vessel bound north. Now it might be a lumber schooner, andthen again a coastal steamer. When one of the latter passed not far away the side seemed to be black with people, all staring at the strange, squatty craft, for doubtless the officers passed the word around that it was one of those species of undersea boats that had been creating such terrible havoc across the Atlantic.
So the time slipped along, and one sunny day they drew near an island in the Caribbean Sea where the palms hung low over the water, and made a picture that set Jack busy with his camera, for it was really his first chance to do anything along that favorite line.
“Seems that we’re meaning to lay by here a short spell,” Ballyhoo announced, as the ardent photographer was busying himself with his camera.
“What’s the scheme?” asked Oscar. “Have we arrived at the first pocket where they believe they can strike a rich bonanza?”
“Not yet, along those lines,” he was informed by the wise Ballyhoo, evidently seeking to let them know that he had been interviewing Captain Shooks. “Our port engine doesn’t work as it should, you see, and our careful skipper believes in taking time by the forelock, so he’s going to spend a few hours in overhauling it. You see, they’re putting out an anchor in the lee of this island. If we only had time we might get the collapsible boat out and go ashore.”
“It would hardly pay us,” ventured Oscar. “We’ll have plenty of other chances to stretch ourlegs on a tropical cocoanut island, I imagine.”
“Then I wonder if it wouldn’t be a bully good idea to have a swim?” continued the other, evidently bent on making some sort of dent in the monotony of the programme.
“Better ask the captain about that first,” suggested Oscar.
“But why should he care, when I can swim and dive like a duck?” objected Ballyhoo.
Just then the commander coming up from below the Jones boy put the question to him, and in such a wheedling way that the grizzled old skipper chuckled as he went on to say in reply:
“Well, I can feel for you, Ballyhoo, because when I was young swimming was my best hold. I’d go any distance just to get in the water. It’s a fine day for a duck, too, with those clouds sailing over, and dimming the hot sun part of the time. So I guess you can enjoy yourself for half an hour or so. But stick close by, son, and if you hear a shout make for the boat like greased lightning.”
Ballyhoo looked curious on hearing him talk in that way.
“Who’s going to bother with me here, sir?” he asked. “I can see a couple of natives in canoes headed out this way, but the Indians are only bent on trade of some sort; most likely they’ve got cocoanuts or oranges or bananas to sell. What should I be afraid of here, Captain?”
“Oh! I don’t really believe there’s any danger, lad, but in these Southern waters it’s always wiseto keep an eye to windward for squalls, and by that I mean sharks.”
“Gee whiz! I forgot that!” exclaimed Ballyhoo; and then thinking that he saw Jack laughing in his sleeve he hastened to add: “but that doesn’t faze me one little bit. I guess I could get out of the way of a lazy old shark any time.”
Accordingly, Ballyhoo commenced to undress. He was a regular water duck when it came to all such aquatic sports as boys delight in, and could both swim and dive in a way that no other fellow in all Melancton ever equalled.
Somehow neither of the others seemed to care to follow his example, though he called out to them to “come in, the water’s fine.” Jack was too much interested in his camera just then, while Oscar didn’t feel like it. The thought of any peril hovering around did not keep him from copying Ballyhoo’s example; but he had suffered terribly from sunburned shoulders not a great while before, and hardly liked the idea of taking the risk again.
While Ballyhoo and two of the crew frisked in the water, seeming to be having a glorious time, Jack and Oscar sat there on the upper deck and talked.
“How little we dreamed when we first read that wonderful book of Jules Verne,” the former was saying, “that the time would come when all of us might experience many of the very sensations he described so well.”
“That’s a fact,” his chum admitted, “yet herewe are aboard an undersea boat, and bound on an enterprise almost as romantic as that of theNautilus. The combination of searching for lost treasure at the bottom of the sea, and also taking motion pictures of the ocean depths, is something worth while.”
“Look at Ballyhoo cutting up in the water, will you, Oscar. That chum of ours can give a big lead to either of those two men, and then make circles around him. Hey! Ballyhoo, better not get too far away, you know!”
“Oh! that’s all right, Jack,” answered the other, who had gone a third of the way toward the palm-fringed shore of the island; “nothing doing along the danger line. You fellows don’t know what you’re missing, I tell you.”
The boys busied themselves in purchasing some tropical fruits from one of the natives who had paddled out in their canoes for barter. They also had shells and some nautical curios, but the boys did not purchase any of these.
“I’m afraid the captain would toss everything overboard if he found us loading up with such stuff,” laughed Oscar. “The boat is crowded as it is; and what little space they have left is for something worth a heap more than just marine shells, and such junk.”
From down below could be heard the clinking sound of hammers as the engineer and his assistant worked at the engine to put it in better condition for business. The day was sultry and both boys felt relieved that these clouds mercifullystood between the pitiless rays of the sun and themselves.
“We must be getting somewhere near our first stop,” remarked Oscar, after another little spell had gone by; “for I saw the skipper overhauling his charts this morning, and that looked like business.”
“None of us will be sorry,” Jack went on to say, “because we’re fairly wild to learn what it really looks like down there among the sea ferns, and the queer forests they say grow on the bottom of the ocean. Then again there are all kinds of queer monsters that you’re likely to come on, most of them never seen near the surface. Oh! I’m clear daffy with wanting to click off some of those sights.”
Just then the captain came up the ladder again. Oscar was about to ask some question that had occurred to him when he held his tongue. The skipper was seen to shade his eyes with his hand, and stare earnestly toward the shore. Ballyhoo was still almost a third of the way across the open water lying between the boat and the palms.
Then they heard Captain Shooks utter an exclamation. It thrilled them both, and brought them to their feet, as though touched by a galvanic battery.
Turning swiftly, the skipper snatched up the megaphone that had been lying close by, and this he raised to his mouth.
Across the water his heavy voice rang like the brazen notes of an alarm bell.
“Sharks! Ahoy, Ballyhoo, swim for the boat, lad, swim for the boat!”
And looking beyond the spot where their chum was idly floating on his back, Oscar and Jack caught sight of an ugly black fin cutting the water in eccentric curves.