The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1902-07-25

tlc-green eyes caught the quick move
ment with one hungry fash. and the
next movement the huge curve OF
muddy white was whirIIng over at
and at me!
Il strucl, wildly just below the
spreading reef of jaws. and threw my.
self off the sings with an unnerved
yell of terror that roarcd and doomed
cbout my helmet as ! went the 20
feet to bottom There I nattened my
foIf beside n Zig hrkin-iike logger
head sponge, and lay gasDing.
"The Nantucket Shaking boats are
not only built solid as ice-crushers.
but are covered with heavy steel-wire
meshing as we'll For even the six-and
oightfoot wolves they go after will
often turn when struck and try 10 tear
the little craft to pieces i'm their fury.
Ii I'd known that then, I'd have eaten
and slept with an the tigers in the
Caribbean before tried any uuder-sea
happening.
II could feel something saving and
chopping at my hose and line. and fear
alone forced me to turn over and see
what it was The water above me
was in one swirIing draw and surge,
like the double maelstrom whirl from
the screws Of an ocean steamer but
there was little sand to rise from bot
tom, and could take in the situation
with hnVyfIHa 1Is,o vrsf4a
81 had simply set the brute mad with
rage and not having me to vent it on,
be had flung himself at the sings.
The hanging stage was already jerking
about in ragged splinters. and as he
leaped and twisted and doubled. his
jaws caught and CRASHED it through
again and again. Then he threw him
self against the side Of the Belle, rip
ping and striking and pitching about
IKE 20 Fabid panthers. When he let
lis tail go, it was like a bunch of elias.
tic thick as a tree lCosed off at fun
stretch. He struck faster than a
thraSher can use a fail
81 hope l may never again have such
feelings as I had during those min
utes. It seemed nothing but a choice
of deaths. At any moment he might
see me hiding, yet if / slipped my
weights and tried a rush for the top
he would surely pounce on me. If he
got his line round mine-g0ing like
shuttle as he was. too-that was only
another ending. If my air-hose once
fell across his teeth, an oatstraw
couldn't be shorn through my mower
knives any more easily. lay and
waited.
when he tired for a minute of lash
ing out at the Belle and the tangled
wreck of the sings, he drew off, say
agely. throwing his head from side to
side and swapping his bear-trap jaws
at every jerk. Then he started to
whirl spindlewise; and when ned
spun all the slack about him-and they
shouldn't have let him have a fathom
of THE suddenly stopped dead, ana
like a cracking whip, with one plunge
flung free again.
"The lift of the water from it al
most twisted me from my loggerhead.
And then he was back at the sings
and tackle again l lost all sense so
completely that I got to talking to
myself, like surgeon to a child,
81 found out later that my tenders
sent down one signal after another; |
rever took the first of them Again
and again the shark came back, and
when he was still for a moment felt
he was looking for me- and with the
terror of it my breath came sucking
in through my teeth like a whiting
safety-valye.
1t ended as suddenly as it began
In one of his doublings the brute got
lis tail round the harpoon line, exact
~ as a sailor kinks his leg round n
rope he's sliding down And Then
the next moment, he stiffened cut
again with the rebound of a spring
bow, the iron came away like tooth
on a string. Probably it had done nc
serious harm to that Is feet of gristle
rOI luOluSuL ne nuns lhG4S ~
cious and uncertain. and then sullenly
moved away through the shadow and
out to sea. I never saw him again.
''The color of my hair didn't do any
lightning changing in that quarter Of
en- hour; they pulled me up as red
headed as ever. But I reckon, none
the less, that got considerably Older
in wisdom Since then, when I've
been scared, I've generally been honest
enough to own it, and when I've felt
that I really had to go looking fol
trouble-well I've always had better
sense than to seek it with a harpoor
in the under-sea. Youths Compan
ion.