We still watched, then we distinctly saw shivering lines of silver ripples stealing towards us, coming fast, trembling and spreading swiftly on the ocean’s perfectly calm, moonlit surface.
“It’s something big swimming under the water. Begorra! a shark coming for us!” said O’Hara. The old gent shot up on his feet with fright and nearly upset the canoe! I think my comrade and I looked a bit palish as the uncanniness of that movement of the unseen came straight for us. “Wish I’d brought a revolver. By St. Patrick! who’d ’ave thought things was a-going to swim after us under the blasted water?”
“Keep still; don’t move!” said I, my heart in my mouth, for the ripples were within thirty yards of our canoe, and still no sign whatever of the cause of that mysterious movement beneath the water.
Then we stared as though we’d sighted a ghost; up poked a tiny curly head, two bright, beautiful eyes were staring reproachfully at me!
“Good Lord!” I gasped; “it’s Soogy!”
We pulled him into the canoe. O’Hara used an awful swear word, said unprintable things. As for me, I felt some strange, haunting kind of a fear come over me as the child sat there.
“You go tryer and getter away from your little Soogy?” said that weird child.
“No,” said I, shaking my head, feeling guilty as I replied, “No, Soogy,” half apologetically! Then I said: “We were coming back to-morrow morning. How on earth did you know we were out here in a canoe?”
The little fellow’s eyes brightened; he simply looked at me earnestly for a while, then said:
“I knower all ’bout you! The wind blow in cave by sea and tell me all.”