“I wonder if there are sharks here,” thought the shipwrecked lad. “Sharks! Ugh! And other big fish!”
He felt a shiver run through him in spite of the warmth of those southern waters, and the very warmth, and the thought of how far south he had come, made him think all the more about some fierce man-eating tiger of the sea.
“Oh, pshaw! What’s the use of being a chump!” said Tom aloud, when he got a chance to free his mouth of salt water. “I just won’t think of anything like that. Of course there aren’t any sharks here. I’ll just think that I’m trying to win the swimming race at Elmwood Hall for my Freshman class.”
The very idea, thus simply expressed, made him feel better, and he struck out with better heart. Once more he went over in his mind the events that had preceded the sinking of the Silver Star and the necessity for her passengers and crew to put to sea in small boats. He found himself wondering what she could have hit, or been rammed by, to tear a hole in her.
“And my pictures of the waterspout!” reflected Tom grimly. “They’re at the bottom of the ocean by this time I suppose. And poor dad and mother—But there, I’m not going to worry. I’ve got to swim, and I guess I’ll get all I want of it, even though I am fond of water.”
All around him was blackness, save a slight phosphorescence of the ocean, and when he came up on the crest of a wave he looked about for a possible sight of a boat. But he saw nothing. He shouted occasionally, but he realized that he was only wasting his breath. On he swam, grimly and determinedly.
The storm seemed to be no worse, and Tom even found himself thinking that it was abating, after it had done all the damage possible.
There came a big wave over him, almost depriving him of breath, and sending him rolling and tumbling down into the depths again. When he came up, and had filled his lungs with air, he was almost exhausted.
When he struck out his right hand hit something in the water. Instinctively he shrank away with a start of fear that he had come in contact with some monstrous fish. Then a flash of lightning—the first since the beginning of the storm—revealed to him a large cork ring, or life preserver.