At a distance the sharp back fin of a shark cut the crest of the water for a single instant and then disappeared.
A shark was coming!
“What—what is it?” asked Inza, who had been startled by Barney’s cries. “Why are they shouting thus?”
“They are doing it to encourage us,” said Frank, believing he was fully justified in the falsehood.
“You are sure?”
“Why, of course!”
Rump-thump, rump-thump went the oars! jump, jump plunged the boat as it sped to the rescue.
The rowers were straining every nerve. They were Bruce Browning and Ephraim Gallup, and for once in his life, at least, the big collegian was doing his very utmost. Nothing but an effort to save his own life or that of Frank could have made him work thus.
It seemed that the shark was approaching with the speed of an express train. Fortunately the boat was far nearer, and so it came up first.
Even as the boat shot alongside the youth and maiden, with Bruce and Ephraim backing water to check its headway, there was a flash of a dark body in the water, a flashlike turn, the showing of a white belly, and Barney had dragged Inza into the boat just in time.