Captain Shooks proceeded to extract several cruel-looking teeth from the jaws.
“Like as not you’ll want to keep the same,” he told Ballyhoo Jones, “so’s to remember the little incident by.”
“Huh!” grunted the winded boy, “small chance of me ever forgetting this raw deal, I guess. I’ll dream I’m being chased by those hungry monsters ever so many times. But ain’t they whales, though? And strikes me I came near playing that Jonah part for once. Please drop them back again, and let ’em float away for the buzzards to feed on.”
This was done, and then Oscar saw to it that the Indian shark killer was abundantly rewarded for his labor, since his prompt dive had undoubtedly saved the life of the boy in the water.
After that Ballyhoo Jones would be mighty careful, so he admitted, when and where he took his bath, for “once bit, twice shy” was going to be his motto.
CHAPTER V
GIVING THE ENEMY THE SLIP
“Please don’t scold, Oscar,” Ballyhoo was saying soon afterwards. “I understand I was a silly fool to take such big chances. The captain knew what he was talking about when he told me to stay near the boat.”
“We all know now,” Jack remarked, “that the thrilling yarns told you by your Uncle Abner Crawley were founded on truth. He’d seen those East Indian pearl-divers stick sharks many a time; yes, and he even said he’d learned to do the same himself while out around Ceylon.”
“I think we’ll be moving along pretty soon,” Oscar remarked, not wishing to add to the repentant Ballyhoo’s confusion, “for I heard the engineer tell Captain Shooks that he had things shipshape once more.”
“Then we can expect to be at our first destination any old time,” Jack went on to say, with an eager gleam in his eye; for he was yearning to see some of the wonderful submarine sights that had been so vividly described to them by the old deep sea master-diver.