“You see,” said Ballyhoo, who noted all these points with the eye of a professional, “it’s a heap sight better to be quick and spry than big and powerful. That spotted shark could just lie on the other and squeeze him to death, but he’ll never get the chance. Oh! my stars! what a smash that was, and both of them took a hunk away! Why, they’ll be all torn to pieces if they keep it up much longer.”
“It’s getting near an end right now,” asserted Oscar. “That spotted one is showing signs of being almost all in. A few more such clashes and his name will be Dennis, you mark what I’m telling you, boys.”
“I do believe Captain Shooks has stopped the boat just on purpose to let us get a picture of the shark duel!” cried Jack, who was turning his crank, and at the same time trying to watch what was going on outside, a rather difficult task, all things considered.
“He knows what this must mean to us, that’s right,” asserted Ballyhoo. “Here they come again at it, hammer and tongs. They make me think of some things I once saw in the stock yards I visited with my father when I was smaller, for this is butchery, if ever there could be such a thing. I’m hoping deep down in my heart that both of them get wiped out, for I haven’t any use at all for sharks! Ugh!”
That seemed to be the concluding round to the battle. The two sharks stayed close to each other, and continued to snap viciously; but the jaws of the big spotted one lacked something of their former vigor. Indeed, it could be seen that this fish was at the end of his rope, for he swung this way and that, as though unable to guide his course.
Even as the spectators continued to stare through their glass-covered windows, arranged for this very purpose, and well protected against all pressure to be met with down at the depth to which the boat could be lowered, they saw the larger shark give a last flip with its tail, and then roll over, belly up.
“That settles him, all right!” Ballyhoo was heard saying quite revengefully, just as if he had taken a vow upon himself never to spare a shark when he had a chance to annihilate such a creature.
“But the victor is almost as badly off, you notice,” Oscar called out. “See how he wobbles as he starts to swim away. The chances are a hundred to one he’ll be attacked by another of his kind before an hour goes by; and if that happens it’s good night to the game little chap.”
“Well, it was a pretty fast scrap while it lasted,” Ballyhoo asserted, “and if we’d staged it ourselves we couldn’t have done it any better. The luck of the Camera Boys still holds good, seems like. Everything comes our way, given time.”
“I only hope my pictures turn out first class,” Jack was heard saying. “You see, I’ve never had any experience taking such through a heavy glass like these observation windows or big bull’s-eyes are made of. Still, everything looked perfectly natural to the eye, as far as I could make out. How about that, boys?”