“No, no throw. Go bottom.”
“I should make it come back.”
The black grinned knowingly.
“Jackum show soon. Jackum fro.”
He sent the strange weapon flying on before them, and cleverly caught it as it returned; but then he stuck it in his girdle again, shaking his head.
“Go bottom,” he said.
Carey was disappointed, but his attention was taken up directly by something more exciting, for as the canoe glided along, with the outrigger literally skipping over the water, the boy suddenly became conscious of what seemed for the moment like another canoe of nearly the same size, sunk beneath the surface and gliding along at the same speed.
For the moment he thought it must be the canoe’s shadow somehow cast beside them, but the next moment he grasped the fact that it was a great fish, probably a shark, which had come in through the opening with the last high tide, and was now on the prowl.
There was no doubt about it, for the blacks had seen it, and they laughed as they saw their passenger shrink to the other side and lean over towards the outrigger.
The next moment Jackum drew his attention with a touch, and began making hideous grimaces at the creature, while the others began to shout and were apparently calling it every opprobrious name that their limited vocabulary supplied.