"What a mercy the monster didn't fall on us. Where would we have been, Fred?"
"Look there," said Fred, pointing over the gunwale.
Frank gazed fearfully in the direction indicated. Two monster tiger sharks were floating quietly about near the boat.
Suddenly Fred sprang to his feet.
"Oh, men," he cried, "where is the dog? Where is poor Hurricane Bob?"
The question was by no means difficult to answer. Without doubt in the extremity of his terror he had sprung overboard, and been instantly devoured by the sharks. What a sad and sudden ending to a moonlight concert!
Bob was a favourite, not with Cassia-bud only, but with everybody, and to lose the noble fellow, and lose him thus. It was altogether too shocking to think about!
Straight away for the shore they rowed now, but in silence all. They had received a shock that it would take weeks to get over. Not from the terror of the apparition, but from the loss of the honest dog, who had really come to be considered one of themselves.
Their astonishment and delight therefore may be better conceived than described, when, as soon as the boat rasped upon the silvery sand, Hurricane Bob himself came joyfully bounding and barking to meet them.
Instead of attempting to get into the boat again he had simply headed away for the beach, and landed in safety. But, strange to say, the dog from that day forward could seldom be prevailed upon to go even a little way into the water, and when taken anywhere in the boat he invariably crouched down beneath the thwarts, lying there quietly until once more safe on shore.