When his work was finished, he looked like nothing so much as a huge haystack in action. The seaweed was mighty uncomfortable, its dampness penetrating his clothes and the sharp edges pricking his skin where it was exposed.
“I hope I can manage to keep afloat with all this cargo aboard me,” he said grimly to himself as he paused on the edge of that death stretch, gathering courage to fling himself into its shark-infested waters. “Now for it—and here’s trusting to luck that I ever come out of it.”
He tried to speak lightly, more for the sake of his own encouragement than anything else, but as he slowly waded into the water he knew that the adventure he was entering upon might very well be his last.
Slowly, with infinite caution, he waded into the water till it was about his waist, then slowly raised his feet and lowered his arms till he lay face downward, swaying with the motion of the water.
Never before in his life had he done anything as hard as that. As long as he was on his feet, it seemed there was the chance to fight. But lying there like this, at the mercy of those giant pirates of the sea! He shivered and still lay motionless.
Then quietly, very gently, so as not to arouse the suspicion of his enemies, he began to move his arms, then his legs, ever so slowly, so that the motion was scarcely noticeable in the swirling of the water.
Before him, beside him, everywhere around him, flashed the sinister fins of sharks. Puzzled, they swam closely about this queer object that looked like seaweed but that moved as though it had life.
Phil hardly breathed. It seemed to him as though even his heart had stopped beating. The shore—would he never reach it? He did not even dare to lift his head to see.
CHAPTER XXIV
CHEATING THE SHARKS
An immensity of stars glittering in the sky, staring indifferently down upon an endless waste of water, and upon this waste of water, close up toward the shore, a little clump of seaweed, agitated by the motion of the sea.