Gazing far above them the boys could see a uniformed figure on the bridge shouting questions through a megaphone. He was, no doubt, inquiring what sort of lunatics they were whom he had so narrowly escaped sending to the bottom.
"A miss is as good as a mile," was Ben's comment when they all breathed more freely, "but no more misses like that, thank you."
CHAPTER XVII.
BILLY'S NARROW ESCAPE.
By daybreak the fury of the hurricane had blown itself out and the sun rose on a sea that while still storm-tossed was moderate compared to the terrific upheaval of the preceding night; by noon, in fact, so suddenly did the wind drop, the Bolo was nosing her way along through what seemed a glittering, sunlit desert of almost perfectly smooth water.
"Let's get the lines out and troll; we might catch a shark," was
Billy's sudden suggestion.
"Right you are," assented Bluewater Bill. "There's lots of them in these waters—savage critters, too. It's a charity to catch them."
Suddenly he broke into song:
"Oh, sharks have teeth and whales have tails,
Cows have horns and so have snails,
But of all the fish in the ocean blue
The very worst is the green gaboo."
"What on earth is a gaboo?" demanded Frank, who with the others was lolling about the cockpit under the awning, which had been re-rigged.