"Not much," snorted Bill, "he'd have measured us, and we'd have soon measured our length if we'd tried. But now if any one has a bit of fat pork, I wouldn't be a bit surprised but we can fish up one of them finny monsters."
Accordingly a bit of pork was secured from the galley stores and placed on the shark-hook, a huge affair as big as the hook used to hang meat on in butcher shops. To its hank was shackled a bit of stout chain, about two feet long. To this, Bill affixed a stout rope, and let the line trail out astern about fifty feet.
"Now, Billy Barnes, since you was so skeptical, you hold the line, and, when you feel a tug, take a turn around the cleat here or he'll yank you overboard."
"Yank me overboard," cried Billy, incredulously. "Oh, get out, Bill!
What do you think I am—an old woman?"
Bill said nothing, but cut himself a big bit of chewing tobacco and stuffed it into his face. Frank would not have allowed such a habit on the Bolo, but he felt as he had deprived the old sailors of their pipes, he could not cut off every luxury, so Bill was allowed to chew in quiet content.
"Isn't this bully, just going right ahead like this after all the terrible things that happened in the night!" exclaimed Harry, as the Bolo cut along through the placid waters.
"Great," agreed Frank, "and yet I am glad in one way we ran into that blow. Ben Stubbs assured me that we were not likely to get anything worse in these latitudes, and the Bolo stood up to it as if she had been a clipper."
"Yes; she certainly is a fine little ship," agreed the others.
All at once there came a yell from Billy Barnes.
The startled boys look up just in time to see him yanked bodily out of the cockpit, over the counter and into the sea. To their horror, when he struck the water he vanished; only to reappear a few seconds later, however, with his head above the surface, and moving through the water away from the boat at a terrific rate.