The Moving Picture Girls at Sea / or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real

by Laura Lee Hope

"There he is!" cried Russ, as he rushed to the rail beside Alice. He pointed to the water. Fortunately the sea was smooth, and rising and falling on the waves could be seen the head of the old sailor.

"Oh! Oh!" gasped Ruth, who glided over to the side of Alice. "If—if a shark should come now."

"There aren't any around here!" declared Russ. He did not know whether there were or not, but he said that to make the girls feel more comfortable. After all, if there were sharks, whatever he said would be of no effect, and it was better to take the best view of it, he thought.

"Lower away!" cried Hen Lacomb, and the boat went down to the water. Two sailors, beside himself, slid down the ropes into it, and took the oars. They cast off the davit blocks, and began rowing toward the bobbing head. Old Jack could swim well, it seemed, in spite of his age. The water was warm, and it was broad daylight, so he was in comparatively little danger—except from sharks and from the fact that he had on his clothes, which would soon become soaked and hamper him.

But no sharks appeared; that menacing triangular fin which marks them was not seen cutting the water, and no big twelve-foot man-eater was observed to turn on his back in order to bring his curious, under-shot mouth with its rows of keen teeth to bear on poor Jack Jepson.

If a shark had appeared, it would probably have put an end to the plans of Mr. Pertell to have his company give an idea of shipwreck by leaping into the water. No one would have jumped into those waters had they been shark-infested. But, as I have said, none of the tigers of the deep showed, and, a little later, Jack was being lifted into the small boat. They had reached him just when his strength was about exhausted.

"Oh, have they saved him?" asked Miss Pennington, coming on deck very pale. Alice said afterward she had not had time to put on her "war paint."

"I—I can't bear to look!" faltered Miss Dixon, following her friend. "Tell me dear—is he—is he dead?" she asked of Alice.

"Dead! No, of course not!" said Alice, none too politely. "Don't be silly! He just fell overboard, and they got him back again; that's all."

Miss Dixon looked angry and flounced back to her cabin with her chum. Jack and his rescuers were hoisted up in the boat, the other sailors hauling on the ropes, the blocks of which were hooked fast to rings in the bow and stern posts of the rowing craft.