Some of the women were sobbing, others almost fainting, while the men, pale and with gritted teeth, groaned at their helplessness.
It was a question now of which would reach the luckless man first, the boat or the shark. The boat was nearer and the men were rowing like demons, but the shark was swifter, coming on like an express train.
There must have been something in those faces high above him that warned the man of some impending peril. He cast a swift look behind him, and then in frantic terror redoubled his efforts to reach the boat.
“Oh, Joe, they’ll be too late! They’ll never reach him in time!” sobbed Mabel. “Oh, can’t we do anything to help him?”
Joe, as frantic as she, looked wildly about him. His eyes fell on a heavy piece of iron, left on the 153 deck by some seaman who had been repairing the windlass. Like a flash he grabbed it.
It seemed as though the swimmer were doomed, and a gasp of horror went up from the spectators as they saw that the boat would be too late.
For now the fin had disappeared, and they saw a hideous shape take form as the monster came into plain sight, a foot beneath the surface, and turned over upon its back to seize its prey.
Then Joe took a chance—a long chance, a desperate chance, an almost hopeless chance—and yet, a chance.
With all the force of his powerful arm he sent the jagged piece of iron hurtling at the fiendish open jaws.
And the chance became a certainty.