“Do you think that will bring him around?” asked Bill.
“It’ll help, anyway,” replied Lester. “But to make it surer, we’ll cut up the pork into small pieces and scatter it on the water. He’ll smell it as sure as guns, and I’ll wager you that before ten minutes are over you’ll see the old rascal swimming toward us.”
The boys got their clasp knives out at once and slashed the pork into bits, taking care however not to touch the big piece.
“He’s coming,” cried Teddy, after perhaps five minutes had passed. “I saw his fin just then, not fifty feet away.”
The pieces of pork were now bobbing up and down on the water at the stern of the Ariel, which had almost stopped moving.
There was a twitch and one of the pieces disappeared. For an instant the boys saw a long black body, the wet skin glistening in the rays of the sun like so much velvet.
“By jinks!” whispered Bill in awe. “What an old sockdolager!”
“He’s one of the biggest I’ve ever seen,” returned Lester. “Fellows of his size don’t get up this way very often.”
122“I’d hate to fall overboard just now,” said Teddy.
“You’d make just about one mouthful for him,” was Fred’s comforting rejoinder.