“A shipwreck would be nice to see if nobody got drowned,” observed Nan. “And maybe we could rescue some of the people!”
“When there’s a shipwreck,” said Freddie, who seemed to have been thinking about it, “they have to get in the little boats, like this one,” and he pointed to a lifeboat not far away.
“That’s an awful little boat to go on the big ocean in,” said Flossie.
“It’s safe, though,” Bert said. “It’s got things in it to make it float, even if it’s half full of water. It can’t sink any more than our raft could sink.”
“Our raft nearly did sink,” said Flossie.
“No, it only got stuck on a mud bank,” answered Bert. “I was the one that sank down in my bare feet,” and he laughed as he remembered that time.
“Well, anyhow, we had fun,” said Freddie.
“Oh, look!” suddenly cried Nan. “There’s a small boat now—out there on the ocean. Maybe there’s been a shipwreck, Bert!”
Bert and the other Bobbsey twins looked at the object to which Nan pointed. Not far from the steamer was a small boat with three or four men in it, and they seemed to be in some sort of trouble. They were beating the water with oars and poles, and something near the boat was lashing about, making the waves turn into foam.
“That isn’t a shipwreck!” cried Bert. “That’s a fisherman’s boat!”
“And something is after it!” said Nan. “Oh, Bert! maybe a whale is trying to sink the fisherman’s boat!”
By this time Mrs. Bobbsey and a number of other passengers were crowding to the rail, looking at the small boat. The men in it did, indeed, seem to be fighting off something in the water that was trying to damage their boat.
“It’s a big shark!” cried one of the steamship sailors. “The fishermen have caught a big shark and they’re trying to kill it before it sinks their boat. Say, it’s a great, big shark! Look at it lash the water into foam! Those men may be hurt!”
“A shark! A shark!” cried the passengers, and from all over the ship they came running to where they could see what was happening to the small boat.
CHAPTER VIII
The Fight in the Boat
When the Bobbsey twins first saw the small boat, and the fishermen in it trying to beat off the shark that was trying to get at them, the steamer was quite a little distance off. The big vessel, though, was headed toward the fishing boat and soon came close enough for the passengers to see plainly what was going on. That is, they could not see the shark very plainly, for it was mostly under water, but they could see a long, black shape, with big fins and a large tail, and the tail was lashing up and down, making foam on the waves.
“Hi!” cried Freddie in great excitement. “That’s better’n a shipwreck, isn’t it?”
“Almost as bad, I should say,” remarked Mr. Bobbsey, who, with his wife and other passengers, stood near the rail with the children watching the ocean fight.
“The captain ought to stop the ship and go to the rescue of those fishermen,” said the man who had told Freddie not to get in the ventilator pipe again. “I guess the shark is bigger than those men thought when they tried to kill it.”
“Is that what they are trying to do?” asked Bert.
“It looks so,” replied his father. “Sometimes the fishermen catch a shark in their nets, and they kill it then, as sharks tear the nets, or eat up the fish in them. But I guess this is a larger shark than usual.”
“And is it going to sink the boat?” Nan wanted to know.
“That I can’t say,” Mr. Bobbsey replied. “Perhaps the fishermen caught the shark on a big hook and line, and want to get it into the boat to bring it to shore. Or maybe the shark is tangled in their net and is trying to get loose. Perhaps it thinks the boat is a big whale, or other fish, and it wants to fight.”
“Whatever it is, those fishermen are having a hard time,” said another passenger; and this seemed to be so, for, just as soon as the steamer came close enough to the small boat, some of the men in it waved their hands and shouted. All they said could not be heard, because of the noise made by the steamer, but a man near Mrs. Bobbsey said he heard the fisherman cry:
“Come and help us!”
“The captain ought to go to their help,” said Flossie’s mother. “It must be terrible to have to fight a big shark in a small boat.”
“I guess we are going to rescue them,” observed Bert. “Hey! There goes the whistle! And that bell means stop the engines!”
The blowing of a whistle and the ringing of a bell sounded even as he spoke, and the steamer began to move slowly.
Then a mate, or one of the captain’s helpers, came running along the deck with some sailors. They began to lower one of the lifeboats, and the Bobbsey twins and the other passengers watched them eagerly. Out on the sea, which, luckily, was not rough, the men in the small boat were still fighting the shark.
“Are you going to help them?” asked Mr. Bobbsey of the mate who got into the boat with the sailors.
“Yes, I guess they are in trouble with a big shark, or maybe there are two of them. We’ll help them kill the big fish.”
When the mate and the sailors were in the boat it was let down over the side of the ship to the water by long ropes. Then the sailors rowed toward the fishermen.
Anxiously the Bobbsey twins and the others watched to see what would happen. Over the waves went the rescuing boat, and when it got near enough the men in it, with long, sharp poles, with axes and with guns, began to help fight the shark. The waters foamed and bubbled, and the men in the boats shouted:
“There goes one!” came a call after a while, and, for a moment, something long and black seemed to stick up into the air.
“It’s a shark!” cried Bert. “I can tell by his pointed nose. Lots of sharks have long, pointed noses, and that’s one!”
“Yes, I guess it is,” his father said.
“Then there must be two sharks,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, “for the men are still fighting something in the water.”
“Yes, they certainly are,” her husband replied. “The fishermen must have caught one shark, and its mate came to help in the fight. Look, the fishing boat nearly went over that time!”
That really came near happening. One of the big fish, after it found that its mate had been killed, seemed to get desperate. It rushed at the fishermen’s boat and struck it with its head, sending it far over on one side.
Then the men from the steamer’s boat fired some bullets from a gun into the second shark and killed it so that it sank. The waters grew quiet and the boats were no longer in danger.
The mate and the sailors from the steamer stayed near the fishing boat a little while longer, the men talking among themselves, and then the sailors rowed back, and were hoisted upon deck in their craft.
“Tell us what happened!” cried Mr. Bobbsey.
“It was sharks,” answered the mate. “The fishermen came out here to lift their lobster pots, which had drifted a long way from shore. While they were doing this one of them baited a big hook with a piece of pork and threw it overboard, for he had seen some sharks about. A shark bit on the hook and then rammed the boat.
“Then another shark came along and both of them fought the fishermen, who might have been drowned if we had not helped them kill the sharks. But they are all right now—the fishermen, I mean—for the sharks are dead and on the bottom of the ocean by this time.”
“Were they big sharks?” asked Bert.
“Quite large,” the mate answered. “One was almost as long as the fishing boat, and they were both very ugly. It isn’t often that such big sharks come up this far north, but I suppose they were hungry and that made them bold.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t in that boat,” said Nan.
“Indeed we all may well be glad,” Mrs. Bobbsey said.
“Will those fishermen have to row all the way to shore?” asked Freddie, looking across the waters. No land was in sight.
“No, they don’t have to row,
” said the mate of the steamer. “They have a little gasolene engine in their boat, and the land is not so far away as it seems, only five or six miles. They can get in all right if no more sharks come after them, and I don’t believe any will.”
The fishermen waved their hands to the passengers on the steamer, and the Bobbsey twins and the others waved back.
“Good-bye!” shouted the children, as loudly as they could. Whether the others heard them or not was not certain, but they continued to wave their hands.
It took some time to hoist the lifeboat up in its place on the steamer, and in this Freddie and the others were quite interested.
“I’d like to own a boat like that myself,” said the little boy.
“What would you do with it?” questioned Flossie.
“Oh, I’d have a whole lot of fun,” was the ready answer.
“Would you give me a ride?”
“Of course I would!”
At last the lifeboat was put in its proper place, and then the steamer started off again.
The Bobbsey twins had plenty to talk about now, and so did the other passengers. It was not often they witnessed a rescue of that kind at sea, and Bert, who, like Freddie, had been hoping he might sight a shipwreck—that is, he wished it if no one would be drowned—was quite satisfied with the excitement of the sharks.
“Only I wish they could have brought one over closer, so we could have seen how big it was,” he said.
“I don’t,” remarked Nan. “I don’t like sharks.”
“Not even when they’re dead and can’t hurt you?” asked Bert.
“Not even any time,” Nan said. “I don’t like sharks.”
“Neither do I,” said Flossie.
“Well, I’d like to see one if daddy would take hold of my hand,” put in Freddie. “Then I wouldn’t be afraid.”
“Maybe there’ll be sharks when we get to Cousin Jasper’s house,” said Flossie.
“His house isn’t in the ocean, and sharks is only in the ocean,” declared Freddie.
“Well, maybe his house is near the ocean,” went on the little “fat fairy.”
“Cousin Jasper is in the hospital,” Nan remarked; “and I guess they don’t have any sharks there.”
“Maybe they have alligators,” added Bert with a smile.
“Really?” asked Nan.
“Well, you know Florida is where they have lots of alligators,” went on her older brother. “And we’re going to Florida.”
“I don’t like alligators any more than I like sharks,” Nan said, with a little shivery sort of shake. “I just like dogs and cats and chickens.”
“And goats,” said Flossie. “You like goats, don’t you, Nan?”
“Yes, I like the kind of a goat we had when we went to Blueberry Island,” agreed Nan. “But look! What are the sailors doing?”
She pointed to some of the men from the ship, who were going about the decks, picking up chairs and lashing fast, with ropes, things that might roll or slide about.
“Maybe we’re almost there, and we’re getting ready to land,” said Freddie.
“No, we’ve got another night to stay on the ship,” Bert said. “I’m going to ask one of the men.” And he did, inquiring what the reason was for picking up the chairs and tying fast so many things.
“The captain thinks we’re going to run into a storm,” answered the sailor, “and we’re getting ready for it.”
“Will it be very bad?” asked Nan, who did not like storms.
“Well, it’s likely to be a hard one, little Miss,” the sailor said. “We will soon be off Cape Hatteras, and the storms there are fierce sometimes. So we’re making everything snug to get ready for the blow. But don’t be afraid. This is a strong ship.”
However, as the Bobbsey twins saw the sailors making fast everything, and lashing loose awnings and ropes, and as they saw the sky beginning to get dark, though it was not yet night, they were all a little frightened.
CHAPTER IX
In St. Augustine
The storm came up more quickly than even the captain or his sailors thought it would. The deep, blue sea, which had been such a pretty color when the sun shone on it, now turned to a dark green shade. The blue sky was covered by black and angry-looking clouds, and the wind seemed to moan as it hummed about the ship.
But the steamer did not stop. On it rushed over the water, with foam in front, at the prow, or bow, and foam at the stern where the big propeller churned away.
“Come, children!” called Mrs. Bobbsey to the twins, as they stood at the rail, looking first up at the gathering clouds and then down at the water, which was now quite rough. “Come! I think we had better go to our cabins.”
“Oh, let us stay up just a little longer,” begged Bert. “I’ve never seen a storm at sea, and I want to.”
“Well, you and Nan may stay up on deck a little longer,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “But you must not go far away from daddy. I don’t want any of you to fall overboard, especially when such big sharks may be in the ocean.”
“Oh, I’m not going to fall overboard!” exclaimed Bert. “Never!”
“Nor I,” added his sister. “I’ll keep tight hold of the rail, and when it gets too rough we’ll come down.”
Mr. Bobbsey and some of the men passengers were still on deck, watching the approach of the storm, and Bert and Nan moved over nearer their father, while Mrs. Bobbsey went below with Flossie and Freddie. The two smaller twins, when they found their older brother and sister were going to stay on deck, also wanted to do this, but their mother said to them:
“No, it is safer for you to be down below with me. It may come on to blow hard at any moment, and then it won’t be so easy to go down the stairs when the ship is standing on its head, or its ear, or whatever way ships stand in a storm.”
“But I want to see the storm!” complained Freddie.
“You’ll see all you want of it, and feel it, too, down in our stateroom, as well as up on deck, and you’ll be much safer,” his mother told him.
The storm came up more and more quickly, and, though it was not yet four o’clock, it was as dark as it usually is at seven, for so many clouds covered the sky. The waves, too, began to get larger and larger and, pretty soon, the steamer, which had been going along smoothly, or with not more than a gentle roll from side to side, began pitching and tossing.
“Oh, my! isn’t it getting dark?” cried Flossie.
“Say, it isn’t time to go to bed yet, is it?” questioned Freddie anxiously.
“Of course not!” answered his twin. “It’s only about the middle of the afternoon, isn’t it, Mother?”
“Just about,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey.
In the meanwhile the others, who were still on deck, were having a decidedly lively time of it.
“Come on, Nan and Bert!” called Mr. Bobbsey, to the older twins. “Better get below while you have the chance. It’s getting too rough for children up here.”
“Are you coming too, Daddy?” asked Nan.
“Yes, I’ll go down with you. In fact, I think every one is going below except the sailors.”
This was so, for the mate was going about telling the passengers still on deck that it would be best for them to get to the shelter of the cabins and staterooms.
Nan and Bert started to walk across the deck, and when they were almost at the stairs, or the “companionway” as it is called, that led to their rooms, the ship gave a lurch and roll, and Bert lost his balance.
“Oh! Oh!” he cried, as he found himself sliding across the deck, which was tilted up almost like an old-fashioned cellar door, and Bert was rolling down it. “Oh, catch me, Dad!”
Luckily he rolled in, and not out, or he would have rolled to the edge of the ship. Not that he could have gone overboard, for there was a railing and netting to stop that, but he would have been badly frightened if he had rolled near the edge, I think.
“Look out!” cried Mr. Bobbsey, as he saw Bert sliding and slipping. “Look out,
or you’ll fall downstairs!”
And that is just what happened. Bert rolled to the top of the companionway stairs, and right down them. Luckily he was a stout, chubby boy, and, as it happened, just then a sailor was coming up the stairs, and Bert rolled into him. The sailor was nearly knocked off his feet by the collision with Bert, but he managed to get hold of a rail and hold on.
“My! My! What’s this?” cried the sailor, when he got his breath, which Bert had partly knocked from him. “Is this a new way to come downstairs?”
“I—I didn’t mean to,” Bert answered, as he managed to stand up and hold on to the man. “The ship turned upside down, I guess, and I rolled down here.”
“Well, as long as you’re not hurt it’s all right,” said the sailor with a laugh. “It is certainly a rough storm. Better get below and stay there until it blows out.”
“Yes, sir, I’m getting,” grinned Bert.
“I think that is good advice,” said Mr. Bobbsey to the sailor, with a smile, as he hurried after Bert, but not coming in the same fashion as his son.
Nan had grabbed tightly hold of a rope and clung to it when the ship gave a lurch. She was not hurt, but her arms ached from holding on so tightly.
After that one big roll and toss the steamer became steady for a little while, and Mr. Bobbsey and the two children made their way to the stateroom where Mrs. Bobbsey was sitting with Flossie and Freddie.
“What happened?” asked Bert’s mother, as she saw that he was rather “mussed up,” from what had occurred.
“Oh, I tried to come down the stairs head first,” Bert answered with a laugh. “I don’t like that way. I’m not going to do it again,” and he told what had taken place.
And then the storm burst with a shower of rain and a heavy wind that tossed and pitched the boat, and made many of the passengers wish they were safe on shore.
The Bobbsey twins had often been on the water, when on visits to Uncle William at the seashore, as I have told you in that book, and they were not made ill by the pitching and tossing of the steamer.
Still it was not much fun to stay below decks, which they and the others had to do all that night and most of the next day. It was too rough for any one to be out on deck, and even the sailors, used as they were to it, had trouble. One of them was nearly washed overboard, but his mates saved him. And one of the lifeboats—the same one in which the men had gone to save the fishermen from the sharks—was broken and torn away when a big wave hit it.
The Bobbsey Twins Megapack Page 125