“If we only had something to give ’em,” he groaned.
Van Wyck had somehow expected Bill to rally and come to his support. He needed a moral prop and he noted with horror that Bill had lost his solid, comforting manner. Van Wyck’s lips were so dry that he could scarcely get his tongue to shape words of rebuff.
“I don’t like it,” he finally blurted out. “They certainly mean business. You might swim in and test ’em!”
“Don’t be an ass!” roared Bill.
“All right, then. But if one of us doesn’t swim in, both of us are goners. And since I’ve never talked with savages I’m hardly the man. You have a way with you. You could pacify a Java ape-man! Get ’em laughing—tell ’em a funny story!”
Bill protested venomously. “Those cannibals aren’t children,” he groaned. “You can’t spoof ’em. This is serious business, Van Wyck.”
Van Wyck refused to be convinced and he would have gone on urging Bill to commit suicide to save his own precious skin if something had not made all conversation ridiculous. They both saw it at the same time. They looked at each other and said nothing. Then Van Wyck began frantically swimming toward the rocks.
The fin divided the water into two glassy walls. As it passed along it turned the dark surface to shining quicksilver. Bill had barely grasped the meaning of it when something touched his ankles and he knew that the water was infested. He gave a sudden, defiant shriek.
But the sharks did not molest him. They made straight for Van Wyck. They approached in vicious circles, and Bill saw the whites of their stomachs through the dark green water. The mouth of the largest opened and closed; and then there followed a clashing of teeth that sounded like the clanging to of ironclad portcullises.
Once the horrible gray back of the fish showed above the surface, and glittered lethally in the sun, and Bill knew that Van Wyck was done for. Van Wyck was almost near enough to the rocks to climb them, and he might reasonably have pushed the shark off with his foot, but Bill knew that he wouldn’t. Bill knew that Van Wyck was as good as eaten, and he thought: “That shark will hardly be content with Van Wyck alone!”
A dozen fins intersected on the surface and occasionally one of the ravenous monsters would jump clear of the water in its eagerness to taste satisfying human flesh.
The sight got in under Bill’s skin and hurt. He closed his eyes, and endeavored to think of the grinning, leering savages on the rocks. The sharks made frantic dashes at Van Wyck and came away with something in their mouths. They would rush forward, their great jaws would snap—and there would be less and less of Van Wyck.
Bill was unable to keep his eyes shut. He tried to cover them with his hands, but then he would go under and get an extra mouthful of salt water. He came up gasping, and saw that the sea was streaked with crimson.
As the sharks darted away from Van Wyck they left dark red trails behind them. Bill heard Van Wyck’s screams distinctly, although the latter had reached a point where screams seemed futile. They became less and less coherent. Perhaps Van Wyck realized the absurdity of protest. Perhaps he realized that all things eventually work together for the best. Certainly the cannibals would have treated him worse. It is not pleasant to be boiled in oil or hacked to pieces with little knives.
Bill saw the last of Van Wyck disappear in the maw of an enormous shark. The water turned a deeper red, and for a moment the sky and sea and even the naked, gesticulating savages seemed bathed in a crimson aura. It may have been an optical illusion, since Bill’s eyes had ceased to function with clarity. Bill knew that the sharks would look about a bit after finishing Van Wyck, and the thought gave him no satisfaction. “You’re next on the list,” he told himself.
But somehow the sharks seemed satisfied with poor Van Wyck. Perhaps they found Van Wyck so unsavory that they did not care to risk tackling another of the same breed. They circled about for a few minutes after the last of Van Wyck had disappeared, and then they passed solemnly eastward, their fins glistening in the brilliant sunlight.
Meanwhile Bill trod water and shuddered when he thought of Van Wyck. But he didn’t let himself think of Van Wyck much after that. Van Wyck, he argued, was no longer in need of sympathy. “It is the living who have to suffer,” he thought. It was patent that he could enjoy no security in waters infested with man-eating sharks.
He shouted with delight when he discovered that the cannibals had disappeared from the rocks. He was forcefully tempted to swim in and take advantage of his amazing good fortune. But he thought better of that when he calmly considered the nature of cannibals. They were probably waiting behind the rocks for him to swim in, and he didn’t care to be boiled in oil when there were sharks to make a quicker, cleaner job of it.
He decided to attempt to round the island. His ability to keep afloat amazed and frightened him. He had evidently drawn upon some reserve strength that nature had hitherto wilfully concealed. Destiny had played him a new hand. He secretly congratulated himself, although he continued to curse fate for the cannibals.
He got around the island somehow. The current set to at the northern end and he had some difficulty in surmounting the backwash of black tidal water; but he finally reached a beach so clean and white and refreshing that he shouted with boyish eagerness and gratification. He swam in without
