trailing glistening spoon-baits in their wake. The fish were extraordinarily active,
itself a pretty sure sign that a storm was not far off, but the men were too busy
pulling in the lines, knocking the fish from the hooks with their wooden mallets,
and trailing the lines astern again, to spare a glance at the sky or the horizon.
Suddenly came the gust, striking, as do the squalls of the tropics, like the flat of
a giant's hand. The mast was new and sound, the boat canted quickly, the water
rose to the line of the bulwarks, paused, shivered, and then in a deluge plunged
into the hold. A cry from the crew, a loud but futile shriek of directions from the
owner, a splashing of released fish, a fighting flood of water, and the eight
fishermen found themselves struggling in the arms of an angry sea.
The boat, keel uppermost, rocked uneasily on the waves, and the men, casting
off their scant garments, made shift to swim to her, and climb up her slippery
dipping side. The storm passed over them, a line of tropic rain, beating a lashing
tattoo upon the white-tipped troubled waters; then a blinding downpour stinging
on the bare brown backs of the shivering fishermen; and lastly a black shadow,
lowering above a foam-flecked sea, driving quickly shorewards. Then came the
sun, anxious to show its power after its temporary defeat. It beat pitilessly on the
bare bodies of the men huddled together on the rocking keel of the boat. First it
warmed them pleasantly, and then it scorched and flayed them, aided as it was
by the fierce reflection thrown back from the salt waters. For a day and a night
they suffered all the agonies of exposure in the tropics. Burning heat by day,
chill airs at night, stiffening the uncovered limbs of the fishermen, who now half
mad with hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, watched with a horrid fascination the
great fins, which every now and then showed above the surface of the waters,
and told them only too plainly that the sharks expected soon to get a meal very
much to their liking.
On the second day Che’ Leh, the owner of the boat, urged his fellows to attempt
to right her by a plan which he explained to them, but at first the fear of the
sharks held them motionless. At length hunger and thirst aiding Che’ Leh's
persuasions, they dropped off the boat, making a great splashing to scare the
sharks, and after hours of cruel toil, for which their exhausted condition fitted
them but ill, they succeeded in loosening the mast, and releasing the palm-leaf
sail. Long pauses were necessary at frequent intervals, for the men were very
weak. At last the sail floated upwards under the boat, and by a great effort the
castaways succeeded in spreading it taut, so that the boat was half supported by
it. Then, all pushing from one side, gaining such a foothold as the sail afforded
them, they succeeded, after many straining efforts, in righting her. Slowly and