第37章 UNDER THE DECK AWNINGS(2)

"She ran the ship, she ran the voyage, she ran everything, and she ran Dennitson.That he had outdistanced the pack even the least wise of us admitted.That she liked him, and that this feeling was growing, there was not a doubt.I am certain that she looked on him with kinder eyes than she had ever looked with on man before.We still worshiped, and were always hanging about waiting to be whistled up, though we knew that Dennitson was laps and laps ahead of us.What might have happened we shall never know, for we came to Colombo and something else happened.

"You know Colombo, and how the native boys dive for coins in the shark-infested bay.Of course, it is only among the ground sharks and fish sharks that they venture.It is almost uncanny the way they know sharks and can sense the presence of a real killer--a tiger shark, for instance, or a gray nurse strayed up from Australian waters.Let such a shark appear, and, long before the passengers can guess, every mother's son of them is out of the water in a wild scramble for safety.

"It was after tiffin, and Miss Caruthers was holding her usual court under the deck-awnings.Old Captain Bentley had just been whistled up, and had granted her what he never granted before.

..nor since--permission for the boys to come up on the promenade deck.You see, Miss Caruthers was a swimmer, and she was interested.She took up a collection of all our small change, and herself tossed it overside, singly and in handfuls, arranging the terms of the contests, chiding a miss, giving extra rewards to clever wins, in short, managing the whole exhibition.

"She was especially keen on their jumping.You know, jumping feet-first from a height, it is very difficult to hold the body perpendicularly while in the air.The center of gravity of the male body is high, and the tendency is to overtopple.But the little beggars employed a method which she declared was new to her and which she desired to learn.Leaping from the davits of the boat-deck above, they plunged downward, their faces and shoulders bowed forward, looking at the water.And only at the last moment did they abruptly straighten up and enter the water erect and true.

"It was a pretty sight.Their diving was not so good, though there was one of them who was excellent at it, as he was in all the other stunts.Some white man must have taught him, for he made the proper swan dive and did it as beautifully as I have ever seen it.You know, headfirst into the water, from a great height, the problem is to enter the water at the perfect angle.

Miss the angle and it means at the least a twisted back and injury for life.Also, it has meant death for many a bungler.

But this boy could do it--seventy feet I know he cleared in one dive from the rigging--clenched hands on chest, head thrown back, sailing more like a bird, upward and out, and out and down, body flat on the air so that if it struck the surface in that position it would be split in half like a herring.But the moment before the water is reached, the head drops forward, the hands go out and lock the arms in an arch in advance of the head, and the body curves gracefully downward and enters the water just right.

"This the boy did, again and again, to the delight of all of us, but particularly of Miss Caruthers.He could not have been a moment over twelve or thirteen, yet he was by far the cleverest of the gang.He was the favorite of his crowd, and its leader.Though there were a number older than he, they acknowledged his chieftaincy.He was a beautiful boy, a lithe young god in breathing bronze, eyes wide apart, intelligent and daring, a bubble, a mote, a beautiful flash and sparkle of life.You have seen.wonderful glorious creatures--animals, anything, a leopard, a horse-restless, eager, too much alive ever to be still, silken of muscle, each slightest movement a benediction of grace, every action wild, untrammeled, and over all spilling out that intense vitality, that sheen and luster of living light.The boy had it.Life poured out of him almost in an effulgence.His skin glowed with it.It burned in his eyes.I swear I could almost hear it crackle from him.Looking at him, it was as if a whiff of ozone came to one's nostrils--so fresh and young was he, so resplendent with health, so wildly wild.

"This was the boy.And it was he who gave the alarm in the midst of the sport.The boys made a dash of it for the gangway platform, swimming the fastest strokes they knew, pellmell, floundering and splashing, fright in their faces, clambering out with jumps and surges, any way to get out, lending one another a hand to safety, till all were strung along the gangway and peering down into the water.

"'What is the matter?' asked Miss Caruthers.

"'A shark, I fancy,' Captain Bentley answered.'Lucky little beggars that he didn't get one of them.'

"'Are they afraid of sharks?' she asked.

"'Aren't you?' he asked back.