Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/128

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116
JOAN OF THE ISLAND

of a kind, to him to do so, but he doesn't get as much real happiness out of it as the nigger does in gagging a shark with a stick. The trouble with people like the millionaire is that they have learnt to think too much about the safety of their own skins. They ought to go about under a glass case."

"I think I know what you mean," Joan said, "but it is entirely a man's viewpoint. I don't regard myself as especially mercenary, but if I were faced with the alternative of attacking a live shark in the water or doing something which would net a million dollars I should be inclined to go after the million!"

"Never having tried either, I can't say from experience," Keith laughed. "But it looks as though we were going to arrive no nearer being millionaires to-day. The sharks are thick now."

So far the divers had been unable to enter the water again, for within a hundred yards of the whale-boat a dozen or more triangular fins were visible. A regular school of sharks, attracted either by the men or arriving on the scene by chance, were darting about. For nearly half an hour the divers watched them unemotionally, as one would wait for a steam roller to get out of one's way in a city thoroughfare. The day was now well advanced.

"He no good dive again," Isa declared at last. "Him shark plenty hungry and no go."