-gwine to be smoddehed. Oh,
Lordy, Lordy, Ah's a dead niggeh."

"Hold on tight, all, look out for yourself, Paul," Mr. Murren cried;
"he's turning!"

But he was wrong.

Instead of the black fin edging its way up, the whole great bulk of the
uncanny creature heaved itself above the water like a great cloud and
fell into the surf on the rocks, flapped upon them, although half
stranded, and with a heave that seemed to make the reef tremble, plunged
into the sea beyond.

"Better cut!" cried Colin.

But before the word was fairly out of his lips, the bright steel
gleamed in the dark, and with a grinding crash that seemed like the end
of the world to Colin, the boat crumpled into splinters on the reef and
the three men were thrown in a heap among the breakers.

The negro gave a yell that was enough to scare any one out of a year's
growth and lay spread out upon a rock as though he was some ungainly
kind of black crab, arms and legs in every direction, while he fairly
gibbered with fright.

"Lordy, Lordy, don' let de debbil come an' take me now! Lordy, Ah ain'
fit to die! Don' let him come back an' smoddeh us on de rocks! Ah ain'
never goin' to get in a boat agen! On'y let me get home dis once!"

Paul, though the youngest of the party, had escaped the most easily. He
had pitched clear against Pete and thus had broken his fall, while at
the same time the impact of his weight had knocked nearly all the breath
out of the negro's body. He had enough left, however, with which to make
a powerful complaint.

Bruised, even bleeding in one or two places, Colin picked himself out of
the wreckage and looked across in the faint light at the owner of the
_Golden Falcon_, who seemed to have escaped with a few scratches and
who was standing on the reef looking out to sea as though he wished that
the fight were still on.

[Illustration: MANTA, OR GIANT SEA-DEVIL, CAPTURED ON THE FLORIDA REEFS.

_By permission of Mr. Chas. Fredk. Holder._]

"I wonder," he said, as he saw that the boys were not hurt, "if the
vampire had as much sport out of that as we did."

CHAPTER VIII

FINDING A FORTUNE IN A PEARL

Resisting a strong temptation to kick the blubbering negro, Mr. Murren
succeeded in getting the fellow's attention by shouting in his ear, and
yanked him up on his feet. The boat was quite unusable, the bow having
been crumpled into matchwood by the force with which the sea-bat had
dragged it upon the reef, so the quest