her
rescuer looked at her so hard, but she was too interested to care very
much.

She sat down in her favorite position on a pile of cushions on the deck,
with her head resting against Miss Jenny Ann's knee and her eyes on the
water. "Do tell us, Captain Jules," she pleaded, "something about your
life as a pearl-fisher. You must have had wonderful experiences. We would
dearly love to hear about them, wouldn't we, girls?"

The girls chorused an enthusiastic "Yes," which included Miss Jenny Ann.

Captain Jules laughed. "Haven't you ever heard that it is dangerous to
get an old sea dog started on his adventures? You never can tell when he
will leave off," he teased, stroking Tania's black hair. "But I wouldn't
be surprised if Tania would like to hear how once I was nearly swallowed
whole, diving suit and all, by a giant shark. I was hunting for pearls in
those days off the Philippine Islands. I had been tearing some shells
from the side of a great rock when, of a sudden, I felt a strange
presence before I saw anything. I might have known it was time to expect
trouble, because the little fish that are usually floating about in the
water had all disappeared. A creepy feeling came over me. I was cold as
ice inside my diving suit. Then I turned and looked up. Just a few feet
in front of me was a giant shark that seemed about twenty-five feet long.
He was an evil monster. The upper part of his body was a dirty, dark
green and his fins were black. You never saw a diving suit, did you? So
you don't know that all the body is covered up but the hands. I tucked my
hands under my breastplate in a hurry. It didn't seem to me that a pearl
diver would be much good without any hands. Well, the great fish made a
sweep with its tail, and in a jiffy he and I were face to face. I stood
still for about a second. I held my breath, my heart pounding like a
hammer. Nearer and nearer the monster came swimming toward me, with its
shovel nose pointing directly at the glass that covered my face. I
couldn't stand it. I threw up my hands. I yelled way down at the bottom
of the sea with no one to hear me. There was a swirl of water, a cloud of
mud, and my enemy vanished. He didn't like the noise any better than I
liked him."

The girls breathed sighs of relief. The captain chuckled. "Oh, a diver is
not in real danger from a shark," he went on, "his suit protects him. But
there are plenty of other dangers. Maybe I'll tell you some of them at
another