CHAPTER X.
A SWIM NOT LIKELY TO BE FORGOTTEN.
"You want to be on the lookout fer sharks," observed old Jacob, as he watched the boys' preparations.
"Gracious! Do you mean to say there are sharks around here?" ejaculated Leander.
"I don't see any, but there may be, nevertheless. Howsomever, I'll keep my weather eye open an' give ye warnin', if I see anything suspicious."
"I don't want any sharks in mine," put in Don, and hesitated a long while before entering the ocean. But when he saw the others diving about and having a good time, he could not resist the temptation to join them.
It was jolly sport. The water was just warm enough to be pleasant, and the waves were so light that there was little or no danger of being pounded against the yacht's sides. They dove and turned somersaults to their hearts' content, and then Dick proposed a race, and an empty barrel was thrown out behind the Dashaway.
"Each boy must swim to the rjight of the barrel and around it," cried out Robert Menden. "An extra piece of pie to the lad touching the rudder first on the return. Line up now. All ready?"
"Yes! yes!" was the cry.
"Then go!" And away went the five boys, shrieking and laughing wildly, while Robert Menden and old Jacob watched the sport with keen interest.
The barrel had floated all of a hundred and fifty feet away, so the race would be one of over a hundred yards. At first Dick was in the lead, but gradually Leander crawled up, with Bob, Don and Danny not far behind.
"I'm goin' to win dis race if I kin!" gasped the chubby Irish lad. "Dat extry pie is comin' to me, even if I has ter make it meself!"
"No, Danny, you'll make the pie for me!" laughed Bob, and forged ahead of all of the others. At the turning point Bob led, with Leander, Dick, Don and Danny close behind. But now Leander began to play out, and at the barrel he paused for a second to gain his breath.
And then something awful happened—something that Leander will never forget as long as he lives.
Something cold and slimy brushed up against his legs and swiftly encircled them.
What the thing was, Leander could not imagine; but the yell he gave would have shamed an Indian on the war-path.
"Get out!" were his words, and he tried to kick the thing off; but his efforts were unavailing, and whatever it was, it drew about his legs closer and closer and then started to drag him under the surface of the ocean.
He yelled again; but his chums were too intent upon winning the race to pay much attention to him. "Come on, don't lag behind!" called out Dick. "You may win yet."
Before anybody noticed that something was wrong, Bob had reached the rudder post and had won. But now old Jacob was on his feet, and pointing excitedly to where Leander was clutching at the empty barrel and yelling at the top of his lungs.
"Somethin' is wrong with the lad," said the old Yankee tar.
"Help! help!" screamed the terrified boy. "Something has me by the legs and is trying to pull me under!"
"Is it possible!" cried Robert Menden. He turned to the old sailor. "What can it be?"
"Don't know—maybe a devil-fish," was the answer.
"Help! don't leave me to die!" came from Leander. He had slipped from the barrel, but now he clutched it once more.
As quickly as he could, old Jacob procured a life line and threw it toward the lad.
But the line fell short and Leander gave another scream.
"Throw me a long knife, and I'll try to help him," said Dick. "He shan't perish if I can help him."
"No, no, boy; it may cost you your life," shuddered Robert Menden. "All of you had better come on board as quickly as you can."
But none of the members of the Gun and Sled Club would listen to this. They had stuck together before in extreme peril, and they would do the same again.
"Keep up; we are coming!" shouted Dick, and having procured a long kitchen knife he swam toward Leander with all speed. Soon the others had armed themselves in a similar fashion and were following. Even faithful old Dash seemed to realize that something was wrong, and with a loud splash he, too, went over the yacht's side.
"They have grit, as you Americans would say," observed Robert Menden. "What do you think it is?"
"We'll know in a minit," replied old Jacob, and rushed for a gun.
By this time poor Leander was utterly exhausted. The thing about his legs was growing tighter and tighter and pulling downward so heavily that the barrel to which the boy clung was almost totally submerged.
"Save me!" he gasped once more. "I'm going down! It's pulling me under!"
"I'm coming!" answered Dick. "What is it? Can't you make out?"
"Something slippery and slimy. Oh, save me!"
"If it was a devil-fish we'd see something of it," thought Dick, and he dashed in and then under water. In a moment he had hold of Leander's legs and was slashing away vigorously with his knife—at a mass of drifting seaweed!
It was a tough job; but once Dick knew he had not some animal to contend with, or monster of the deep, he grew calmer, and in a minute more Leander was free, and the others were helping him back to the yacht.
Dick brought with him some of the seaweed, which was dark green in color and covered with a whitish slime which gave one a shiver to touch.
Poor Leander was too exhausted to stand, upon reaching the deck, and had to be assisted to the cabin, where he was rubbed down and put to bed.
All on board examined the seaweed with interest.
"It's alive; don't ye forgit thet," observed old Jacob. "An' if Leander hadn't been cut away by Dick, he would have been pulled under, jest as sartin as if he had been tied to a rope. Sometimes thet seaweed covered an acre or more of the ocean. I don't know wot the scientific name is, but us old sailors used to call it Old Nick's hot-bed."
"And a hot-bed it must make," put in Don. "I don't think I want to go swimming around here again."
"The weed winds around anything that it happens to touch, and then it begins to contract, and that pulls the thing down. Many a poor sailor has lost his life through foolin' with Old Nick's hot-bed," concluded old Jacob.
On the day following, the breeze freshened once more, and the Dashaway bowled along merrily. Toward evening all hands began to watch for land, but it did not appear. Yet about nine o'clock in the evening they sighted numerous lights clustered together almost directly south of the yacht.
"Must be the lights of Manati," observed old Jacob; and his surmise proved correct, and by morning they were running straight for the harbor of San Juan.
Now that the end of the long voyage was so close at hand, the boys and Robert Menden were impatient to go ashore, and the time was spent in making preparations for the trip to the great caves near Caguas.
"We may have some difficulty in taking our guns ashore," said Dick. "In that case we'll have to rely, perhaps, on our pistols."
"You won't be hunters after game on this trip," smiled Bobert Menden. "You'll be after, something of greater value."
"But we'll have to go armed," put in Bob. "I've heard that Porto Rico is full of old-fashioned Spanish brigands."
"There are brigands, but not as many as you perhaps imagine," said the Englishman. "Our greatest enemy will be Joseph Farvel—if he turns up."
"And he will surely appear sooner or later," said Don. "We had better be on our guard against him and any followers he may have picked up."