11 Diving Adventure by Willard Price

Author:Willard Price [Price, Willard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-10-09T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Roger’s little joke

They had never seen a shark as big as this one.

First it passed over the jeep like a black cloud. Then circled and came down to study this strange glass thing more closely. It was a good fifty feet long. Its open mouth was six feet wide.

That’s a whale shark,’ said Hal excitedly. ‘Greatest of all the sharks. You can tell it by the white spots on its hide. And by the croaks - hear it?’

The croaking sounds of the monster were quite audible. It’s the only talking shark,’ Hal said.

‘There don’t seem to be any teeth in that mouth,’ said Roger.

‘No, it doesn’t bite or chew its food. It just inhales it. It goes along with its mouth open and anything in the way goes down the hatch. Mainly it lives on plankton -those tiny bits of animal life in the sea. It’s not supposed to be vicious like most sharks. It even allows a man to ride on its back. Or so they say - I wouldn’t like to chance it.’

‘I would,’ said the venturesome Roger, and before Hal could stop him he slipped out of the jeep. The monster lay still, evidently much interested in this big glass bubble. Roger swam up beside it.

What a whale of a shark! No wonder they called it the whale shark. Paste three elephants together and they would not be as big as this brute.

Roger touched its rough flank but it did not seem to lim. He mustered up the courage to tickle it under the chin. It seemed to like it.

He swam up to the top of the back, like the roof of a house. He sat down. You couldn’t straddle this thing -you had to sit Turkish fashion. It was like sitting on the deck of a ship.

The ship began to move - very slowly. It circled the jeep, looking at it from every angle. It seemed to be undecided whether to swallow it or not. But it apparently gave up the idea. Glass bubbles were not its favourite dish. Again it came to a halt and just lay, looking.

A stream of small sea bits kept flowing into the creature’s mouth. Evidently there was quite a lot of suction there - like the suction of a vacuum cleaner.

Roger swam around to examine this cavernous mouth. It was quite as big as a telephone booth. Since there were no teeth, Roger felt safe. And since the monster appeared to have a habit of keeping its mouth open, why shouldn’t he explore this cave more completely?

He felt the suction and allowed it to carry him in. This was a new sensation - sitting on the inside of a fish. That story about Jonah inside the great fish, possibly it was true after all. Though how Jonah stayed alive without breathing was a mystery. Roger, inhaling from his aqualung, had no such difficulty. He was quite comfortable; and he could leave the great open mouth whenever he chose. It was like being in a submarine with an open hatch.

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