He certainly did. Called away hurriedly, he still wore part of his disguise as Amphitrite, Neptune's Queen. He had cast off his flowing locks of tow, but his well-powdered face and a vivid patch of rouge on either cheek looked absolutely grotesque. His costume of muslin (lent by one of the lady passengers) had suffered horribly during his attempt to squeeze through the hatch, while the trimmings of seashells and seaweed added to the weird appearance of the young Wireless Officer. To facilitate his movements Peter had "gathered in the slack" of his trailing garments, since without assistance he could not tackle the numerous safety-pins that his dresser had used in order to make sure that "nothing would come adrift and carry away". "Hello, though--is it!" he reiterated, shading his eyes with his left hand. Right in the glare reflected in the water his keen eyes had spotted a tell-tale swirl. Then above the surface appeared an object that settled his doubts. It was the dorsal fin of a shark. One of the lascars, looking over his shoulder, saw the danger too. He raised a shrill cry that had the effect of startling his fellow-oarsmen and putting them off their stroke. "_Chup rao!_" (Shut up), shouted Peter sternly. "Pull like blue blazes." "Blue blazes" was evidently a stranger to the lascars' vocabulary, but they understood the word "pull" and guessed the significance of the rest. Redoubling their efforts, they made the heavy boat travel rapidly through the calm water; but Peter realized that if the shark attacked with any promptitude the rescuers would be too late. He saw that Preston and his companion in distress were doing the best thing they could in the circumstances--making a violent splash. Whether the shark would be scared away was a matter for speculation. Evidently the tiger of the deep was hungry. He was not devoid of pluck, for he had begun to swim round and round the two men, the while drawing nearer to the buoy. At any moment he might make a dart straight for his victims. Peter knew this. He had seen a shark seize a South Sea Islander from a crowd of natives splashing and shouting in the surf. He had seen another monster seize and devour a dog within ten yards of a boat putting off to the animal's rescue. There was no rifle in the lifeboat. In the Royal Navy they do things differently from the Mercantile Marine. Peter had an automatic. It was one of the things he took good care to provide himself with after his experiences in S.S. _Donibristle_; but the weapon was locked up in his cabin, and in the present circumstances it was like the Dutchman's anchor. The boat was now a hundred yards from the life-buoy--the shark ten. The brute was still circling, sometimes diving, sometimes showing its head; but up to the present it had shown no sign of preparing to seize its prey by turning on its back.