All the time I was watching Ed from the surface of 

 the water, I was conscious of a large barracuda hanging 

 around. It never came very close, but hovered nearby, 

 watching every move we made. I wondered if it might 

 be the mate of the one Vital had caught from the deck 

 earher that morning. If so, was it out to avenge its mate's 

 untimely death? Needless to say, I was not very comfort- 

 able while it was there. 



We spent the rest of the morning launching Reef 

 Diver, for on the Silver shoals, if anywhere, we would 

 require the services of that little shallow-draft, rudderless, 

 wheel-less craft in order to use our compression-fed diving 

 equipment close to the reefs, as weU as to scout the depths 

 through its glass bottom. 



From time to time we caught ghmpses of Jane and 

 Barney as they cruised over the coral with Wee Diver. 

 There were long intervals when the httle boat was an- 

 chored and they were over the side, making a closer inves- 

 tigation of things that had caught their interest through 

 the glass bottom. I had ceased to worry over them, for 

 now that I had been in the water myself and had seen the 

 reefs through the bottom of the boat, I had lost most of my 

 concern in regard to the big fish. I now knew for a cer- 

 tainty that there were sharks and barracuda around us, 

 but I also knew that they were no more prevalent than 

 oS Cap Haitien or in the Bahamas, where we had dived 

 so often before. 



I was beginning to find for myself what Ed and the 

 Criles had discovered long before, that imagination plays 

 a powerful part in creating a climate of fear, but that 

 when one is concerned with the job in hand or fuU of in- 

 terest and enthusiasm for one's surroundings, fear soon 

 takes a back seat. 



Many times when I have been alone on the bottom, I 

 have been assailed with a creepy feeling that behind my 



The Silver Shoals 263 



