The shark, meanwhile, made up his mind. The new morsel was coming directly toward him, while the first seemed in a fair way of escaping to shallow water if not to the land itself. The monster, with a twist of his tail, turned again and made for Oto, though not very rapidly, for the splashing made the fish wary.
At last the critical moment came. Oto had heard an old pearl-fisher tell of many a battle with the man-eating sharks of the Pacific. As the huge creature began to turn, to seize his prey, the black fin disappeared. Quick as a flash Oto doubled himself in the water and dived. A moment later a red stain dyed the surface of the sea. The boy had drawn a sharp dagger from his belt and stabbed upward as his assailant passed over him.
There was no more battle. The shark had enough of Oto and fled for the depths of the ocean while his victor, watching sharply for his late foe, made his way ashore as swiftly as possible. He found Oshima stretched upon the sand, uninjured but almost unconscious from fright and exhaustion.
It was this incident, the self-forgetful valour of his son's friend, saving the former's life at the peril of his own, that led Oshima's father, a few days afterward, to make the offer that changed the boy's whole life. He proposed to the elder Owari to send Oto at his own expense to any naval school in the world, and educate him for the Japanese navy. Oto chose the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, as we have seen, and graduated with honour, resigning only to accept a post under his own Emperor.
Oshima meanwhile pursued his studies at the Military Institute in Yokohama, and received in due time his appointment as sub-lieutenant in the Japanese army. Entrusted with an important secret mission a few years later the two comrades went to America, performed their duties faithfully, and, in pursuance of direct orders from high authority, concealed their identity by returning as cabin stewards; the men of the _Osprey_ little dreaming that the meek, gentle "boys" whom they ordered to and fro on menial errands were officers, older and of higher rank than themselves, in the Imperial Army and Navy of Japan.
Thus the party of little O-Hana-San led to important results; for had not Oto applied to her for an invitation, and gone off to the shore sulking because of her refusal, Oshima would not have had his eventful swim, the shark would not have been disappointed in a meal, Oshima's father would not have felt the impulse of gratitude which influenced him to bestow a naval education upon his neighbour's son; in short the _Retvizan's_ plans would never have been laid before the naval secret service authorities of Tokio, nor, in all likelihood, would Dave Rexdale have been so well served, in the absence of his two faithful Japanese stewards, on the outward cruise of the _Osprey_!