“That’s pretty close,” said Brody.

“Has to be,” said Quint. “I can’t get a shot at him if he’s thirty feet away.”

“Why are you standing on the rope?”

“To keep the little fella where he is. I don’t want to cleat it down that close to the boat. If he took it and didn’t have any running room, he could thrash around and beat us to pieces.” Quint hefted the harpoon and looked at the shark’s fin.

The fish moved closer, still cruising back and forth but closing the gap between itself and the boat by a few feet with every passage. Then it stopped, twenty or twenty-five feet away, and for a second seemed to lie motionless in the water, aimed directly at the boat. The tail dropped beneath the surface; the dorsal fin slid backward and vanished; and the great head reared up, mouth open in a slack, savage grin, eyes black and abysmal.

Brody stared in mute horror, sensing that this was what it must be like to try to stare down the devil.

“Hey, fish!” Quint called. He stood on the transom, legs spread, his hand curled around the shaft of the harpoon that rested on his shoulder. “Come see what we’ve got for you!”

For another moment the fish hung in the water, watching. Then, soundlessly, the head slid back and disappeared.

“Where’d he go?” said Brody.

“He’ll be coming now,” said Quint. “Come, fish,” he purred. “Come, fish. Come get your supper.” He pointed the harpoon at the floating porpoise.

Suddenly the boat lurched violently to the side. Quint’s legs skidded out from under him, and he fell on his back on the transom. The harpoon dart separated from the shaft and clattered to the deck. Brody tumbled sideways, grabbed the back of the chair, and twirled around as the chair swiveled. Hooper spun backward and slammed into the port gunwale.

The rope attached to the porpoise tautened and shivered. The knot by which it was secured to the cleat tightened so hard that the rope flattened and its fibers popped. The wood under the cleat began to crack. Then the rope snapped backward, went slack, and curled in the water beside the boat.

“I’ll be fucked!” said Quint.

“It was like he knew what you were trying to do,” said Brody, “like he knew there was a trap set for him.”

“Goddammit! I never have seen a fish do that before.”

“He knew if he knocked you down he could get to the porpoise.”

“Shit, he was just aiming for the porpoise, and he missed.”

Hooper said, “Aiming from the opposite side of the boat?”

“Well, it don’t make no never-mind,” said Quint. “Whatever he did, it worked.”

“How do you think he got off the hook?” said Brody. “He didn’t pull the cleat out.”

Quint walked over to the starboard gunwale and began to pull in the rope. “He either bit right through the chain, or else … uh-huh, that’s what I figured.” He leaned over the gunwale and grabbed the chain. He pulled it aboard. It was intact, the clip still attached to the eye of the hook. But the hook itself had been destroyed. The steel shaft no longer curled. It was nearly straight, marked by two small bumps where once it had been tempered into a curve.