“Jesus Christ!” said Brody. “He did that with his mouth?”

“Bent it out nice as you please,” said Quint. “Probably didn’t slow him down for more than a second or two.”

Brody felt light-headed. His fingertips tingled. He sat down in the chair and drew several deep breaths, trying to stifle the fear that was mounting inside him.

“Where do you suppose he’s gone?” said Hooper, standing at the stern and looking at the water.

“He’s around here somewhere,” said Quint. “I imagine he’ll be back. That porpoise wasn’t any more to him than an anchovy is to a bluefish. He’ll be looking for more food.” He reassembled the harpoon, recoiled the rope, and set them on the transom. “We’re just gonna have to wait. And keep chumming. I’ll tie up some more squid and hang ’em overboard.”

Brody watched Quint as he wrapped twine around each squid and dropped it overboard, attached to the boat at cleats, rod-holders, and almost anything else around which he could tie a knot. When a dozen squid had been placed at various points and various depths around the boat, Quint climbed to the flying bridge and sat down.

Hoping to be contradicted, Brody said, “That sure does seem to be a smart fish.”

“Smart or not, I wouldn’t know,” said Quint. “But he’s doing things I’ve never seen a fish do before.” He paused, then said—as much to himself as to Brody—“but I’m gonna get that fucker. That’s one thing for sure.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I know it, that’s all. Now leave me be.”

It was a command, not a request, and though Brody wanted to talk—about anything, even the fish itself, as long as he could steer his mind away from the image of the beast lurking in the water below him—he said nothing more. He looked at his watch: 11:05.

They waited, expecting at any moment to see the fin rise off the stern and cut back and forth through the water. Hooper ladled chum, which sounded to Brody, every time it hit the water, like diarrhea.

At eleven-thirty, Brody was startled by a sharp, resonant snap. Quint leaped down the ladder, across the deck, and onto the transom. He picked up the harpoon and held it at his shoulder, scanning the water around the stern.

“What the hell was that?” said Brody.

“He’s back.”

“How do you know? What was that noise?”

“Twine snapping. He took one of the squid.”

“Why would it snap? Why wouldn’t he chew right through it?”

“He probably never bit down on it. He sucked it in, and the twine came tight between his teeth when he closed his mouth. He went like this, I imagine”—Quint jerked his head to the side—“and the line parted.”

“How could we hear it snap if it snapped under water?”

“It didn’t snap under water, for Christ sake! It snapped right there.” Quint pointed to a few inches of limp twine hanging from a cleat amidships.

“Oh,” said Brody. As he looked at the remnant, he saw another piece of twine—a few feet farther up the gunwale—go limp. “There’s another one,” he said. He stood and walked to the gunwale and pulled in the line. “He must be right underneath us.”