Its tail rose, higher and higher. For an awful moment she was sure that it would somersault. Then the tail settled, and Mike dived from the cabin. He turned, treading water, and yanked Jake from the rear seat. The side of the cabin was off, and the plane began to fill. Hoagie did not appear.

Boom... boom ... boom...

The fin was driving toward them, from the north. "Mike!" she shrieked. "Watch out!"

Mike and Jake were suddenly cleaving through the water. They had fifty feet to go, and the fin was streaking fast.

Not Mike, you've done enough to us, not Mike....

Her eyes met her son's across the water. "Diving ladder!" he shouted, and churned on.

She shoved at the ladder that was hinged to the stern. It unfolded and splashed into the water, hanging three rungs deep.

Boom, boom... boom, boom... boom, boom...

But the fin was ignoring the swimmers. It was heading for the plane. The great shape rose, jaws gaping, and severed the tail from the Stearman in a screech of aluminum plate. Mike scrambled aboard, dragged Jake up the ladder, and stared at his mother.

"Where's Hoagie?" he asked, panting. "He out?"

She shook her head. There was a long, deep silence. Tears filled her eyes.

"You diving chaps should know better," cautioned Hoagie from below the stern. He climbed up the ladder, knocking water from an ear. "One doesn't want to thrash about near sharks."

She flew into his arms. "There, now, there," he murmured. "Haste makes waste, you know."

His lazy eyes swung down to hers. She was basking in their tenderness when, behind him, she saw that the clouds were framing a massive shadow. She pulled him away as the shark hit the ladder astern.

***

Papa Jacques clutched his chest. The pain was growing worse. He stood alone on the beach under the ancient Colonial tower of Masthead Light, but he was not there; he was far at sea, torn from the land by his master, the shark.

Thunder grumbled above, and he sensed it through his pain, but he swam three fathoms below, where the light was shafting greenly through the plankton and where a thousand currents of life unknown to surface creatures ebbed and flowed.

The accursed boat was above, its keel barnacled and whiskered with sea growth. The boat had caused the searing wound, which grew worse with every hour.

His master was ruler of the sea, but the vessel defied them. They had attacked her, wrestled off her bowsprit and half her bow, gouged her flank as she had gouged theirs, ripped her stern. And still she floated, her passengers mocking them with their own heartbeats.

Boom... boom... boom...

Men were working aboard her now. They could hear metallic clinking in her bowels and hear them moving about her cabin, which was, of course, her brain.

With a flick of their tail, they soared away from the boat, then circled her, gauging her condition.