On the fifth day, Jan was standing on the starboard side of the ship, gazing into the water, when he saw a woman swimming alongside. Her long hair, gold streaked with green, trailed around her. When Jan called out to her she disappeared beneath the waves. It was only when her shining tail broke the surface that he realized her lower half was that of a fish.

The woman returned every day, usually in the late afternoon. Sometimes she would swim alongside the ship for hours, unless Jan tried to speak to her. Then she would immediately disappear beneath the water again.

On the eighth night, a gale swept down from the north, buffeting the ship with fierce gusts of cold wind. The waves grew higher and higher, until they were crashing over the bow. The ship was tossed across the water like a ball in the hands of the gods. Jan and Samos took refuge in the cabins below and finally tied themselves to their bunks to keep from being flung against the walls.

When morning came, they staggered up to the deck of the ship. Jan clutched Samos’s arm in terror. “Look!” he whispered. And even when he remembered that the old man was blind and could not see what was ahead of them, he was too frightened to feel foolish.

Flying fish were leaping all around them. On the starboard side of the ship, a few hundred yards away, swam a pod of whales. They, too, were leaping out of the water, flinging themselves into the storm with abandon, creating enormous surges when they landed.

These things were strange, but not terrifying. What terrified Jan was the great waterspout that rose from the sea directly ahead, a whirling column that stretched so high he could not see its top.

“Drop the sail,” ordered Samos, when Jan told him what he saw.

The ship was moving faster now, the sea peeling away from the prow in curls of foam. Jan raced to the mast and fumbled with the knots. They refused to budge. He drew his sword and sliced the rope.

It made no difference. The sail stayed proud and full.

They drew closer to the spout, which loomed above them like some living tower, dark and swirling. Jan grabbed a coil of rope. Taking Samos by the arm, he hurried him to the mast. Then he wrapped the rope around both of them and bound them to the wood.

The roar of the water was deafening, the headlong rush of the ship terrifying. The wind clutched at them, as if trying to pluck them from the deck.

Then they were part of the waterspout. The ship, snatched from the surface of the sea, swirled up and up, riding the dark column as helplessly as a leaf on the wind. Around and around they spun. Higher and higher they rose, sometimes on the surface of the spout, sometimes pulled into it. Water drenched them. At times they couldn’t breathe.