Johnson again made his abrupt motion demanding silence. Now both men heard the hissing sound, more distinct and persistent. It was somehow menacing, the way the clicking of a rattlesnake’s coils is chilling even to someone who does not know the threat.

“What the hell is that?” Craig whispered.

“Not any damn mouse I ever heard of,” the captain observed sharply.

The young man took a step toward the unusual sound. “Let’s go see.”

“Get that thing off the tree first,” Johnson directed.

It wasn’t easy. For all his strength and agility, Soaras had to make several attempts before he caught a branch and could swing himself up. He stretched and reached for the white object.

“God Almighty!” he cried.

“What did you find?”

“Catch this!”

One of his dog Sharky’s ears dropped into the stunned hands of Elias Johnson.

At the same moment, a huge rat, almost two feet long, sprang with a blood-­curdling squeal from a nearby leaf mound.

Craig Soaras yelled, “Up anchor!” and tumbled from the tree. “Let’s get out of here!”

But Elias Johnson was mesmerized by the rat’s arabesque. It whirled and contorted its body in the air again and again, and neither man saw the large insect form that dropped like a shadow from the rat’s flank, to scuttle away into the leaves.

Weaving drunkenly on the ground, the rat spied the men. Its eyes malevolently took them in as its tormenters. The animal lowered itself to spring at Elias Johnson’s throat. Its lips were drawn back in a venomous snarl, its dripping fangs livid for human flesh.

Craig jumped in front of Johnson, sweeping up a branch to use as a club. The rat launched itself at him. Craig brought the club back like a bat and swung with all his muscled might. He caught the leaping rat squarely on the head. The men heard the animal’s skull splinter, its back break. The rat, with an expression of almost human amazement, went sailing away through the air, a grotesque home run for Craig Soaras.

When the animal fell, its legs still clawing the air, the whole pile of leaves heaved.

Craig yelled at Johnson urgently, “There’s more of them in there!” He pulled the old man around unceremoniously, and they took off.

Had they looked back, they would have seen the rat’s broken body suddenly disappear, yanked down into the leaves by something waiting beneath, something invisible but a force of power. A force that hissed hungrily over the rat’s body, letting the promise of the other prey go this time.

Captain Elias Johnson cursed to himself as he ran alongside Craig Soaras. So it was rats had got Sharky!