The white shark kept pace with him, some twelve feet below, looking
up at him and considering which portion of this strange hairy beast
might prove most succulent for an appetizer. At last it decided upon
a leg. It lifted and turned in the water, opening its terrible mouth
with row behind row of huge razor-sharp teeth that could tear a man in
two with one snap. Godwin fortunately had just thrust his head under
the surface as he brought an arm over and down, and saw the quick flash
of the white belly below him. Automatically he contracted his whole
body, hauling his legs up and then propelling himself forward with a
tremendous flailing of his long arms. The shark missed its snap.
Godwin glanced at the ship and saw it was too far off for him to gain
its side before the huge fish had had several more tries at him. The
wind had sprung up, too, and the vessel was making away from him at a
good clip. Cursing, he turned in the water and shot down through its
depths, searching for the man-eater.
A flicker of white showed off to his left; he twisted, waited, holding
his breath and thanking heaven for the capacious lungs of the gorilla.
It came straight at him, revolving to bring its underslung mouth into
play. He maneuvered a foot to one side, and hurled himself upon it,
catching it by a pectoral fin. With every ounce of power the gorilla's
body could command, he tore at the fin. It ripped from the shark's
side, sluggishly, loosing a slow torrent of blood into the dark waters.
* * * * *
The man-eater writhed around toward him. He caught the jaws, upper and
lower, with both hands, and wrenched them apart. Even the terrible
potency of the shark's mouth could not withstand the strength of the
gorilla and the whole-hearted will to win of Godwin of England. The
hinges cracked and the lower jaw hung useless.
Godwin backed off, shoving himself through the encumbering waters, even
his spacious lungs straining by now for air; but before he surfaced he
meant to finish this brute. He hauled out the iron broadsword from its
sheath, advanced once more toward the furiously thrashing white shark,
and thrust half a dozen times. Then he swam upward, leaving behind
him an ever-expanding blotch of blood and a quivering, twitching,
forty-foot piece of dead meat.
The ship was far away. He sheathed the sword and set out to overhaul
her where she sailed serenely, dark sail spread, with her cargo of
obscene death.
"Even Godwin in his proper form could never have caught her," he
thought to himself. "Heraj's baneful magic will win the day for England
yet!"
Slowly he crept up on the ship. At last he reached out a paw and
touched the slimy wooden hull. He gave a little quiet laugh. Now!
Dripping salt water, he hauled himself up the side. Cautiously his
blunt head in its steel helmet poked over the bulwarks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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