"Bloody Franky come back to find us," he growled, through chattering teeth. They watched in horror as the galleon bore down on them, growing larger with each second until she seemed to blot out all the stars and they could hear the voices of the men on her deck.
"Do you see anything there, Master Daniel?" That was Sir Francis's hail.
"Nothing, Captain," Big Daniel's voice boomed from the bows. Looking down onto the black, turbulent water it would be nigh on impossible to make out the dark wood of the cask or the two heads bobbing beside it.
They were hit by the bow wave the galleon threw up as she passed and were left twisting and bobbing in her wake as her stern lantern receded into the darkness.
Twice more during the night they saw its glimmer, but each time the ship passed further from them. Many hours later, as the dawn light strengthened, they looked with trepidation for Resolution, but she was nowhere in sight. She must have given them up for drowned and headed off on her original course. Stupefied with cold and fatigue, they hung on to their precarious handhold.
"There's the land," Sam whispered, as a swell lifted them high, and they could make out the dark shoreline of Africa. "It's so close you could swim to it easy."
John Tate made no reply but stared at him sullenly through eyes scalded red and swollen.
"It's your best chance. Strong young fellow like you. Don't worry about me." Sam's voice was rough with salt. "You'll not get rid of me that easy, Sam Bowles," John grated, and Sam fell silent again, husbanding his strength, for the cold had sapped him almost to his limit. The sun rose higher and they felt it on their heads, first as a gentle warmth that gave them new strength and then like the flames of an open furnace that seared their skin and dazzled and blinded them with its reflection off the sea around them.
The sun climbed higher, but the land came no closer. the current bore them inexorably parallel to the rocky headlands and white beaches. Idly Sam noticed a patch of cloud shadow that passed close by them, moving darkly across the surface of the water. Then the shadow turned and came back, moving against the wind, and Sam stirred and lifted his head. There was no cloud in the aching blue vault of the sky to cast such a shadow. Sam looked down again and concentrated his full attention on that dark presence on the sea. A swell lifted the cask so high that he could look down upon it.
"Sweet Jesus!" he croaked, through cracked salt-seared lips. The water was as clear as a glass of gin, and he had seen a great dappled shape move beneath, the dark zebra stripes upon its back. He screamed.
John Tate lifted his head. "What is it? The sun's got you, Sam Bowles." He stared into Sam's wild eyes, then turned his head slowly to follow their gaze. Both men saw the massive forked tail swing ponderously from side to side, driving the long body forward. It was coming up towards the surface and the tip of the tall dorsal fin broke through, only to the length of a man's finger, the rest still hidden deep beneath.
Shark! "John Tate hissed. "Tiger!" He kicked frantically, trying to turn the cask to interpose Sam between himself and the creature.
"Stay still," Sam snarled. "He's like a cat. If you move he'll come for you."
They could see its eye, small for such girth and length of body. It stared at them implacably as it began the next circle. Round it went, and round again, each circle narrower, with the cask at its centre.
"Bastard's hunting us like a stoat after a partridge."
"Shut your mouth. Don't move," Sam moaned, but he could no longer control his terror. His sphincter loosened, and he felt the fetid warm rush under his petticoats as involuntarily his bowels emptied. Immediately the creature's movements became more excited and its tail beat to a faster rhythm as it tasted his excrement. The dorsal fin rose to its full height above the surface, as long and curved as the blade of a harvester's scythe.
The shark's tail beat the surface white and foamy as it drove forward until its snout crashed into the side of the cask. Sam watched in terror as a miraculous transformation came over the sleek head. The upper lip bulged outwards as the wide jaws gaped. The ranks of fangs were thrust forward, fanning open, and clashed against the side of the wooden cask.
Both men panicked and scrabbled at their damaged raft, trying to lift their lower bodies clear of the water. They were screaming incoherently, clawing wildly at the barrel staves and at each other.
The shark backed off and started another of those terrible circles. Beneath the staring eye the mouth was a grinning crescent. Now the thrashing legs of the struggling men gave it a new focus, and it surged in again, its broad back thrusting aside the waters.
John Tate's shriek was cut off abruptly, but his mouth was still wide open, so that Sam looked down his pink gulping throat. No sound came from it but a soft hiss of expelled breath. Then he was jerked beneath the surface. His left wrist was still twisted into the loop of line and, as he was pulled under, the cask bobbed and ducked like a cork.
"Leave go! Sam howled as he was thrown around, the rope biting deep into his own wrist. Suddenly the cask flew to the surface, John Tate's wrist still twisted into the hight of line. A dark roseate cloud spread to disco lour the surface around them.
Then John's head broke out. He made a harsh, cawing sound, and his bloodstained spittle sprayed into Sam's eyes. His face was icy white as his life's blood drained from him. The shark came surging back and, beneath the surface, latched onto John's lower body, worrying and shaking him so that the damaged cask was again pulled under. As it shot once more to the surface, Sam sucked in a breath, and tugged at John's wrist. "Get away!" he screamed at both man and shark. "Get away from me." With the strength of a madman, he pulled the loop free and he kicked at the other man's chest, pushing him clear, screaming all the while" "Get away!"
John Tate did not resist. His eyes were still wide open but although his lips writhed, no sound came from them. "Below the surface his body had been bitten away below the waist, and his blood turned the waters dark red. The shark seized him once again, then swam off, gulping down lumps of John Tate's flesh.