CHAPTER X
A year passed. In the harbour of Cristobal, at the northern end of the locks, waiting for the day to open the great steel jaws that dammed the Pacific from the Atlantic, the Katrina pulled at her anchor chain in the gentle swell. A few stars, liquid bright, hung in the tropical sky. A little puff of wind coming occasionally from the south carried the smell of the jungle to the ship. The crew was awakening.
A man with a bucket on a rope went to the rail and hauled up a brimming pail from the warm sea. He splashed his face and hands into it. Then he poured it back and repeated the act of dipping up water.
"Hey!" he said.
Another man joined him. "Here. Swab off your sweat. Look yonder."
The dorsal fin of a shark rippled momentarily on the surface and dipped beneath
