24 The bay ope’s wide its jaws and swallows the ship. Its face distorts in an ecstasy of chewing. It frowns, then smiles, then frowns again, then, having apparently chewed the ship up, once finished with it, the bay falls silent and still once more, with an innocent expression on its face. But it is lying in wait for its next prey. After crossing almost the whole of southern Africa, the great Orange River meets the Atlantic at a smallish cove, and it is here that the Crystal Key dropped anchor. Now it is the swallowed vessel’s turn to flex its digestive muscles. Like a swallowed fish which continues to push any small fry swimming towards it into its belly, the vessel in the bay eats and drinks. All evening and all morning, small lifeboats filled the leviathan innards of the vessel with

