“Hind legs?” He tried to remember. “There’s no hind legs. Just a big tail-ending in two snakes.”

“Who gave you the worst scare, him or the shark?”

“The monster! “ came the unhesitating answer. “For all it saved my life.”

“The ‘sea-devil’,” said an Indian.

“The sea-god that helps the poor,” an old Indian corrected him.

By this time the news had reached the farthest boats and more and more divers were coming on board, eager for the story.

The man was made to repeat his story over and over again. As he did so he recalled more details. It now appeared that the monster breathed fire and wriggled its ears, had sabre-like teeth, large fins and a tail like a rudder.

White-trousered and sombreroed Pedro Zurita shuffled back and forth in the background, his bare feet thrust into a pair of sandals, taking note of what was being said.

The more the diver recovered the use of his tongue the more Pedro became convinced that it was all a shark-scared diver’s imagination. And yet it can’t be only that, he thought. Somebody did slit that shark’s side open-with all that pinkish water in the bay. The Indian’s lying but there’s obviously more to it than meets the eyes. Rum business, dammit, he thought.

At that moment Zurita’s train of thought was cut short by the blow of a horn coming from the direction of the reefs.

It had the effect of a thunderbolt. Tongues were paralyzed. Faces turned ashen-grey. Horror-stricken eyes stared in the direction of the reefs.

Near the reefs a family of dolphins were frisking in the water. One of the dolphins gave a loud snort as if in response to the horn summons, made for the reefs and was soon lost to sight behind them. After a few tense moments it reappeared. Riding it was the oddest creature, in fact, the very “sea-devil” just described by (he diver. The monster had the body and head of a man, with a pair of immense eyes that blazed in the sun like a car’s headlights; silvery-blue skin and dark-green forelegs, long-fingered and webbed.