After the last pearl was extracted the largest shells were brought on board the Jellyfish. Zurita wasn’t one to let anything go to waste. He sold the shells to a factory where they made buttons and studs out of them.

Baltasar was asleep. The cigar had slipped from between his fingers. His chin rested on his chest.

A sound from far out at sea broke in on his sleep. Then it came nearer. Baltasar opened his eyes. What seemed to him the blast of a horn sounded again, followed by the cheerful ring of a young voice, repeated after an interval in a higher pitch.

The blast of the horn bore no resemblance to the harsh blare of ship’s siren, nor the cheerful voice to the cries of a man, fallen overboard. In fact it didn’t sound like anything Baltasar could think of. He rose. His sleep seemed blown away by a breeze. He went up to the rail and peered into darkness. His eye and ear detected nothing. Baltasar prodded with his foot a sleeping Indian into wakefulness.

“I heard a cry. That must be him,” he told the diver softly.

“I can’t hear a thing,” the Gurona Indian, now up on his knees and listening, said as softly. Suddenly the horn and voice pierced the heavy silence again.

The Gurona shrank as from a whip lash.

“Yes, that’s him,” he said through his clattering teeth.

Other divers were waking up. They crawled towards the blotch of lantern light as though seeking in the yellowish beam protection from dreadful darkness. There they squatted, huddling together and straining their ears. The horn and voice came from far off again and was heard no more.

“That’s him-the ‘sea-devil’,” the divers were whispering.

“We ought to be clearing out of here.”

“A shark’s a kitten compared to him! “

“Let’s speak to the boss.”

There was a patter of bare feet. Yawning and scratching a hairy chest Pedro Zurita came on deck. A pair of canvas trousers was all he had on; a revolver holster dangled from a broad leather belt. Zurita approached the divers. The lantern light revealed a swarthy face, crumpled with sleep, curls of thick hair escaping onto the forehead, black eyebrows, a pointed moustache and greying goatee.