“What’s up?”

His self-assured voice and deliberate movements calmed the divers.

They spoke all at once.

Baltasar raised a hand to silence them.

“We’ve heard him-the ‘sea-devil’,” he said when order was termporarily restored.

“You dreamt it,” Pedro said sleepily.

“We didn’t. We all heard his horn,” shouted the divers.

Again Baltasar waved them to silence.

“I heard the horn myself. That was him all right. There’s nobody at sea can blow a horn like that. We ought to be getting away from here, and lose no time about it.”

“Old wives’ tales,” said Pedro Zurita. He didn’t like the idea of sailing from the pearling ground with all those oysters on board, stinking and still not ready for opening. But it was like running his head against a stone wall, trying to talk the divers into staying. They shouted discordantly, flung their arms about and threatened to abandon the schooner and walk to Buenos Aires if Zurita didn’t weigh anchor.

“Curse you and the ‘sea-devil’,” he said finally. “You win. Well weigh anchor at dawn.” And grumbling and cursing he went below.

He was no longer sleepy. Lighting the lamp he got a cigar going and began pacing up and down his small cabin. His thoughts turned to the mysterious creature that had been haunting their part of the estuary for some time now, striking terror into the fishermen and seaside villagers.

Sailors and fishermen would tell tales about it, with many a timid glance over the shoulder, as if afraid that the monster might surprise them even as they spoke about it.