White Shark [antikvár]

1 THE water in the estuary had been still for hours, as still as a sheet of black glass, for there was no wind to Stir it. Then suddenly, as if violated by a great beast rising from the depths, the water bulged, heaved up, threatening to explode. At first, the man watching from the hillside dismissed the sight as yet another illusion caused by his fatigue and the flickering light from the cloud-shrouded moon. But as he stared, the bulge grew and grew and finally burst, pierced by a monstrous head, barely visible, black on black, distinguishable from the water around it only by the gleaming droplets shed from its sleek skin. More of the leviathan broke through—a pointed snout, a smooth cylindrical body—and then silently it settled back and floated motionless on the silky surface, waiting, waiting for the man. From the darkness a light flashed three times: short, long, long; dot, dash, dash—the international Morse