Clad in knee-length breeches, wearing cloaks, the three men looked as if they had just stepped out of the 17th century. Two wore big, broad-brimmed hats, the third had a handkerchief wrapped around his head. He also had a wooden leg and he stalked across the surface of the sea with all the sureness he might have had with concrete under him. He carried a curved cutlass in one hand. The other two men were armed with swords, in scabbards. In addition, heavy, clumsy-looking pistols were thrust into sashes at their belts.
They looked like men out of a nightmare—or like pirates out of the olden days; swash-buckling buccaneers who had somehow managed to survive their proper period in history and to live into the 20th century.
"Ghosts!" Mercedes screamed. "Devils! They've come up out of hell because of our sins!" She wrapped her arms around Parker's neck. "Save me, Beel, save me!"
Parker caught her wrists, jerked her arms loose from his neck, and rose quickly to his feet. He hoped fervidly that his eyes had been deceiving him and that standing up would cause this mirage to disappear.
His eyes continued to deceive him. The three men did not disappear. They continued to walk across the water toward the raft. They moved with the sureness of men who know where they are going.
Behind them, suddenly outlined against the fat sun that was wallowing in the sea, rocky, grim, and forbidding, the mysterious island was now visible. It had reappeared. They had found it.
Three men coming from it had found them.
The shark found the three men.
Parker saw the triangular fin cut through the water toward them. Like a speed boat taking off on a race, the fin gathered momentum.
The three men saw it coming.