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shouted, and let go of his wrist. I plunged with Midgely into the sea, bobbed up on the crest of a wave, and barely managed to grab the ladder as the ship went sailing past. I held on to the last inch of rope as it dragged us through the water.
    Boggis was a big and clumsy fellow. He moved as slowlyas treacle. But neither Penny nor Weedle appeared again to help him, and I dangled there as he struggled on. The waves kept passing, so that the water covered me now to my knees, and now as high as my chest. The shark was coming faster, a plume of spray rising round its fin.

five

A MAN IN A CAPE
    Boggis climbed the ladder and hooked an arm across the railing of the ship. He reached down and bellowed, “Take my hand.” But I couldn’t let go of the ladder and still hold on to Midgely.
    The ship rolled slowly. The water fell away along its planks, baring my waist, baring my knees. The shark came twisting through the sea, thrashing with its tail, and I drew up my feet just in time. I heard the snap of its jaws. I felt a scraping against my legs as it turned for another attack.
    The ship was already rolling us deeper, the sea slurping over barnacles and sponges. Boggis tumbled over the rail and reappeared a moment later, lying across it on his belly. He grabbed the ladder with both hands and hauled it up, rungby rung, the ladder and me and Midgely too. His muscles bulged, his eyes popped wide, but he hoisted away. As my fingers met the rail, Walter Weedle reached out and hauled me to the deck.
    We all lay in a heap, with Boggis more exhausted than I’d ever seen him. He gasped for breath.
    There was not a sailor in sight, nor any sign of a crew at all. It was an eerie thing to lie on that open deck, below the sails and the towering masts. My father’s ship had been forever busy, like a small town sailing the sea, but here was only the sway of ropes and the flap of canvas, and the faint tolling of a bell that came in time with the ship’s steady roll. From empty davits—where a boat had hung—now dangled useless ropes.
    “It’s creepy, ain’t it?” said Weedle. “Where’s the captain? Where’s the crew?”
    He was frightened, I could see. He had hauled me aboard for his own comfort, not for my safety, but still I thanked him for it. The word rather stuck in my throat, and when I blurted it out he didn’t answer. He was peering up toward the high deck at the stern.
    “I think there’s a fellow up there,” he said. “I think I seen him moving.”
    We heard again the toll of the bell. But now it came in three quick strokes, as though a hand were ringing the time.
    “Someone go and look,” said Penny.
    We all went together, in a cluster, with Midgely stumbling behind me. After the wild pitching of our steamboat, the slow roll of a solid ship threw us off balance. We went crossways up and down the deck, reaching out for support.
    In the center was the high-sided hatch to the hold. We rested there, leaning against it, none of us too eager to see who was steering this ghostly ship. Boggis sat atop the hatch, then quickly leapt off as though it were fiery hot.
    “There’s something inside there!” he said. “Listen to the breathing.”
    I could hear it plainly when I put my ear to the wood. A murmuring sort of sound came in waves and rushes. It
did
sound like breathing. But it reminded me more of another time and place.
    Boggis loosened the lashings. He kicked the iron dogs from their catches, then put his back to the hatch cover and raised it half an inch.
    The sound grew louder. It took me back to the cannibal islands, to a dark and empty hut. I had heard the same thing there, only to come face to face with a clutch of shrunken heads hanging above a fire. Now I knew exactly what would come rushing from the hold, but it was too late to warn Boggis.
    Through the crack he’d made, up from below and past his hands, came hundreds and thousands of flies. They came in a solid mass, overwhelming us in a cloud of wings and