"What do you make of the shoreline?" demanded Scaggs.
"Looks like we're coming to a coral reef surrounding a lagoon."
Scaggs turned to Dorsett and Fletcher. "If we can't make entry through a channel, the breakers will pile us up on the reef."
Thirty minutes later, the sailor on the mast called out. "I see a blue-water passage through the outer reef two hundred yards off to starboard."
"Rig a rudder!" Scaggs ordered his few crewmen. "Quickly!" Then he turned to the convicts. "Every man and woman who has the brawn, grab a plank and paddle for your life."
A dreadful fear appeared with the crashing of breakers onto the outer reef. The waves struck and burst in an explosion of pure white foam. The boom of water crashing into coral came like the thunder of cannon. The waves grew to a mountainous height as the seafloor rose when they neared land. Terror replaced desperation as the occupants of the raft envisioned the destruction that would occur if they were dashed against the reef by the crushing force of the breakers.
Scaggs took the jury-rigged tiller under one arm and steered toward the channel as his sailors worked the tattered sail. The convicts, looking like ragged scarecrows, paddled ineffectually. Their feeble efforts did very little to propel the raft. Only with everyone paddling on the same side at the same time, as Scaggs ordered, could they assist him in steering for the channel.
The raft was overtaken by a wall of churning froth that swept it forward at a terrible speed. For one brief moment it was elevated on the crest, the next it plunged into the trough. Two of the male convicts were swept into the blue-green turbulence and never seen again. The seaworn raft was breaking up. The ropes, chafed and stretched by the constant rolling of the sea, began to fray and part. The framework of masts that supported the deck planking twisted and began splitting. The raft groaned when inundated by the following wave. To Dorsett, the immovable coral reef looked close enough to reach out and touch.
And then they were swept into the channel between the jagged edges of the reef. The surge carried them through, the raft spinning around, pieces of it whirling into the sun-sparkled sea like a Roman candle. As the main frame of the raft disintegrated around them, the survivors were thrown into the water.
Once past the barrier reef the blue, contorted sea became as gentle as a mountain lake and turned a bright turquoise. Dorsett came up choking, one arm locked around Betsy's waist.
"Can you swim?" he coughed.
She shook her head violently, sputtering out the seawater she'd swallowed. "Not a stroke."
He pulled her along as he swam toward one of the raft's masts, which was floating less than ten feet away. He soon reached it and draped Betsy's arms over the curved surface. He hung on beside her, gasping for breath, heart pounding, his weakened body exhausted from the exertion of the last hour.
After taking a minute or two to recover, Dorsett looked about the floating wreckage and took count.
Scaggs and two of his sailors were a short distance away and still among the living, climbing aboard a small section of planking that was miraculously still tied together. Already they were ripping off boards to use as paddies. Of the convicts, he spotted two men and the woman floating in the water, clinging to various bits and pieces of what remained of the raft of the Gladiator.
Dorsett turned and looked toward the shore. A beautiful white sandy beach beckoned less than a quarter of a mile away. Then he heard a nearby shout.
"You and Betsy hang on," Scaggs hailed him. "We'll pick you and the others up and then work toward shore."
Dorsett waved in reply and gave Betsy a kiss on the forehead. "Mind you don't let me down now, old girl. We'll be walking dry land in half an hour--"
He broke off in sudden panic, his joy short lived.
The tall fin of a great white shark was circling the wreckage in search of new prey. The Executioner had followed them into the lagoon.
It wasn't fair, Dorsett screamed inside his mind. To have endured suffering beyond imagination only to have salvation snatched from their fingertips by the jaws of death was a foul injustice. Few were the men and women to have been more unfortunate. He clutched Betsy tightly in his arms and watched with morbid terror as the fin stopped circling, headed in their direction and slowly slipped beneath the surface.
His heart froze as he waited helplessly for the jagged teeth to snap shut on his body.
Then, without warning, the second miracle occurred.
The calm waters of the lagoon under them abruptly turned into a boiling cauldron. Then a great fountainlike gush burst into the air, followed by the great white shark. The murderous beast thrashed about wildly, its awesome jaws snapping like a vicious dog's at a huge sea serpent that was coiled around it.