The seawater in a backlash of current smashed up against the cliffside wall with a force that would ground anything it caught to pieces. The Tasa'Anna sailed ferociously down the narrow channel at full speed. What was keeping the ship from being pushed sideways against the cliff and destroyed?

Captain Jansa's jaw fell open as he saw a bluish whale's head far larger than the ones carrying their ship rise out of the sea on the cliffside of the ship. It was acting as a buffer for the Tasa'Anna to keep it away from the cliff rocks at its own expense!

In horror Captain Jansa looked at what lay ahead of the Tasa'Anna. The narrow channel took a sharp turn that no ship under full sail could ever have made. To make matters worse the cliff overhung the channel at that point. The overhanging cliff would rip every main mast clear off the ship!

The fleet watched in horrified fascination as the flagship neared the sharp curve and the low overhang. Water began to boil up near an up thrust of one of the bay's rocky teeth. A great rubbery bulk rose out of the sea and hauled itself up the rocky breaker opposite of the sharp curve. It was a giant squid!

It was easily over half the size of the flagship itself. Some of its tentacles encircled the rocky pier it clung to. As the Tasa'Anna entered the beginning of the curve the remaining tentacles and whips of the great sea monster shot out and fastened to the upper masts of the ship and began to pull the Tasa'Anna over onto its side.

The ship, under the strain of the pulling tentacles, tacked over until the side railing of the ship almost dipped under the foamy waves of the sea. The heeled over masts cleared the cliff overhang even as the Tasa'Anna swung around the sharp curve pivoted by the straining squid that held doggedly onto it. The Tasa'Anna shot out into the clear waters of the bay righting itself as the squid let go of it, even as a second great blue whale rose to bolster the ship's speed toward the beach.

Sailors and soldiers alike jumped up and down in amazed excitement.

"Onward men!" Cried Captain Jansa at the top of his lungs, as he drew his saber and gestured toward the fast approaching sands of the beach.

"Of a truth our God is the Master of the universe and all creation! Onward for He is with us this day!"

The giant bulk of the squid slid off its rocky pier back into the sea to soon disappear beneath the stirred up waters of the channel. The whales bore their cargoes steadfastly toward the beach only letting them go at the last moment before they nearly beached themselves on the sandy shore.

Advertisement..



Most Popular