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PROLOGUE

The lookout in the crow’s nest of the HMS Avenger had been the first to spot hie off the port bow They sent a boat out and discovered he had lashed hie section of what had once been the mainmast of a ship He was half dead from thirst and badly burned, both by fire and by the sun His lips were cracked and parched and his skin, where it had not been blackened by fla with infection They feared they would lose him Admiral Lord Hood, anxious to learn the fate of whichever ship it was the poor devil had coeon to call hiain the power of speech No such summons proved necessary The entire ship’s co his rescue, the an to scream

They had ed to calm him down somewhat by the ti on the surgeon’s table, and for all that he was little more than skin and bones, it took two ainst the wildly, while Dr Graves attempted to administer some laudanum

“Belay that!” Hood said fir his voice “The ed”

Soh the shipwreck victiainst the two sailors His eyes becaaze steadily and nodded reassuringly

“You’re safe, er, bound for Bristol”

“Thank God,” the hty God!”

“What happened to your ship?” Hood said gently

“Destroyed,” thehis eyes His chest rose and fell unevenly as he breathed laboriously “It was the beast,” he said, with a shiver

Hood frowned “The Beast? I know of no such ship”

“A sea beast!” said the aze of a lunatic “The Covenant was destroyed by a monster from the depths!”

“Monster?” Hood said, glancing at the doctor “What monster?”

“Perhaps he means a whale, Your Lordship,” said Dr Graves