Chapter Three
Immediately each officer on board the bridge began to rapidly explain the day's events to the stewardess and demanded her opinion on what it was.
"Yer not familiar wit' Welsh legends, are ye?" Mayda asked.
"I can't say that any of us are," Joseph admitted.
"It's a Water Leaper! I had heard of them but I've never seen one before."
"What does it want? Is it trying to mate with something?"
"There's that scream again," Mayda said and shook her head. "It preys on livestock and Welsh fishermen."
"It's a very confused water leaper then! We don't have any live stock on board nor do we have any Welsh fishermen! The closest we have is Harry!"
James was half listening to the conversation as he looked out the window. "Uh, boys, and lady, is that water leaper holding what I think it is?"
Herbert glanced out the window as well, "It looks like a book…It says 'The Human Menu'."
"Don't tell me we're going to have to sacrifice Harry to this thing! Come on, last week the captain was invited to dance naked around that fairy ring with that wealthy lady Miss Ruby!" Charles shrieked.
The next scream did not come from the Captain but from the other deck officers.
"No! That mental image will not take root in my mind!" Joseph wailed.
"Oh, is Miss Ruby still doin' that?" Mayda innocently asked.
"Why, did you participate?" Charles asked.
"Maybe. Did the captain?"
"Maybe," Captain Smith's voice calmly replied.
"Oh dear," Mayda said when each of the deck officers on the bridge screamed again.
"What's all bloody the screaming about?" Fifth Officer Harold Lowe demanded. "I was trying to sleep!"
"Don't ask unless you want to be mentally tortured forever!" James told him.
"The stewards were playing strip poker again?"
"What? No!"
"Then what?"
"The captain…"
"Ooooooooooh. I've heard the story."
"And…?"
"I try not to think about it."
Charles felt he had enough of this endless conversation that was going nowhere. Seizing Harold by the arm he dragged him to the window. "What do you think of that?"
Harold and the water leaper made eye contact. Immediately the water leaper's pupils grew wide before it launched itself at the window. It was thwarted by the glass but that did not stop it as it leapt again and again at the glass.
A high pitched cry tore itself from Harold's throat followed by the words "Kill it! Kill the bloody thing! Kill it!"
