On deck, voices broke into panic. “Get the coastguard—now!” the captain barked, fumbling with the radio. Crew members leaned dangerously over the railing, straining for a glimpse of bubbles or flippers. The sea gave nothing back, only the haunting afterimage of the whale’s massive jaws closing around their friend and leader.
Rumors leapt instantly from lips to static. “He’s swallowed whole!” one diver cried, already envisioning newspaper headlines. Others denied it, shouting for calm, insisting whales rarely ever attacked humans. But denial balked against what they had seen. Rational or not, to their eyes, Nathaniel had been taken alive into an abyss.