As the long night wore on, something strange and frightening was happening in the seas around Fort Sinister.
The rain poured down without stopping, and for several days the heated swimming baths of the Fat Consul had been overflowing, sending a stream of hot water pouring down the hillside and into the ocean. And this warm current was attracting some unwelcome visitors... SHARKWORMS.
From far and wide the Sharkworms came. Terrible creatures half out of nightmares, but only too true, I'm afraid, propelled not only by the tremendous force of a shark-like tail, but also by thick, muscly alligator legs that poured through the water, sending them forward at extraordinary speeds.
They were swimming toward the Roman Fortress, not just in ones and twos but in tens of thousands, and when the sun came up on the morning before Saturn's day Saturday there was a boiling mass 163 of black fins with jagged edges, circling like vultures around the island of Fort Sinister.
It was as if they were waiting for something. Sharkworms are ancient animals, and their brains were formed in who knows what dark and terrible furnace. They knew not why they waited, only that they smelled warm water, and blood-yet-to-be-spilled, and guts-in-the-offing, and trouble-about-to-happen.
And so they waited, patiently and greedily, waiting and waiting and waiting for some awful event to unfold in the future that would bring them their supper.
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