FIGHT WITH A DEVIL-FISH.

Northland Age, Volume V, Issue 23, 1 February 1909, Page 2

FIGHT WITH A DEVIL-FISH.

From Victor Hugo's Celebrated Novel) "The Toilers of the Sea.’* ! Suddenly he felt himself seized by the arm. A strange, indescribable horror thrilled through him. Some living thing, thin, rough, flat, cold, slimy, had twisted itself round his naked arm, in the dark depth below. It crept upward towards his chest. Its pressure was ike a tightening cord, its steady persistence like that of a screw. In less than a moment some mysterious ipiral form had passed round his wrist and elbow, and had reached lis shoulder. A sharp point penerated beneath the armpit. Gilliatt recoiled ; but he had icurcelv power to move ! He was, is it were, nailed to the place. With his left hand, which was disengaged, ho seized his knife, which he still held M ween his teeth, and with that hand holding the knife, ho supported himself against the rocks, while lie made a desperate clTort to withdraw his arm. lie succeeded only in disturbing his ]>ersecutoi\ which wound itself still tighter. It was supple as leather, strong as steel, cold as night. A second form, sharp, elongated, ind narrow, issued out of the crevice like a tongue out of monstrous laws. Jt seemed to lick his naked *>ody. Then suddenly stretching out, it became longer and thinner as It crept over his skin and wound itlelf round him. At the same time a terrible sense of pain, comparable to nothing he had ever known, compelled all his muscles to contract. He felt upon his skin a number of flat rounded pionts. It seemed as if innumerable suckers had fastened to his flesh and were about to drink his blood. A third long undulating shape issued from the hole in the rock ; seemed to feel its way about his body ; lashed round his ribs like a ?ord, and fixed itself there. A-gonv when at its height is mute. Gilliatt uttered no cry. There was lutfieient light for him to sec the repulsive forms which Had entangled themselves about him. A fourth ligature, but this one swift as an arrow, darted towards his stomach, ind wound around him there. It was impossible to sever or tear iway the slimy bands which were twisted tightly round his body, and R-ere adhering by a number of points Each of the points was the focus of rightful and singular pangs. It vas as if numiierless small mouths were devouring him at the same time. A fifth long, slimy, riband-shaped itrip issued from the hole. It pas?ed over the others, and wound itielf tightly round his chest. The :ompression increased his sufferings. He could scarcely breathe. These living thongs were pointed it their extremities, but broadened ike a blade of a sword towards its ailt. All belonged evidently to the lame centre. They crept and glided shout him ; he felt the strange points of pressure, which seemed to lim like mouths, change their places* 'rom time to time. Suddenly a large, round, flattened, jlutinous mass issued from beneath :hc crevice. It was the centre ; the five thongs were attached to it like 3pokes to the nave of a wheel. On '.he opposite sido of this disgusting Hons ter appeared the commencement pf three other tentacles, the ends of which remained under the rock. In :he middle of this slimy mass appeared two eyes. The eyes were fixed on Gilliatt. He recognised the Devil Fish. The monster was the inhabitant of the grotto ; the terrible genie of the place. A kind of sombre demon of he water, All the splendours of the cavern •xisted for it alone. On the day of the previous month when Gilliatt had first penetrated into the grotto, the dark outline, vaguely i>erceived by him in the ripples of the secret waters, was this monster. It was here in its home. When entering for the second time into the cavern in pursuit of the crab, ho had observed the crevice in which he supposed that the crab had taken refuge, the "pieuvre" was there lying in wait for prey. Is it possible to imagine that sejret ambush ? No bird would brood, no egg would burst to life, no flower would lan to open, no breast to give milk, ao heart to Jove, no spirit to soar, inder the influence of that apparition of evtf w'atching with sinister patience in the dusk. Gilliatt had thrust his arm deep nto the opening ; the monsier had mapped at it. It held him fast, as the spider holds the fly. He was in the water up to his pelt; his naked feet clutching the ilippery roundness of the huge stones at the bottom ; his right arm bound and rendered powerless by the flat eoils of the long tentacles of the creature, and his body almost bidden under the folds and cross folds of this horrible bandage. Of the eight arms of the devil fish thrc« adhered to the rock, while five encircled Gilliatt. In this way. dinging to the granite on the one hand, and with the other to its human prey, it enchained him to the rock. Two hundred and fifty suckers were upon him, tormenting him with tgony and loathing. He was graspid by gigantic hands, the fingers of which were each nearly a yard long, and furnished inside with living ‘Blisters eating into the flesh. As wo have said, it is impossible to tear oneself from the folds of the ik*vil-fi,sh. The attempt ends only in firmer grasp. The monster clings with more determined forte. Its effort increases with that of its victim ; every struggle produces a tightening of its ligatures. Gilliatt had but one resource, his knife. His left hand only was free ; but the reader knows with what power he Could use it. It might have been said that he had two right hands. His open knife was in his hand. The antenna of the devil-fish cannot be cut ; it is a leathery substance impossible to divide with the *nife, it slips under the edge ; its position in attack also is such that ;o cut it would be to wound the victim's own flesh. The creature is formidable, but .here is a way of resisting it. The fishermen of Sark know this, as does yjv one who hns seen t hem execute

certain abrupt in tne sea. The porpoises know it also ; they have n way of biting the cuttle-fish which decapitates it. Hence the frequent sight on the sea of pen-fish, poulps, and cuttle-fish without heads The cephaloptera, in fact, is only vulnerable through the head. Gilliatt was not ignorant of this fact.

He had never seen a devil-fish of this size. His first encounter was with one of the larger species. Another would have been powerless with terror.

With the devil-fish, as with a furious hull, there is a certain momentin the conflict which must be seized. It is the instant when the bull lowers the neck ; it is the instant when the. devil-fish advances its head. The movement is rapid. He who losesi,that moment is destroyed. The things we have described occupied only a few moments. Gilliatt however, felt the increasing power of its innumerable suckers. The monster is cunning ; it tries first to stupify its prey. It seizes, and then pauses awhile. Gilliatt grasped his knife; the sucking increased. He looked at the monster, which seemed to look at him. Suddenly it loosened from the rock its sixth antenna, and darted it at him, seizing him by the left arm. At the same moment it advanced its head with a violent movement. In one second more its mouth would have fastened on his breast. Bleed-, ing in the side, ami with his twxr arms entangled, ho would have, been a dead man. But Gilliatt was watchful. He avoided the antenna, and at the moment when the monster darted forward to fasten on his breast, he struck it with the knife clenched in his left hand. There were two convulsions in opposite directions ; that of the devil-fish and that of its prey. The movement was rapid as a double flash of Hgktning. lie had plunged the blade of his knife into the flat slimy substance, and by a rapid movement, like the flourish of a whip in the air, describing a circle round the two eyes he wrenched the head off as a man would draw- a tooth. * The struggle was ended. The folds relaxed. The monster dropped away like the slow detaching of bands. The four hundred suckers, deprived of their sustaining power, dropped at once from the man and the rock. The mass sank to the bottom of the water. Breathless with the struggle, Gilliatt could perceive upon the stones at his feet two shapeless, slimy heaps, the head on one side, the remainder of the monster on the other. Fearing, nevertheless, some convulsive return of his agony, he ’recoiled to avoid the reach of the deadened tentacles. But the monster was quite dead. Gilliatt closed his knife.