style="font-size:15px;"> "I don't know!" Billy answered, in a gasp. "I thinks so."
Bobby dropped the oars and stepped to the bow of the punt. The boat lost way and came to a stop within twenty feet of the squid. Still there was no sign of life.
The boys stared at the great, still body, lying quiet in the gathering dusk and haze. Neither seemed to feel the slight trembling of the boat that might have warned them. Not a word was spoken until Billy, in a whisper, directed Bobby to pull the boat a few feet nearer.
"But we're movin' already," he added, in a puzzled way.
The boat was very slowly approaching the squid. The motion was hardly perceptible, but it was real.
"'Tis queer!" said Bobby.
He turned to take up the oars. What he saw lying over the port gunwale of the boat made him gasp, grip Billy's wrist and utter a scream of terror!
"We're cotched!"
The squid had fastened one of its tentacles to the punt. The other was poised above the stern, ready to fall and fix its suckers. The onward movement of the punt was explained.
Billy knew the danger, but he was not so terrified as to be incapable of action. He was about to spring to the stem to strike off the tentacle that already lay over the gunwale; but as he looked down to choose his step he saw that one of the eight powerful arms was slowly creeping over the starboard bow.
He struck at that arm with all his might, missed, wrenched the axe from the gunwale, and struck true. The mutilated arm was withdrawn. Billy leaped to the stern, vaguely conscious in passing that another arm was creeping from the water. He severed the first tentacle with one blow. When he turned to strike the second it had disappeared; so, too, had the second arm. The boat seemed to be free, but it was still within grasp.
In the meantime the squid had awakened to furious activity. It was lashing the water with arms and tail, angrily snapping its great beak and ejecting streams of black water from its siphon-tube. The water was violently agitated and covered with a black froth.
In this the creature manifested fear and distress. Had it not been aground it would have backed swiftly into the deep water of the basin. But, as if finding itself at bay, it lifted its uninjured tentacle high above the boat. Billy made ready to strike.
By this time Bobby had mastered his terror. While Billy stood with uplifted axe, his eyes fixed on the waving tentacle overhead, Billy heaved mightily on the oars. The boat slowly drew away from that highly dangerous neighbourhood. In a moment it was beyond reach of the arms, but still, apparently, within reach of the tentacle. The tentacle was withdrawn a short distance; then like a flash it shot towards the boat, writhing as it came.
Billy struck blindly – and struck nothing. The tentacle had fallen short. The boat was out of danger!
But still Billy Topsail was determined to have the body of the squid. Notwithstanding Bobby's pleading and protestation, he would not abandon his purpose. He was only the more grimly bent on achieving it. Bobby would not hear of again approaching nearer than the boat then floated, nor did Billy think it advisable. But it occurred to Bobby that they might land, and approach the squid from behind. If they could draw near enough, he said, they could cast the grapnel on the squid's back, and moor it to a tree ashore.
"Sure," he said, excitedly, "you can pick up a squid from behind, and it can't touch you with its arms! It won't be able to see us, and it won't be able to reach us."
So they landed. Billy carried the grapnel, which was attached to twelve fathoms of line. It had six prongs, and each prong was barbed.
A low cliff at the edge of the tickle favoured the plan. The squid lay below, and some twenty feet out from the rock. It was merely a question of whether or not Billy was strong enough to throw the grapnel so far. They tied the end of the line to a stout shrub. Billy cast the grapnel, and it was a strong, true cast. The iron fell fair on the squid's back. It was a capture.
"That means a new punt for me," said Billy, quietly. "The tide'll not carry that devil-fish away."
"And now," Bobby pleaded, "leave us make haste home, for 'tis growin' wonderful dark – and – and there might be another somewhere."
So that is how one of the largest specimens of Architeuthis princeps– enumerated in Prof. John Adam Wright's latest monograph on the cephalopods of North America as the "Chain Tickle specimen" – was captured. And that is how Billy Topsail fairly won a new punt; for when Doctor Marvey, the curator of the Public Museum at St. John's – who is deeply interested in the study of the giant squids – came to Ruddy Cove to make photographs and take measurements, in response to a message from Billy's father, he rewarded the lad.
CHAPTER V
On the Face of the Cliff: Wherein Billy Topsail Gets Lost in a Perilous Place and Sits Down to Recover His Composure
IN summer, when there chanced to be no fish, or when no bait was to be had, and the fish were not to be jigged, Billy Topsail had idle time, which he was not slow to improve for his own amusement. Often he wandered on the cliffs and heads near the harbour – not always for gulls' eggs: sometimes for sheer love of the sky and space and sunlit air. Once, being bound for Breakheart Head, to watch the waves beat on the rocks below, he came across old Arch Butt.
"Wonderful sea outside," said the old fisherman. "Wonderful sea, Billy. 'Tis as big a tumble as ever I seed stirred up in a night."
"An' you'll not be takin' the punt t' the grounds?" Billy asked, in surprise.
"I'm not able, lad. 'Tis too much for any paddle-punt. Sure, the sea's breakin' right across the tickle. 'Tis so much as a man's life is worth t' try t' run out."
"Isn't you got a salmon net off Shag Rock?"
"I is that," Arch answered; "an' I'm wantin' bad t' get to it. 'Tis set off the point of Shag Rock, an' I'm thinkin' the sea will wreck it, for 'tis a wonderful tumble, indeed. 'Tis like I'll not be able t' get out afore to-morrow mornin', but I'm hopin' I will."
"An' I hopes you may, Skipper Arch," said Billy.
It was a fine wish, born of the fresh breeze and brightness of the day – a word let drop from a heart full of good feeling for all the world: nothing more. Yet within a few hours Billy Topsail's life hung upon the possibility of its fulfillment.
"Ay," he repeated, "I hopes you may."
Billy Topsail followed the rocky road to the Bath Tub, climbed the Lookout, and descended the rough declivity beyond to the edge of the sea, meanwhile lifted to a joyous mood by the sunlight and wind and cloudless sky. Indeed, he was not sorry he had come; the grim cliffs and the jagged masses of rock lying at their feet – the thunder and froth where sea met rock – the breaking, flashing water to seaward; all this delighted him then, and were not soon forgotten. Best of all, the third submerged rock off Shag Cliff – the rock they call the Tombstone – was breaking; the greater waves there leaped into the air in fountains of froth.
"I 'low I'll get closer t' the Tombstone," thought he.
Thus he was led along the coast to the foot of Shag Cliff. It was a hard climb, in which hands and feet were both concerned. There were chasms to leap, sharp points to round, great rocks to scale, narrow ledges to pass over on the toes of his boots; and all the while the breakers were crashing and foaming below him, and now and again splashing him with spray.
Had
