News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-04-01
SWOrdfish and Shark.

"What strange thing has come
athwart my hawse in the last dozen
years 2" unused Capt. Carnes of the brig
Mary. "Well, might tell you of bit
of adventure that happened to my
vessel one day among the Windward
Islands of the Caribbean Sea. We were
just to the east of the group, and about
fifteen miles away. when there came a
dead calm. The sea was like a mill
! pond, and the sun beat down like ball
OF fire. One of the men, who was aloft
| for something. discovered large shark
| the men permission to bait for him.
| They baited a hook and tempted him,
but he would not even smell of the pork.
He was straight-out man eater, and he
wanted sailor or nothing. He made
two or three circuits about the vessel,
his dorsal fin showing above water,
and he then settled down off our port
! quarter about twenty feet away, and
| kept his eyes fastened on the heads of
| the men above the rail-.
.A'Well, sir, there was something so
aggravating in that shark settling down
there, as if determined to stay until
some of us tumbled overheard, that we
all made up our minds to drive him
away after some fashion. We had
harpoon aboard, and one of the men
used it to give the fish several bad
gashes, but after each wound he'd make
circuit and come back to the old spot.
You may rip shark from stem to stern
and he won't seem to mind the hurt.
By and by the men got so hot that they
asked leave to man the boat and either
kill the grim devil or drive him away.
I consented, and a sailor named Will
liams scrambled into the yawl as she
swung at the davits to cast off when she
was down. The falls had scarcely been
manned when one of them parted, and
the boat dropped stern down. The
sailor was pitched ten feet away, and
as he struck the water there was yell
from every man on the brig. He
pitched right at the shark, and we eX-
pected to see him grabbed up in sec
ond. Indeed, we all saw the fish whlrl
over and make rush, but there was
also a second rush, and as the sailor
swan alongside and seized rope ter
rible combat began in the water. We
knew that one of the fighters was the
shark, but it was minutes before we
made out that the other was sword
fish.
calculate that rumpus lasted all of
fifteen minutes. They fought on the
surface and under it, they circled and
came back, they went under the brig
and around, and the sea was churned to
perfect foam all the time. The affair
finally ended by the shark turning belly
up, as dead as a hammer, and l guess
there wasn't foot of him which hadn't
felt a thrust of the sword. He bled like
stuck hog, and was only fairly dead
when the swordfish took run for the
brig. He backed off about fifty feet
and came full tilt, and, as true as I'm
sitting here, he made her shiver as he
struck. That sword of his struck good
oak plank, sheathed with copper, but
nothing stopped 1t until it showed for SIX
inches in the hold. We saw him as he
backed off, and knew that he had lost his
weapon. It was q terrible hurt, and
when breeze sprang up and filled our
sails he was still foundering around the
sharks body, seeming to have lost his
C1U- rgass points altogether.
"On the way down to Trinidad the
brig made considerable water, and
when we came to unload her cargo we
found the sword sticking into her as I
have told you. A portion of it was
afterward carried to Boston, and proba,
bly, is there yet"