The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1895-03-01

| dSain' W us Urclutuuous nciS Nv, v ltS
tened In the sun like lofty white pin
nacled rock; swayed and fell; rose
glistened, swayed, fell, all in quicl
succession, each fall to the water beinl
followed by the upward splashing o
great spumes of foaming sea. Aroun'
this eccentric fountain several big blacl
objects moved here and there, quickly
and without apparent aim.
'Waterspout be blowed!' the cap
tain said.
Then he seized his glass and gazet
through it at the strange affair. Hi
eyes had scarcely taken in the scene
enlarged and made distinct by hi
glass, when l saw him turn pale. But
he couldn't cease looking.
"'By the prongs of Neptune's trident!
said he. "A sea serpent! A frightful
monster of the deep, armored with
hideous bony scales, in mortal combat
with some leviathan that has crossed
its path! MOI the captain still shout
ing, pale and trembling. No! Not
combat! The leviathan is not fighting!
| 1t is struggling to escape! Mighty as
| it is, it is but prey of the awful serpent
like sparrow swooped down upon by
hawk! 1t is whale-a whale the like
in size of which I've never seen in all
my forty years of sailing on the salty
seas! His girth lead line fifty fathoms
long would scarcely once go round, and
yet the serpent is coiled about it full
score of times! What seemed to be
spouting geysers from the sea are but
the rising and the falling of the free
parts of the serpent, this one now rear
ing aloft the monsters fearful head;
that one now being his convoluting ex-
tremity, tipped with an awful barb!
They rise and fall by the terrible i'm
pulse of the serpent's assault upon the
whale, which he spins and whirls and
churns in the deep as a mill wheel
might be spun by the rush of impelling
waters! The black objects are other
whales, agitated and terror-striclken
spectators of their mighty fellows
deadly environment! Hank" the cap
tain still with the glass to his eye, and
growing raler and paler.
sit was not necessary for US to heark-
en-. A deaf man could almost have
heard the sounds that came to us over
the sea from the scene of that awful
contest. Boom. boom! boom! Like the
hoarse intonations of saluting can
non.
"'By the rusty key of Davy Jones
locker" the captain shouted. The aw-
full compress of that serpent's coil has
bust the whale! Three times the great
leviathan's tremendous bulk has bust,
with noise like thunder! And now
they sink-the horrible serpent has
gone below-to gorge his mighty plum
derp
THE glass fell from the captains
hand. Seasoned as he was by forty |
Fears afoat. and familiar with the APP
palling things the boundless ocean |
breeds, he tainted dead away upon the
le.ck. In the excitement following the |
captains collapse all save the fetch
ng of him to was forgotten, and when
1t last he was out of his swoon and
himself again the whales
hat had been terror-stricken witnesses
If the sea serpent's capture of their
nate had disappeared. This chagrined
he captain. According to his descrip-
ion of them, any one of these whales
would have been an unheard-of prize.
But they had slipped away and were
,ut of sight.
"'We'll chase themp said the cap
ain. i will not leave these mysterious
eas until kill a whalev
$50 we sailed in the presumed wake
Il the whales. Two days we sailed.
Not sight or trace of whale. Then
he captain changed his course and
allied sou'west. The third day we
lighted something. At first sight and
or long time as we approached it
We took it for the projecting summit
# coral reef formed like hattened
pyramid and covering many yards of
he oceans surface. In height it rose,
IS it seemed to me, almost to the eleva-
ion of our Inainmast. We would have
allied by it without comment or fur
her thought, but just as our course
brought about hundred feet aport
here was a sudden movement in the
mass. 1t began to unfold, and to our
,orror we saw the frightiul head of
he sea serpent rear itself and shoot
Upward until the fierce eyes Of the
monster glared down at us from a tre-
height. Before the captain
,ould shout an order the serpent sank
ike falling meteor into the sea, and
With a roaring hiss rushed toward our
,essel, it's monstrous head held high
Lbove the water, its jaws apart like the
opening to some great cavern, its eyes
,laring fire.
"sTo your axesr shouted the captain.
Every man of us seized an ak. The
ga monster quickly covered the space
between where he lay and our vessel,