The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1895-02-23
" by the prongs of Neptune's tridentr


with some leviathan that has crosse,
ing, pale and trembling. mol No
combat! The leviathan Is not fighting
II Is struggling to escaped Mighty a
1t is, It is but prey of the awful scrpen
like sparrow swoopcd down upon b,
hawkl 1t Is a whalc-a whale the Xix,
In size of which I've never seen In al
my forty years of sailing on the SALTY
seas His girth lead line fifty fathomi
long would scarcely once go round, ant
yet the serpent Is coiled about 1t full q
score of times! What seemed to bt
spouting gcyscrs from the sea are blu,
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 Inn
pulse OF the serpent's assault upon the
whale, which he spins and whirls and
churns in the deep as mill wheel
might be spun by the rush of impelling
watersl The black objects are other
whales, agitated and terror-stricxen
spectators OF their mighty fellows
deadly environment! Hark!' the cap
tain still with the glass to his eye, and
growing paler and paler.
1T was not necessary for us to hcarlt-
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
lcviathan's tremendous bulk has bust,
with noise like thunder! And now
they sink-thc horrible serpent has
gone bclow-to gorge his mighty plum
derr
1.-THE glass fell from the captains
hand Seasoned us he was by forty
years afloat, and familiar with the APP
palling things the boundless ocean
breeds, he tainted dead away upon tho
deck In the excitement following the
captains collapse all save the fetch
ing of him to was forgotten, and when
somewhat himself again the whales
that had been terror-striclScn witnesses
of the sea serpcnt's capture of their
mate had disappeared. This chagrined
the captain. According to his descrip-
ton of them, any one of these whales
would have been an unEcard-of prize.
But they had slipped away and were
out of sight.
Wen chase them said the cap
tain. 1 will not leave these mysterious
seas until kill whale!'
$50 we sailed in the presumed wake
of the whales. Two days we sailed.
Not q sight or trace of whale. Then
the captain changed his course and
sailed sou'west. The third day we
sighted something, At first sight and
for long time as we approached it
we took it for the projecting summit
of coral reef, formed like flaetened
pyramid and covering many yards of
the oceans surface. In height it rose,
as it seemed to inc, almost to the eleva-
ton of our inainmast. We would have
sailed by 1t without comment or fur
Their thought, but just as our course
brought about hundred feet aport
there was sudden movement in the
mass. 1t began to unfold, and to our
horror we saw the frightful head of
the sea serpent rear itself and shoot
upward until the fierce eyes of the
monster glared down at us from ire
mendous height. Before the captain
could shout an order the serpent sank
like n falling meteor into the sea, and
with n roaring hiss rushed toward our
vessel, its monstrous head held high
above the water, its jaws apart like the
opening to some great cavern, it's eyes
glaring fire.
Ito your axesr shouted the captain
Every man of us seized an AK. The
sea monster quickly covered the space
between where he lay and our vessel,
and thrust his horrible head over the
gunwale. AS he did so he stopped rs If
brought up by something that held him
back. And something did. Away out
on the water, where his middle was.
his body doomed up like water-logged
wreck. But we had no time to wonder
Mt that. 1t was my privilege to strike
the awful serpent the first blow. My
AK sank to the helve in his back. Quick
ly every sailor followed with telling
blows, until we hacked and hewed the
monster into his death throes lie
died hard. His struggles shook the
ship until she groaned and crealed.
But we killed him. l do not hesitate
to say, though, that if itnhad not been
for that great hulking thing that held
him handicapped amidships, so to
speak, the chances are that he would
never have fallen victim to our fury.
Rather, think, we would have been
engulfed, perhaps ship and all, by the
terrible monster. After we had slain
the serpent n boat was manned and
rowed out to see what the looming
mass was that had indirectly encom-
passed his destruction. We chopped
the floating carcass of the dead sea
monster open. Lo! there was the tre-
mcndous whale the captain had de-
scribed to us as having been the victim
of that deadly ARRAY three days beforel
Then, to be sure, there was great re-
joicing among us. Such prize as that
had never been taken in any sea. And
we sailed away from that mysterious
coast rich and proud.