Pawtucket tribune. (Pawtucket, R.I.) 1890-189?, 1895-07-18
FOUGHT AN OCTOPUS.
A vERACIOUS SKIPPER TELLS OF AN
ENCOUNTER WITH A MONSTER.

Tentacles Wound ON tho windlass-Ths
Monster Hit u Porpoise and Was Set
Upon by Boxing School, Which Finished
Him.
Captain Obadiah Donaldson has piled
the waters Of the sound for years and
years, and no one has ever accused him of
telling lie. II any one else but Captain
Donaldson had steamed into port with the
yarn that he brought to Bridgeport Conn,
the other day, he would have been publicly
scoffed at. But Captain Obadiah has said
It, and IL goes.
He came into harbor with bis steam oys-
tor dredger, which IL cross between .
tugboat and mud scow, In search of GOAL
Five Of his sailors then landed with thin
substance looking very much like 100 feet
Of fire hose. This they laid out on tho
wharf. Sea dogs assembled In convention
over Il, but shook their heads nonplused,
being unable TO make Il out at ali. Then
Captain Donaldson spake In these words:
"ThAt," said he, "s the arm Of an octo-
pus, which can be easily verified. take
It that It's 100 feet long now, being ~ It's
shrunk, but 1t was twios that length when
wsosusAsh.
"The fight In which we got II occurred
shortly after 10 o'clock this morning. We
were steaming Eve miles OF Stratford
light, were going four knots an hour. and
we were In 10 fathoms Of water. was
heading east by southeast two points, and
the wind was blowing north by northwest
seven points, all Of which can be verified.
Suddenly on the starboard bow 500
feet ahead spied huge mass, black and
motionless, lying on the surface Of the wa
ter, which was as smooth as pond. 1
changed my course one point and rang the
bell for O full head Of steam in order to
hurry up and see what the black thing
was. soon made 1t out as an octopus, 60
feet in diameter, with arms and legs a
couple of hundred feet long.
II didn't want any of that In mine. 1
brought the wheel down to clear the mon
ster. He was In a deep sleep, and his
snores could be heard quite q way of. But
was too late The boat struck him amid
ships. He awoke in jiffy. At first he
thought we were nightmare but he rub
bed his eyes and identified us as enemies,
though heaven knows I had no wish to
fight him.
HE darted at US, kicking up the sea.
One Of his long arms came aboard and
seized the forward steam windlass. He
wound his arm around II, thinking, sup
pose, that IL was a sailor. The mate, with
great presence of mind started the wind
lass, and in less time than it takes to tell
1t couple of hundred feet of the arm was
wound In, and we had the fish prisoner
"But we'd caught Tartar. He began
to pull at the boat, and I was afraid he
meant to sink 1t and eat us at his leisure.
The vessel rocked, and thought she would
capsize every minute. / called to Frank
Taylor, the boatswain, to cut off the arm,
and he did so with meat chopper.
1.-THE octopus, thoroughly aroused, swan
half mile to leeward and crouched for O
spring, but suddenly distraction oc-
CURED. Three porpoises came along the
pilot porpoise leading. He ran right into
the arms Of the octopus, who seized him
and held him high in the air and squeezed
the life out Of him. We could hear
bones crunching. Having killed the poor
porpoise In his rage, he tossed him high in
the air.
"The other porpoises at once turned tail
and swan to Penfleld Reef light, favor
ite feeding ground Of these fish. They re-
turned with an enormous swarm OF por-
poises, all greatly excited and gnashing
their teeth. The chums of the murdered
porpoise evidently had made q speech to
them and got them worked up Tn, J
Lined up like football players and made
combined rush for the octopus, who gazed
at them viciously with his cruel, Shiny
eyes. It was an awful battle that followed.
1.-THE sea was lashed into q crimson
foam. AS the porpoises came within reach
the octopus seized them in his arms and
tossed them high in the air. As he had
seven arms he pitched 'em up seven at
time. II we hadn't got that other flipper,
IT. would have been eight at time. The
sea for more than mile was strewn with
the fins and tails OF porpoises and with
bits Of octopus. Any fellow who wants q
load Of good fertilizer can get it there.
II don't know how many porposes were
killed Eventually they did up the octopus,
however, and in their anger tore him limb
from limb. Then they all swan to their
homes, and put into Bridgeport. New
York World.