Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1902-04-03


'hough! hough' the beast makes when
it's blood is up was all the answer and
heed it gave me.
yet in that first terror it hadn't
rightly come over me what my real
danger was. 1t was only when | had
struggled and screamed myself tirel
and had gasping leisure for clear
thinking that realized what the end
of it was likely to be. My first
thought was, that, after all, couldn' t
be choked to death nor my air supply
ter of time till and the brute would
be hauled up together
Then Of suuuen my mind went
back to the aquarium again, and l re-
membered that whenever the little
squids in it caught a fish, or anything
else soft enough, they never failed tc
finish handling it by pushing out tnat
chisel-edged, parrot beak of theirs, and
ripping it up just as a child might an
old rag doll. Its head had only to let
go whatever it was holding to in the
galley, the beak had only to reach the
| breast of my suit or even to slit up
one of my sleeves to drown me as sure
as if there weren't diving pump with
in a thousand miles of Palermo.
II think l went into kind of de-
lirium then, filling my helmet full Of
senseless screeching till it rang like
Chinese gong, jerking and writhing
the brute's arms, and flnging my
head back and forward in the crazy
hope of senuing up signal that way; (;
but had too much slack, and | knew
they'd probably not heed it, anyway.
"All the time the suckers were draw.
ing steadily stronger; from the first
nip and sting, felt now long burn
| ing ache. One arm was coiling itself
more ana more around my neck.
could hear it rub squeaking about my
copper collar, and as it tightened
knew it was bringing the head grad
ually closer.
THE sepia was now as vile as two.
| year bilge- AS l foamed and fought,
the eyes stood out like great apols with
candles behind them, and the lights in
| them turned crueler and crueler at
every heave l gave. l couldn't think
or pray. l could only rave at the Ital-
ians up above for letting me be done
to death like this.
Suddenly | felt the hose and line
growing taut. The next minute / was
off my feet, and there was a terrific
tug as the squid's anchorage in the
galley was broken. But we were lifted
steadily up, he still gripping to me,
| and so in one big clump we came to
the hatchway. He tried to get pur-
chase on it as we squeezed through, but
| he didn't. | was in luck that he had
such other things to think of, for they
| kept his beak off me.
No, | didn't end up by fainting or
anything like that. When they'd un-
screwed my face plate, just sat on the
side of the mole and did little laugh
ing and crying both at once. l can
remember yet the outlandish sound l
made; 1t was for all the world like
the squawlling Of an old rooster when
you've laid his poor neck across the
chopping block.
1T was two days before l could key
myself up to putting the armor on
again. Even then you could still see
the red marks all over my hands and
wrists; you can make them for your
self by touching your skin with a
pneumatic nozzle for a second, or even
by sucking hard with your lips.
MY tenders said they had hauled
me up because they'd felt a queer,
steady pulling on the hose. Probably
the brute had got hold of it with one
Of his arms, and had reefed in the
slack to see what it was; its curiosity
may have been my salvation after ALL
However, my gang took all the credit
for 1T. and they prepared to boil and
eat two of Signor Pulpu's legs by way
OF celebrating the event But first they
put him whole on the scales. He
weighed only 70 pounds-but as the
celebration showed, it was all pretty
solid muscle.
That feast petered out before it was
really we'll started. Even 'fore-the-
mastjaws couldn't manage it; they
cast anchor in the first chop AS for
me, that was no great disappointment
for I'd been content to look on. Some
how, ! still felt stand-offish toward
that squid, Eating your conquered
enemy is kind of un-American any
way."-Youth's Companion.