cuted in the boat. It flashed over me that he
would weigh far over three hundred.

When he thumped back the water rose in a sounding splash, deluging us
and leaving six inches in the cockpit. He sheered off astern, sliding
over the water in two streaks of white running spray, and then up he
rose again in a magnificent wild leap. He appeared maddened with pain
and fright and instinct to preserve his life.

Again the fish turned right at us. This instant was the most
terrifying. Not a word from R. C.! But out of the tail of my eye I saw
him crouch, ready to leap. He grimly held on to his rod, but there had
not been a tight line on it since he struck the fish.

Yelling warningly, Captain Dan threw the wheel hard over. But that
seemed of no use. We could not lose the swordfish.

He made two dives into the air, and the next one missed us by a yard,
and showed his great, glistening, striped body, thick as a barrel, and
curved with terrible speed and power, right alongside the cockpit. He
passed us, and as the boat answered to the wheel and turned, almost at
right angles, the swordfish sheered too, and he hit us a sounding thud
somewhere foreward. Then he went under or around the bow and began to
take line off the reel for the first time. I gave him up. The line
caught all along the side of the boat. But it did not break, and kept
whizzing off the reel. I heard the heavy splash of another jump. When we
had turned clear round, what was our amaze and terror to see the
swordfish, seemingly more tigerish than ever, thresh and tear and leap
at us again. He was flinging bloody spray and wigwagging his huge body,
so that there was a deep, rough splashing furrow in the sea behind him.
I had never known any other fish so fast, so powerful, so wild with
fury, so instinct with tremendous energy and life. Dan again threw all
his weight on the wheel. The helm answered, the boat swung, and the
swordfish missed hitting us square. But he glanced along the port side,
like a toboggan down-hill, and he seemed to ricochet over the water. His
tail made deep, solid thumps. Then about a hundred feet astern he
turned in his own length, making a maelstrom of green splash and white
spray, out of which he rose three-quarters of his huge body,
purple-blazed, tiger-striped, spear-pointed, and, with the sea boiling
white around him, he spun around, creating an indescribable picture of
untamed ferocity and wild life and incomparable beauty. Then down he