es of
the secret waters, was this monster. It was here in its home.

When entering for the second time into the cavern in pursuit of the
crab, he had observed the crevice in which he supposed that the crab had
taken refuge, the pieuvre was there lying in wait for prey.

Is it possible to imagine that secret ambush?

No bird would brood, no egg would burst to life, no flower would dare to
open, no breast to give milk, no heart to love, no spirit to soar, under
the influence of that apparition of evil watching with sinister patience
in the dusk.

Gilliatt had thrust his arm deep into the opening; the monster had
snapped at it. It held him fast, as the spider holds the fly.

He was in the water up to his belt; his naked feet clutching the
slippery roundness of the huge stones at the bottom; his right arm bound
and rendered powerless by the flat coils of the long tentacles of the
creature, and his body almost hidden under the folds and cross folds of
this horrible bandage.

Of the eight arms of the devil-fish three adhered to the rock, while
five encircled Gilliatt. In this way, clinging to the granite on the one
hand, and with the other to its human prey, it enchained him to the
rock. Two hundred and fifty suckers were upon him, tormenting him with
agony and loathing. He was grasped by gigantic hands, the fingers of
which were each nearly a yard long, and furnished inside with living
blisters eating into the flesh.

As we have said, it is impossible to tear oneself from the folds of the
devil-fish. The attempt ends only in a firmer grasp. The monster clings
with more determined force. Its effort increases with that of its
victim; every struggle produces a tightening of its ligatures.

Gilliatt had but one resource, his knife.

His left hand only was free; but the reader knows with what power he
could use it. It might have been said that he had two right hands.

His open knife was in his hand.

The antenna of the devil-fish cannot be cut; it is a leathery substance
impossible to divide with the knife, it slips under the edge; its
position in attack also is such that to cut it would be to wound the
victim's own flesh.

The creature is formidable, but there is a way of resisting it. The
fishermen of Sark know this, as does any one who has seen them execute
certain movements in the sea. The porpoises know it also; they have a
way of biting the cuttle-fish which decapitates it. Hence the frequent
sight on the sea