parrot.

"It's wishin', I am, that I might see wan o' yer family alive," said
Squill, as he turned over the dead arms; "but I'd rather not be embraced
by ye. Och! what a hug ye could give--an' as to howldin' on--a thousand
limpets would be nothin' to ye."

"A miser grippin' his gold would be more like it," suggested Grummidge.

"I don't expect ever to see one alive," said Little Stubbs, "an' yet
there must surely be more where that came from."

The very next day Squill had his wish gratified, and Stubbs his unbelief
rebuked, for, while they were out in the boat rowing towards one of the
fishing-banks with several of their comrades, they discovered a living
giant-cuttlefish.

"What's that, boys?" cried the Irishman, pointing to the object which
was floating in the water not far ahead of them.

"Seaweed," growled Blazer.

Blazer always growled. His voice was naturally low and harsh--so was
his spirit. Sometimes a grunt supplanted the growl, suggesting that he
was porcine in nature--as not a few men are.

But it was not seaweed. The thing showed signs of life as the boat drew
near.

"Starboard! starboard hard!" shouted Little Stubbs, starting up.

But the warning came too late. Next moment the boat ran with a thud
into a monster cuttlefish. Grummidge seized a boat-hook, shouted,
"Stern all!" and hit the creature with all his might, while Stubbs made
a wild grasp at a hatchet which lay under one of the thwarts.

Instantly the horny parrot-like beak, the size of a man's fist, reared
itself from among the folds of the body and struck the boat a violent
blow, while a pair of saucer-like eyes, fully four inches in diameter,
opened and glared ferociously. This was terrifying enough, but when, a
moment later, two tremendous arms shot out from the body near the eyes,
flung themselves around the boat and held on tight, a yell of fear
escaped from several of the men, and with good reason, for if the
innumerable suckers on those slimy arms once fairly attached themselves
to the boat there seemed to be no chance of escape from the deadly
embrace. In that moment of danger Little Stubbs proved himself equal to
the occasion. With the hatchet he deftly severed the two limbs as they
lay over the gunwale of the boat, and the monster, without cry or sign
of pain, fell back into the sea, and moved off, ejecting such a quantity
of inky fluid, as it went, that the water was darkened for two or three
hundred yards around.