Children of the Wild Part 7

"Little Sword was now being drawn implacably downwards. In his fierce rage he struck at everything in reach, but he was too closely held to inflict any serious wounds. He was within eight or nine inches of those awful, unwinking, ink-black eyes. The great beak opened upwards at him eagerly. It looked as if his career was at an end--when the Fates of the Deep Sea decided otherwise. Apparently they had more use for Little Sword than they had for the Inkmaker. A long shadow dropped straight downward. It missed Little Sword by an inch or two. And the gaping, long-toothed jaws of an immense barracouta closed upon the head of the Inkmaker, biting him clean in halves. The blind body curled backwards spasmodically; and the tentacles, shorn off at the roots, fell aimlessly and helplessly apart. Little Sword flashed away, trailing his limp captors behind him till they dropped off. And the barracouta ate the remains of the Inkmaker at his leisure. He had no concern to those swordfish when there was tender and delicious squid to be had; for the Inkmaker, you know, was just a kind of big squid, or cuttlefish."

"But what's a barracouta?" demanded the Babe hurriedly.

"Well, he's just a fish!" said Uncle Andy. "But he's a very savage and hungry fish, some three or four feet long, with tremendous jaws like a pickerel's. And he lives only in the salt water, fortunately. _He's_ not a nice fellow, either, to have around when you're swimming, I can tell you!"

"Why?" queried the Babe.

But Uncle Andy ignored the question firmly, and went on with his story.

"After this adventure Little Sword kept a very sharp look-out for the pallid, squirming tentacles, sometimes reaching out from a dark hole in the rocks or from under a mantle of seaweed, which he knew to belong to one of the Inkmakers. He hated the whole tribe with bitter hatred; but at the same time his caution was unsleeping. He bided his time for vengeance, and used his sword on crabs and flatfish and fat groupers.

And so he grew at a great rate, till in the swelling sense of his power and swiftness his caution began to fade away. Even the incident itself faded from his memory, but not the hatred which had sprung from it, or the knowledge which it had taught him.

"When Little Sword was about five feet in length he carried a weapon on his snout not far from a foot long. By this time he was a great rover, hunting in the deep seas or the insh.o.r.e tides as the whim of the chase might lead him, and always spoiling for a fight. He would jab his sword into the belly of a twenty-foot grampus just to relieve his feelings, and be off again before the outraged monster, bleeding through his six inches of blubber, had time to even make a pretense of charging him. And he was already a terror to the seals, who, for all their speed and dexterity, could neither catch him nor escape him.

"But he was getting a little careless. And one day, as he was sleeping, or basking, some ten feet below the surface, the broad, dark form of a sawfish arose beneath him and thrust at him with his dreadful saw. The pleasant idea of the sawfish was to rip up the sleeper's silver belly. But Little Sword awoke in time to just escape the horrid attack. He swept off in a short circle, came back with a lightning rush, and drove his sword full length into the stealthy enemy's shoulder just behind the gills. The great sawfish, heavy muscled and slow of movement, made no attempt to defend himself, but plunged suddenly downward into the gloomy depths where he loved to lie in wait.

After relieving his indignation by a couple more vicious thrusts.

Little Sword realized that he was too small to accomplish anything against this sneaking and prowling bulk, and shot off to look for a less dangerous basking place.

"It was soon after this close shave with the sawfish that Little Sword came once more across the path of the Inkmaker. He--"

But the Babe could contain himself no longer. He had been bursting with questions for the last ten minutes, and had heroically restrained himself. But this was too much for him.

"Why, Uncle Andy," he cried. "I thought the Inkmaker was dead. I thought the barracouta had eaten him up, feelers and eyes and all."

"Oh, you're a lot too particular!" grumbled Uncle Andy. "This was _another_ Inkmaker, of course. And a very much bigger and more dangerous one, moreover, as you'll see presently. It was little _he_ had to fear from the barracoutas. In fact, he had just fixed one of his longer tentacles on a vigorous four-foot barracouta, and was slowly drawing him down within reach of the rest of the feelers, when Little Sword's shining eyes alighted upon the struggle.

"This particular Inkmaker was crouching in a sort of shallow basin between rocks which were densely fringed with bright-striped weeds, starry madrepores, and sea-anemones of every lovely color. Disturbed by the struggle, however, the madrepores and anemones were nervously closing up their living blooms. The Inkmaker, who always managed somehow to have his own colors match his surroundings, so that his hideous form would not show too plainly and frighten his victims away, was now of a dirty pinkish-yellow, blotched and striped with purplish-brown; and his tentacles were like a bunch of striped snakes.

Only his eyes never changed. They lay unwinking, two huge round lenses of terrible and intense blackness, staring upwards from the base of the writhing tentacles."

The Babe shuddered again, and wished that the beautiful swordfish would swim away as quickly as possible from the slimy horror. But he refrained interrupting. It would be dreadful if Uncle Andy should get annoyed and stop at this critical point!

"When Little Sword saw those long feelers dragging the barracouta down," went on Uncle Andy, after relighting his pipe, "he darted forward like a blue flame and jabbed his sword right through the nearest one."

"Oh, ho!" cried the Babe, forgetting caution. "He remembered how the barracouta had saved _him_!"

"Not much!" grunted Uncle Andy. "There's no sentiment about a swordfish, I can tell you. He'd have jabbed the barracouta, and eaten him, too, just as quick as look, but he hated the Inkmaker, and could not think of anything else. With a s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g backward pull he wrenched his sword out of the feeler, which seemed hardly to notice the wound.

In the same instant another feeler s.n.a.t.c.hed at him, for Mr. Inkmaker, you know, had ten tentacles, every one of them spoiling for a fight.

It got only a slight hold, however, and Little Sword, whose strength was now something amazing, tore himself clear with a great livid, bleeding, burning patch on his side.

"And now, raging mad though he was, a gleam of sense flashed into his brain. He saw that it was not much use stabbing those tough tentacles.

Lurching forward as if to stand on his head he shot straight downward, and drove his sword full length into one of those dreadful eyes.

"In an instant three or four feelers closed upon him. But they were now thrashing a little aimlessly, so that they did not work well together. The monster was confused by that terrible, searching trust.

Little Sword was hampered by the feelers clutching at him, but he still had room to use his weapon. With all his weight and quivering strength he drove his sword again deep into the Inkmaker's head, twisting and wrenching it sideways as he drew it out. Other tentacles closed over him, but seemed to have lost their clutching power through the attack upon the source of their nervous energy. The struggling barracouta was drawn down with them, but blindly; and the water was now utterly black with the rank ink which the monster was pumping forth.

"For a few moments all was one boiling convulsion of fish and tentacles and ink, Little Sword simply stabbing and stabbing at the soft ma.s.s under his weapon. Then, all at once, the tentacles relaxed, falling away as slack as seaweed. The barracouta, nearly spent, swam off without even waiting to say 'Thank you.' And Little Sword coming to his senses as he realized his victory, rose slowly out of the area of the ink cloud. He knew that the Inkmaker's flesh was very good to eat, and he merely waited for the cloud to settle before making a meal which would completely satisfy his vengeance."

The Babe was thoughtful for a few moments after Uncle Andy stopped speaking. At length he said positively:

"I'm glad we don't have any Inkmakers, either, in the lake."

"Umph!" grunted Uncle Andy, "there are lots of things we don't have that we can very well do without."

CHAPTER V

ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP

Casting his flies across the eddying mouth of one of those cold streams which feed the crystal bosom of Silverwater, Uncle Andy had landed a magnificent pink-bellied trout--five pounds, if an ounce!

"Hi, but isn't he a whopper?" he cried exultantly, holding up his prize for the inspection of the Babe, who had been watching the struggle breathlessly.

"A--whopper?" repeated the Babe doubtfully. His idea of a whopper was something that objectionable little boys have been known to tell in order to get themselves out of a sc.r.a.pe. No full-fledged fisherman as yet, he did not see what it could have to do with a trout.

Uncle Andy seemed to divine his difficulty.

"I mean," he explained, "isn't he a big one? _Tremendous_?"

At this again the Babe looked doubtful. The fish was certainly a very beautiful one; but to the Babe's eyes it did not seem in any way remarkable for size. Yet he did not like to appear to disagree with Uncle Andy.

"Is it _big_?" he inquired politely. "Bill says there's some fish bigger than a house."

Uncle Andy looked at him askance.

"Seems to me," said he, "you're mighty hard to please to-day. And, anyhow, Bill talks nonsense. They're not fish, those monsters he was telling you about. They're _whales_."

"But they live in the water, don't they?" protested the Babe in surprise.

"Of course!" agreed Uncle Andy, wrapping his big trout up in wet gra.s.s and seating himself on a handy log for a smoke.

"Then why aren't they fish?" persisted the Babe, ever anxious to get to the root of a matter.

"Because they're not," replied Uncle Andy, impatient at having let himself in for explanations, which he always disliked. "They're animals, just as much as a dog or a muskrat."

The Babe wrinkled his forehead in perplexity. And Uncle Andy relented.

"You see," he continued, "they're not fish, because they cannot breathe under water like fish can, but have to come to the surface for air, just as we would have to. And they're not fish, because they nurse their babies as a cow or a cat does. And--and there are lots of other reasons."

"What are the other reasons?" demanded the Babe eagerly.

But Uncle Andy had felt himself getting into deep water. He adroitly evaded the question.

"Do you suppose this old trout here," said he, pointing to the gra.s.sy bundle, "used to love and take care of its little ones, like the whale I'm going to tell you about loved and took care of hers? No indeed!

The trout had hundreds of thousands, and liked nothing better than to eat them whenever it got the chance. But the whale had only one--at a time, that is--and she always used to think there was nothing else like it in the world. There are lots of other mothers as foolish as that.

Yours, for instance, now."