TROPICAL BAPTISM 17 



volitans) ; then it pricked him with its poisonous spines and 

 put him out of action for five days. They had another dip at 

 Kosseir, a small Egyptian port, where the Italian colony of 

 about fifty families gave them an affectionate welcome. Here 

 they caught some interesting fish. 



In the open sea between Shadwan and Kosseir they had 

 taken part in the fifth act of an ocean tragedy : a twelve-foot 

 shark (probably a mackerel shark) was devouring on the 

 surface a two-hundredweight sword-fish already reduced to a 

 whitish carcass. The Formica's engines were silenced and the 

 vessel drew near without a sound. Gigi (Luigi Stuart To vini) 

 flung the harpoon but missed. Cecco lifted his Browning and 

 shot the shark in the head, but it took no notice. Finally 

 Bruno (Dr. Bruno Vailati, leader of the expedition) planted 

 the harpoon with all his strength between its gills. For a 

 moment the shark remained immobile, then it turned on to 

 its grey stomach, snapped the two-inch thick beech shaft to 

 splinters, and disappeared into the depths, still with the 

 steel point of the harpoon hooked into it. Gigi tried hard to 

 hold it by the line but in a moment this was drawn quite 

 taut, and zing ! broke clean in two as if it had been a piece 

 of thread. 



The remains of the sword-fish furnished the ^Formichiere 

 with food for three days. Little had it thought, poor beast, 

 that it would fight a battle in the depths, become a floating 

 corpse, and finish up fried and boiled by the executioners of 

 its assassin. 



A handsome dolphin was also caught by harpoon, once 

 more the work of the specialist, Bruno. Then another bad sea 

 hit the Formica and she had to do battle with a violent storm 

 before finally she tied up at Port Sudan, to re-fuel. With the 

 wind on her stem she at last entered Eritrean waters. On 

 board a painful month was over, a month of turns at the 



