BY TIDELESS SEAS 75 



devoutly wished that I had cut the line, thrown 

 it overboard, made any sacrifice short of sitting 

 in the same boat with that grisly thing, which 

 crawled along the seat in such uncanny fashion 

 that I retreated to the very bow. For some reason 

 or other, a hint perhaps from my Guardian Angel, 

 I had brought a swordstick out with me. Why 

 one carries such weapons in foreign countries I 

 know not. Perhaps one does not, but I was some 

 years younger in those days, and perhaps a course 

 of melodramatic mediaeval Italian literature of 

 the Niccolo de'Lapi order, had inflamed me. At 

 any rate, that swordstick was one of my first 

 purchases in the country, and the only time it 

 served any purpose whatever was in my encounter 

 with the octopus. Pinning the brute with the 

 blade, I managed to beat it senseless with the 

 sheath. This was novel, but it was also nauseating, 

 and, as soon as the octopus was at rest, I weighed 

 anchor and rowed back to port. The sole fruits 

 of my outing, a polpo weighing about 6 Ibs., de- 

 lighted the owner of the boat, who subsequently 

 informed me that it had tasted better than chicken. 

 He garnished it, he said, with heads of garlic, 

 which, to an untaught palate like mine, would 

 only have added insult to injury. 



Some of my fishing outings by day were taken 

 in company with an American friend, and we 

 rowed to a ruined beacon that stood alone on some 



