DEVIL FISHING. 31 



down for Egg Bank, with a speed that looked omi- 

 nous. " Out oars, boys, and pull against him." 

 The tide was now flood the wind still fresh, had 

 shifted to the east ; six oars were put out and pulled 

 lustily against him, yet he carried us rapidly sea- 

 ward, against all these impeding forces. He seemed 

 to suck in fresh vigor from the ocean water. 

 George meanwhile was refitting the broken imple- 

 ments; the lance was fixed in a new staff, and 

 secured by a tie of triple drum line ; the broken 

 blade of the bayonet was fixed on another staff. 

 Egg Bank was now but one hundred yards to our 

 left. "Kow him ashore, boys." The devil-fish 

 refused, and drew the whole concern in the oppo- 

 site direction. " Force him, then, to the surface." 

 He popped up unexpectedly under the bow, lifted 

 one wing four feet in the air, and bringing it sud- 

 denly down, swept off every oar from the starboard 

 side of the boat ; they were not broken, but 

 wrenched out of the hands of the oarsmen as by an 

 electric shock. One man was knocked beneath 

 the thwarts by the rebound of an oar, and was laid 

 almost speechless on the platform quite liors de 

 combat. Fresh hands are brought from the smaller 

 boat ; the fish now leads off with thirty fathoms of 

 rope he steers for Joyner's Bank. Bay Point re- 

 ceeds, Egg Bank disappears, Chaplin's Island lies 



