The Rise of Don Antonio 247 



silver and blue velella as it rose and fell, an idle ship 

 on a windless sea. Suddenly I felt the line tauten, as 

 though the coming flood had increased in intensity. 

 How it thrilled and imparted to the nerves a tingling 

 sensation ! Greater and greater came the tension. I 

 dropped over the anchor of kelp and paid out a foot of 

 line, then two, very slowly, gradually increasing until it 

 was gliding rapidly over the side. The boat, that by 

 actual test weighed but 125 pounds, whirled gently 

 around ; then, having given the unknown ten feet of 

 line, I stood up and struck home. Down on my knees, 

 almost overboard I went, jerked by the fierce response, 

 and through my unyielding hands hissed the line, churn- 

 ing and cutting the water, slicing it into great crystal 

 sheets. 



I had the coil amidships, and it fairly leaped into the 

 air as the fish made its rush, twenty, fifty, one hundred 

 feet. I seized it and braced back. Nearly elbow deep 

 went my arms in the water ; down went the boat, my 

 companion sliding into the bow to offset it ; down until 

 the water was dancing at the rail ; down until the man 

 in the bow seemed to be up in the air ; down so deep 

 that my face was so near the surface that I could hear 

 the mysterious crackling sound against the keel. I was 

 about to give way to this doughty plunger when he 

 turned. I sprang to my feet and took in the line. In a 

 great circle he surged around the boat, and I gained by 

 desperate hauling, not moving the fish, but pulling the 

 light boat to him, in this way making thirty or forty 



