A Leaper of the Kuroshiwo 



between day and darkness charges the little bay of 

 Avalon and drives the desperate fliers out upon the 

 beach, into boats, and on to rocks, circling the shores, 

 and is a be-finned whirlwind. It is now that this free 

 lance from the outer seas often meets his nemesis in 

 the angler. The long delicate line, hardly to be seen 

 in the water, is out, baited with a flying-fish. One 

 crosses the path of the leaper; he sees it far ahead 

 and with his mate charges, foaming along the blue, 

 steely waters. The resilient rod bends, the big reel 

 gives tongue, and the game of games is on, often an 

 interminable contest. The leaper is confronted with 

 a totally new experience; he has never been checked. 

 He has been chased by sharks and orcas, stabbed, per- 

 haps, by a vicious swordfish, but this sudden pain, this 

 control by something invisible, comes like a bolt out 

 of a clear sky, and being in six hundred feet of clear 

 blue water, he turns and goes down like a shot out of 

 a gun. 



But something is going with him, tending to stop 

 him. For the first time this swashbuckler, that all 

 his life has killed for the pleasure of it, for the mere 

 lust of killing, learns the meaning of restraint, and 

 out of the " corner of his eye " he sees that he is fol- 

 lowed by a blaze of white, a sheet of spume-blue 

 water churned into foam by a rapidly towed line. 

 He stops, shakes his head and body, and then plunges 

 on and on with terrific, irresistible force, until he 

 reaches the sandy bottom in water almost as cold as 



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