The Duel 



whether it saw the cause of its trouble and realized it, 

 or whether it was merely an accident cannot be said, 

 but the facts remain that it charged in the direction of 

 the launch, shot along the surface, dorsal fin out of 

 water, like a knife, tossing spray, an animated fury, 

 the embodiment of blind savage rage. What would 

 have been the result no one can say, but the quick eye 

 of the boatman saw the move, pushed his lever just 

 in time, and the living sword shot by the stern, not 

 two feet from it, and in a few seconds was taking line 

 from the big reel in the opposite direction. 



Up to this moment the angler had not been able 

 to stop the fish and it had taken four hundred or more 

 feet of line, when it charged. Could he take in the 

 slack? The fish caught him unawares, and went 

 twisting up into the air again, flinging itself about 

 in a frenzy of rage or fear, then disappeared. That 

 the swordfish was about to ram the boat was, to the 

 excited angler, a moral certainty, and there was but 

 one result of such a charge. Such a fish had been 

 known to sink a sixty-ton schooner, and seriously 

 damage a full-rigged ship, and, sad to relate, the timid 

 angler lost his nerve when it was most required, and 

 when the opportunity presented itself for an interest- 

 ing experiment, he shouted to the boatman to go in- 

 shore, pointed his rod at the fish, and when the thread- 

 like line came taut, jerked it, and parted company 

 with what was, in all probability, a splendid game 

 fish, a half dozen or more finished catches since, justi- 



239 



