^THE ROYAL PURPLE GAME OF THE SEA 



When he stopped and~went down he had pulled 

 thirteen hundred feet off my reel while we were 

 chasing him at full speed. While he sounded I 

 got back half of this line. I wish I could give some 

 impression of the extraordinary strength and speed 

 of this royal purple fish of the sea. He came up 

 again, in two more leaps, one of which showed me 

 his breadth of back, and then again was performed 

 for me the feature of which I had heard so much 

 and which has made the swordfish the most famous 

 of all fish — he rose two-thirds out of the water, I 

 suppose by reason of the enormous power of his tail, 

 though it seemed like magic, and then he began to 

 walk across the sea in a great circle of white foam, 

 wagging his massive head, sword flying, jaws wide, 

 dorsal fin savagely erect, like a lion's mane. He was 

 magnificent. I have never seen fury so expressed 

 or such an unquenchable spirit. Then he dropped 

 back with a sudden splash, and went down and down 

 and down. 



All swordfish fight differently, and this one adopted 

 tuna tactics. He sounded and began to plug away 

 and bang the leader with his tail. He would take 

 off three hundred feet of line, and then, as he slowed 

 up, I, by the labor of Hercules, pulled and pumped 

 and wound most of it back on the reel. This kept 

 up for an hour — surely the hardest hour's work of 

 my life. 



But a swordfish is changeable. That is the beauty 

 of his gameness. He left off sounding and came 

 up to fight on the surface. In the next hom- he 

 pulled us from the Fence to Long Point, a distance 

 of four miles. 



39 



