Sketcher.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 1, 7 April 1894, Page 12

Sketcher.

A SEA VAMPIRE. CAPTURE OF A DEVIL FISH. Rask Brothers, the well-known u toilers of the sea,” caught a devil fish or octopus outside the Hew RiverHeads on Monday last. It measures nearly eleven feet from point to point of its largest tentacles, and with its array of suckers is a most forbidding looking object. It was hung up at Mr J. Holland’s shop in Esk street, and attracted the notice of a large number of people. Victor Hugo in his book, “ Toilers of the Sea,” gives a remarkably vivid description of one of these monsters, which one of the characters (Grilliatt) encounters in a cave on the sea shore. Searching for a crab, he plunged his band into a fissure. What followed is thus described by the winter Suddenly Grilliatt found himself seized by the arm. A strange indescribable horror thrilled through him. Some living thing—thin, rough, flat, cold, slimy—bad twisted itself round his naked arm, in the dark depths below. It crept upward towards his chest. Its pressure was like a tightening cord. In less than a moment some mysterious spiral form had passed round his waist and elbow, and had reached his shoulder. A sharp point penetrated beneath the armpit. Grilliatt recoiled, but he had scarcely power to move ! He was, as it were, nailed to the place. With his left hand, which was disengaged, he seized his knife, which he still held between his teeth, and with that hand, holding the knife, he supported himself against the rocks, while he made a desperate effort to withdraw his arm. He succeeded only in disturbing his persecutor, which wound itself still tighter. It was supple as leather, strong as steel, cold as night. A second form, sharp, elongated, and narrow, issued out of the crevice, like a tongue out of monstrous jaws. It seemed to lick his naked body. Then suddenly creeping out, it became longer and thinner, as it crept over his skin, and wound itself round him. At the same time a terrible sense of pain, comparable to nothing he had ever known, compelled all his muscles to contract. He felt upon his skin a number of flat, rounded points. It seemed as if innumerable suckers had fastened to his flesh, and were about to drink his blood. A third long undulating shape issued from the hole in the rock; seemed to feel its way about his body ; lashed round his ribs like a cord, and fixed itself there. Agony when at its height is mute. Gilliatt uttered no cry. There was sufficient light for him to see the repulsive forms which had entangled themselves about him. A fourth ligature, but this one swift as an arrow, darted towards his stomach, and wound amund him there. It was impossible to sever or tear away the slimy bands which were twisted tightly round his body, and were adhering by a number of points. Each of the points w r as the focus of frightful and singular pangs. It was as if numberless small mouths were devouring him at the same time. A fifth long, slimy, riband-shaped strip issued from the hole. It passed over the others, and wound itself tightly round his chest. The compression increased his sufferings. He could scarcely breathe. These living thongs were pointed at their extremities, but broadened like a blade of a sword towards its hilt. All belonged, evidently to the same centre. They crept and glided about him ; he felt the strange points of pressure, which seemed to him like months, change their places from time to time. Suddenly a large, round, flattened,

glutinous mass issued from beneath the crevice; the five thongs wereattached to it like spokes to the nave of a wheel. On the opposite side of this disgusting monster appeared the commencement of three other tentacles, the ends of which remained, under the rock. In the middle of this slimy mgss appeared two eyes. The eyes were fixed on Oilliatt. He recognised the Devil Fish. [Then follows a description of the terrible conflict for mastery which took place between Gilliatt and his formidable foe, from whose embrace he finally freed himself by a welldirected blow of his knife.]