"Are you all right, sair?" the boatman asked.
"All right," said Colin stoutly, as he got up.
Seldom had he been such a sight! He was black from head to foot with the sepia fluid, his clothes were torn where he had fallen on the rocks, and he was smothered in the nauseous embrace of the uncanny and diabolical eight-armed creature clinging to his shoulder. Once, on the way to the boat, the cuttlefish seemed ready to drop off, but, at Vincente's warning, Colin made believe to force apart the other tentacles, and the octopus renewed its hold. As soon as they reached the boat and the
boy stood still a moment, the cuttlefish let go, and fell to the bottom of the boat.
Colin looked down at himself and laughed, then jumped overboard in all his clothes, threshing around in the water to remove as much of the sepia as he could, clambering in when he had washed off the worst of it.
Vincente looked at him.
"I t'ink, sair," he said, smiling, "you ought to be photograph' wit' ze catch!"