Here, however, in plain print, was described the capture of a giant squid in a bay which lay beyond a point of land that Billy could see from the window.
That afternoon Billy put out in his leaky old punt to "jig" squid for bait. He was so disgusted with the punt—so ashamed of the squat, weather-worn, rotten cast-off—that he wished heartily for a new one all the way to the grounds. The loss of the Never Give Up had brought him to humiliating depths.
But when he had once joined the little fleet of boats, he cheerfully threw his grapnel into Bobby Lot's punt and beckoned Bobby aboard. Then, as together they drew the writhing-armed, squirting little squids from the water, he told of the "big squids" which lurked in the deep water beyond the harbour; and all the time Bobby opened his eyes wider and wider.
"Is they just like squids?" Bobby asked.
"But bigger," answered Billy. "Their bodies is so big as hogsheads. Their arms is thirty-five feet long."
Bobby picked a squid from the heap in the bottom of the boat. It had instinctively turned from a reddish-brown to a livid green, the colour of sea-water; indeed, had it been in the water, its enemy would have had hard work to see it.
He handled it gingerly; but the ugly little creature managed somehow to twine its slender arms about his hand, and swiftly to take hold with a dozen cup-like suckers. The boy uttered an exclamation of disgust, and shook it off. Then he shuddered, laughed at himself, shuddered again. A moment later he chose a dead squid for examination.
"Leave us look at it close," said he. "Then we'll know what a real devil-fish is like. Sure, I've been wantin' to know that for a long, long time."
They observed the long, cylindrical body, flabby and cold, with the broad, flap-like tail attached. The head was repulsively ugly—perhaps because of the eyes, which were disproportionately large, brilliant, and, in the live squid, ferocious.
A group of arms—two long, slender, tentacular arms, and eight shorter, thicker ones—projected from the region of the mouth, which, indeed, was set in the centre of the ring they formed at the roots. They were equipped with innumerable little suckers, were flexible and active, and as long as the head, body and tail put together.