§5
But an instinct stronger than fear drove him out into the open: his stock of canned food ran low, and large red ants got into his flour. He needed cocoanuts and breadfruit and baby fekes (or young octopi). He knew that numerous succulent infant fekes lurked in holes in his own cove, and thither he went by night to pull them from their homes. Hitherto he had encountered only small fekes, with tender tentacles only a few feet long; but that night Mr. Pottle had the misfortune to plunge his naked arm into the watery nest when the father of the family was at home. He realized his error too late.
A clammy tentacle, as long as a fire hose, as strong as the arm of a gorilla, coiled round his arm, and his scream was cut short as the giant devil-fish dragged him below the water.
The water was shallow. Mr. Pottle got a foothold, forced his head above water, and began to yell for help and struggle for his life.
The chances against a nude Ohio barber of 140 pounds in a wrestling match with an adult octopus are exactly a thousand to one. The giant feke so despised his opponent that he used only two of his eight muscular arms. In their slimy, relentless clutch Mr. Pottle felt his strength going fast. As his favorite authors would have put it, "it began to look bad for Mr. Pottle."
The thought that Mr. Pottle thought would be his last on this earth was, "I wouldn't mind being eaten by cannibals, but to be drowned by a trick fish——"
Mr. Pottle threshed about in one final, frantic flounder; his strength gave out; he shut his eyes.
He heard a shrill cry, a splashing in the water, felt himself clutched about the neck from behind, and dragged away from the feke. He opened his eyes and struggled weakly. One tentacle released its grip. Mr. Pottle saw by the tropic moon's light that some large creature was doing battle with the feke. It was a man, a large brown man who with a busy ax hacked the gristly limbs from the feke as fast as they wrapped around him. Mr. Pottle staggered to the dry beach; a tentacle was still wound tight round his shoulder, but there was no octopus at the other end of it.
The angry noise of the devil-fish—for, when wounded, they snarl like kicked curs—stopped. The victorious brown man strode out of the water to where Mr. Pottle swayed on the moonlit sand. It was Mealy-mealy.
"Bad fishum!" said Mealy-mealy, with a grin.