The disengaged end of the main throat-halyards was made fast to the tail of the supposedly dead fish, the bight was loosely attached to the main-sheet traveler, and Skipper Lewis and his helper straightway began to bail in herring.
All at once the stern of the boat settled. Down it went, suddenly, and water began to pour into the standing-room. The horse-mackerel had regained consciousness and was making the fact known.
Mate James hurriedly unloosed the halyards, and the immense fish disappeared below the surface and renewed its fight for freedom.
As the fish scurried away, the halyards tautened. The main-gaff started aloft, drawn by the hoisting-gear. The gaff-end caught, held securely for a moment, then broke, and up in a trice went the bellying sail, with broken spar dangling.
For a moment all was confusion on the boat. The fish, a 900-pounder, in one of its rushes approached the boat's quarter. One of the crew, ax in hand, delivered a swinging blow at him, but the agile horse-mackerel easily avoided it.
An instant later the strong wind struck full upon the bagging canvas and laid the boat over, well upon her side. A capsize seemed imminent. Correctly sizing up the situation, Mate Manuel James seized a sharp knife and with one stroke severed the halyards.
Immediately the horse-mackerel, with all but a small portion of the main-halyards tied to its tail, vanished like a flash through the broadside netting of the weir, vanished for good. Lewis, owner thereof, gave vent to sundry explosive ejaculations.
Cape Cod weirs scoop in many unexpected water-creatures. Recently a forty-foot-long—estimated—right-whale entered O'Neil's head of harbor Provincetown floating traps. Annoyed a half-hour later by would-be captors, this huge animal, bearing within its mouth baleen worth probably $2,000, with one rush burst through the heavy netting and went away to sea, leaving a badly torn weir behind.
In August, 1908, a baby finback whale, just out of leading-strings, evidently, it being only fifteen feet long, entered Blatchford's weir and was slain. The creature was exhibited under a tent upon the main beach.
The Lewis-James weir captured, October 9 of the same year, a bone shark seventeen feet long. The skin of that rare creature was removed intact, and is now being tanned for mounting by the purchaser, David C. Stull, known as the Ambergris King.