The Strife of the Sea

by T. Jenkins Hains

THE OUTCAST

The day was bright and the sunshine glistened upon the smooth water of Cumberland Sound. The sand beach glared in the fierce rays and the heat was stifling. What little breeze there was merely ruffled the surface of the water, streaking it out into fantastic shapes upon the oily swell which heaved slowly in from the sea. Far away the lighthouse stood out white and glinting, the trees about the tall tower looking inviting with their shade. The swell snored low and sullenly upon the bar, where it broke into a line of whiteness, and the buoys rode the tide silently, making hardly a ripple as it rushed past.

Riley, the keeper of the light, was fishing. His canoe was anchored close to the shore in three fathoms of water, and he was pulling up whiting in spite of the ebb, which now went so fast that it was with difficulty he kept his line upon the bottom. When he landed his fiftieth fish they suddenly stopped biting. He changed his bait, but to no purpose. Then he pulled up his line and spat upon his hook for luck.

Even this remedy for wooing the goddess of fortune failed him, and he mopped his face and wondered. Then he looked over the side.

For some minutes he could see nothing but the glint of the current hurrying past. The sunshine dazzled him. Then he shaded his eyes and tried to pierce the depths beneath the boat.

The water was as crystal, and gradually the outlines of the soft bottom began to take form. He could follow the anchor rope clear down until a cross showed where the hook took the ground.

Suddenly he gave a start. In spite of the heat he had a chill run up his spine. Then he gazed fixedly down, straight down beneath the small boat’s bottom.

A huge pair of eyes were looking up at him with a fixed stare. At first they seemed to be in the mud of the bottom, two unwinking glassy eyes about a foot apart, with slightly raised sockets. They were almost perfectly round, and although he knew they must belong to a creature lying either to or against the current, he could not tell which side the body must lie. Gradually a movement forward of the orbs attracted his attention, and he made out an irregular outline surrounding a section of undulating mud. This showed the expanse of the creature’s body, lying flat as it was, and covering an area of several yards. It showed the proportions of the sea-devil, the huge ray whose shark-like propensities made it the most dreaded of the inhabitants of the Sound. There he lay looking serenely up at the bottom of the boat with his glassy eyes fixed in that grisly stare, and it was little wonder he was called the devil-fish.

Riley spat overboard in disgust, and drew in his line. There was no use trying to fish with that horrible thing lying beneath. He got out the oars and then took hold of the anchor line and began to haul it in, determined to seek a fishing drop elsewhere or go home. As he hauled the line, the great creature below noticed the boat move ahead. He watched it for some seconds, and then slid along the bottom, where the hook was buried in the mud.

It was easy to move his huge bulk. The side flukes had but to be ruffled a little, and the great form would move along like a shadow. He could see the man in the boat when he bent over the side, and he wondered several times whether he should take the risk of a jump aboard. He was a scavenger, and not hard to please in the matter of diet. Anything that was alive was game to his maw. He had watched for more than an hour before the light-keeper had noticed it, and now the boat was drawing away. His brain was very small, and he could not overcome a peculiar feeling that danger was always near the little creature above. He kept his eyes fixed on the boat’s bottom, and slid along under her until his head brought up against the anchor line, now taut as Riley hove it short to break out the hook. This was provoking, and he opened a wicked mouth armed with rows of shark-like teeth. Then the anchor broke clear and was started upward, and the boat began to drift away in the current.