The devil-fish, in fact, is only vulnerable through the head.
Gilliatt was not ignorant of this fact.
With the devil-fish, as with a furious bull, there is a certain moment in the conflict which must be seized. It is the instant when the devil-fish advances its head. The movement is rapid. He who loses that moment is destroyed.
The things we have described occupied only a few moments. Gilliatt, however, felt the increasing power of its innumerable suckers.
The monster is cunning; it tries first to stupefy its prey. It seizes and then pauses a while.
Gilliatt grasped his knife; the sucking increased.
He looked at the monster, which seemed to look at him.
Suddenly it loosened from the rock its sixth antenna, and darting it at him, seized him by the left arm.
At the same moment it advanced its head with a violent movement. In one second more its mouth would have fastened on his breast. Bleeding in the sides, and with his two arms entangled, he would have been a dead man.
But Gilliatt was watchful. He avoided the antenna, and at the moment when the monster darted forward to fasten on his breast, he struck it with the knife clenched in his left hand. There were two convulsions in opposite directions; that of the devil-fish and that of its prey. The movement was rapid as a double flash of lightning.