"Next thing I knowed it took holt like a leech in half a dozen places.
I jumped; but I didn't jump far. There was two o' the things had me,
and that left leg o' mine was fast as a duck's foot in the mud!"
"Oh, Uncle Amazon!" gasped Louise.
"Yep. A third arm whipped out o' the water had helt me round the waist
tighter'n any girl of my acquaintance ever lashed her best feller.
Land sakes, that devilfish certainly give me a hi-mighty hug!
"But I had what they call down in the Spanish speakin' islands a
machette--a big knife for cuttin' your way through the jungle. I
hauled that out o' the waistband of my pants and I began slicing at
them snake-like arms of the critter and yelling like all get-out.
"More scare't than hurt, I reckon. I was a young feller, as I tell
you, and hadn't seen so much of the world as I have since," continued
Cap'n Amazon. "But the arms seemed fairly to grow on that devilfish.
I wasn't hacked loose when the second officer come runnin' with his
gun. I dragged the critter nearer inshore and he got a look at it.
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