sufficiently to give to us a clear sight of the stranger, before we had
gone more than a little past her. And now I perceived that she lay full
broadside on to us, and that her three masts were gone close down to the
deck. Her side was streaked in places with rust, and in others a green
scum overspread her; but it was no more than a glance that I gave at any
of those matters; for I had spied something which drew all my
attention--great leathery arms splayed all across her side, some of them
crooked inboard over the rail, and then, low down, seen just above the
weed, the huge, brown, glistening bulk of so great a monster as ever I
had conceived. The bo'sun saw it in the same instant and cried out in a
hoarse whisper that it was a mighty devilfish, and then, even as he
spoke, two of the arms flickered up into the cold light of the dawn, as
though the creature had been asleep, and we had waked it. At that, the
bo'sun seized an oar, and I did likewise, and, so swiftly as we dared,
for fear of making any unneedful noise, we pulled the boat to a safer
distance. From there and until the vessel had become indistinct by reason
of the space we put between us, we watched that great creature clutched
to the old hull, as it might be a limpet to a rock.

Presently, when it was broad day, some of the men began to rouse up, and
in a little we broke our fast, which was not displeasing to me, who had
spent the night watching. And so through the day we sailed with a very
light wind upon our larboard quarter. And all the while we kept the
great waste of weed upon our starboard side, and apart from the mainland
of the weed, as it were, there were scattered about an uncountable
number of weed islets and banks, and there were thin patches of it that
appeared scarce above the water, and through these later we let the boat
sail; for they had not sufficient density to impede our progress more
than a little.