James B. Connolly

“ Cameron had been a fishing-master himself, and so successful a one that he was now an owner, and everybody waited to see what he had to say to that, but he didn't say anything; he only looked steadily at the Henriette's skipper.
"If you don't believe that"—the Henriette's master looked hard at Mr. Cameron—"then can you tell me what becomes of the bones he eats? A swordfish comes along and cuts into a school o' fish, and he slashes right and left with his sword, and when he's cut enough for a good, square meal he stops and eats 'em—swallows 'em bone and all. ”

“ Bill's right name was not Bill. Nobody knew what it was, nor cared. Bill was probably a better one, anyway. The first peek of him as he came down the dock started John, and the eye-filling curves of him as he swung himself aboard caught the crew. After that no other name could fit him. The first time he jammed himself into the boatswain chair in the pulpit—which is where the striker takes his station to harpoon fish—the skipper went down into the cabin and tore the passenger away from the table to take a snapshot of him. "If your camera is big enough across," warned the skipper. ”

“ On the afternoon of that morning which saw us among the fleet we sighted fish. A cry came from aloft. The skipper stood up and unslipped his long pole. Norman's back stiffened on the wheel-box. Bill came out of his trance, looked aloft, and shifted his gaze to leeward. The bright, bald head of the cook shone up the forecastle-hatch, and then up came himself, smoking tranquilly. He cast a peek aloft, said Fish-h! and stepped on to the deck.
"Fair abeam to loo'ard!" John called, and Norman, with eyes on the compass, put the wheel up. ”

“ A shark's fin is largely triangular, and his tail is always moving. There is a graceful wave to a shark's tail when he is cruising. A swordfish's fin is also three-cornered, but the edges of it are curved, and the tail as it slips through the water is almost without motion. When there was a slight breeze and the sea's surface was broken into a million little wavelets, every one looking like a fin, that was when John performed miracles to the masthead. ”

“ It was a day to make a man over as we left Eastern Point astern. Just to look at the young blue seas was life, and if you did not care for that, the soft salt air was a nerve-cure. And a morning to see pictures, when by and by the haze dissolved before us. Two home-bound salt-fishermen, both flying topsails to the strong breeze, but neither one much more than flushing her scuppers, went swinging by like a pair of twins. ”

“ John was topmost, and swung in his chair just under the truck. Ezra and Bennie were just beneath him. When they grew tired of swinging in their chairs they could stand up, one cross-line in the small of their backs, another against their chests, their arms, if the vessel was driving into a sea, wrapped around the topmast. And they clung there in many a seaway. Moderately rough water does not preclude swordfishing. So long as a fin will show, these men will go after them. Our skipper was in the Henriette's pulpit one day when the bowsprit plunged into a head sea as he drove home his iron. ”

“ He made a flying leap into the dory towing astern, and, leaning far enough out to lay the dory on her side, he spread wide his hands, and the melon just naturally floated right over the gunwale and into his arms, and Ezra hugged it to his bosom.
Bill took the melon when it was passed up over the rail and tested it for soundness. "Only one little soft spot," he announced, and without any foolish delay got his dressing-knife and cut it up. "Poor old Nokomis, I wonder where ye be now," observed Bill, and cautiously tasted the melon. ”

“ A handsome fish, as are all swordfish when fresh caught, plump and tapering in body, with pointed head and large, protruding eyes, his skin a lovely, dripping blue-black, a blue-black which had not faded hours later when he was lowered into the hold to be placed on ice. And to give an idea how deep-loaded these swordfishers are sometimes with ice: in the Henriette the cook had a fine, large round of beef on top of the ice in the hold; but to make room for that first swordfish the cook's round of beef had to come out on deck. ”

“ Mr. Cameron stroked his beard and did some lightning figuring. "The way the market is to-day, Shorty, you'd share a hundred and fifty dollars. Hard luck."
And then Colin MacPherson butted in. "Did the Henriette take any seas over her bow?" he demanded of the passenger.
"She was taking them over both bows one time."
"Hah!" squealed Colin, and pointed one lean forefinger, curved like a fish-hook, at Louis Vinot. "Didn't I say she wass down by the head going out? Didn't I? 'She hass thirty tons of ice in her, and she iss down by the head,' I said." ”

“ The pulpit on a sword-fisherman consists of a small wooden platform surrounded by a steel guard-rail high enough to support a tall man at about his hips, and a boatswain's chair swung from the rear. The idea is to give the striker a stand sufficiently elevated to hold him clear of all but the heavy seas, and a railing sufficiently high to hold him safe when he throws his harpoon, and yet not high enough to restrict the motions of his arms or to bind his body in any way above the waist.
As the skipper went into the pulpit the lookouts, John, Ezra, and Bennie, went aloft. ”

“ Her masts were painted white from saddle to deck, and that drifting spar was about the size of a mainmast for a vessel of the Nokomis's tonnage.
"She's broke up. Good-by, Nokomis," said our skipper, and Big Bill went on to tell about John Pettipaw. "Easy-goin', nothin' worrit him. The finest kind of a chap," said Bill. "Mebbe he didn't worry enough."
And then we picked up the watermelon. Everybody knew that Pettipaw's cook, Bill said, was a great fellow to ship a few watermelons, and always kept a couple to cut on the passage home. And men don't throw watermelons overboard. ”

“ We had to depend on the motor; but it was a fine chance over the shoals. We were bound to the southward and eastward of No Man's Land, which is a little island out by itself south of Nantucket. We arrived there next morning, and that fore-noon we cruised thereabout, but saw no signs of sword fish nor of the fleet. Schools of big loafers of sharks lying idle under the surface there were, but sharks bring nothing in the market.
We stood on to the eastward until we spotted the fleet. Bob Jackson, of Nantucket, and Jill Johnson, of Maine; John Pettipaw and Bill Rice, of Gloucester ”

“ You people who never saw a swordfish except when he's lying stretched out stiff on the dock, of course you know all about them." The skipper swung himself aboard, the passenger followed, Colin and Charlie cast off the bow line, and the little Henriette, swordfisherman, was off to sea. ”

“ John used to pretend that when Bill was in the pulpit there was no seeing a good part of the forward horizon. "Shuts off all of a ha'f-p'int on each bow," John estimated. Bill couldn't see anything funny in John's talk, and put it very plainly across the supper-table one afternoon. Supper was at three o'clock, dinner at half-past nine, and breakfast at five o'clock on the Henriette—wholesome hours. "Somebody 'll set on you right hard some day," said Bill. ”

“ Norman, at the wheel, could see nothing. "Steady!" called John. The swordfish was yet some distance ahead.
The skipper was swaying waist. A big-boned, rangy skipper, more than six feet wide-shouldered, with a good reach and a muscular back. He hefted his pole—a week now since he had ironed a swordfish—and looked back to see that all was clear behind him. From his iron fifty fathoms of line ran back to a tub in the waist of the vessel. To the end of that line was a black-and-white-painted buoy. Looking after line and buoy was the cook's business ”

“ And then the skipper came along with John Cameron, and while Louis was casting off the stern line he added the last little word to the swordfishing tale for Mr. Cameron's and the passenger's benefit.
Now the master of the Henriette was an all-around fisherman, and particularly a killer among swordfishermen. The record share among swordfishermen had been made by him in this same little Henriette, and naturally what he had to say about swordfish was worth listening to. ”

“ A swordfish!" ejaculated Colin, "that drives their sword through dories, and right straight through the three-inch oak plankin' of a vessel!"
"Yes, and kills men sometimes. But I've seen 'em, two of 'em, meet each other head on in the water, and whir-h!—off they scuttle as far apart 's the points of the compass 'll let 'em, and they won't either of 'em stop going while you c'n see 'em from the masthead. ”