02 South Sea Adventure by Willard Price Read Free Book Online

hardly follow it.
    It was very much like a jet plane or a rocket. The water suddenly expelled from the sac through a funnel propelled the beast forward at terrific speed, with the tentacles closed in and trailing behind. It was quite like a comet with a tail.
    The eight mighty arms with their hundreds of suckers slapped around the impudent fish who had dared hope to steal the octopus’s dinner. Just outside the entrance to the cave was fought a battle royal. Roger could get only an occasional glimpse of thrashing fins and tightening tentacles. The visibility was made worse when the octopus emitted a great black cloud from its ink sac.
    It would be suicide to venture out just now. Roger breathed and rested and hoped against hope that the two contenders might move far enough away so that he could escape.
    He shouted again - but he no longer had confidence that his friends were near by.
    Now he could see nothing but the black cloud. The two mortal enemies might be whirling inside it, or they might be gone.
    He must take a chance. He drew breath and went down. Halfway to the cave entrance he twisted and rose again to the roof - for he had seen the Old Man of the Sea peering into the cave from the ink cloud.
    It was alone. Evidently it had triumphed over its rival.
    Now it came in through the cave door, walking on its tentacles, pirouetting like a dancer or a gigantic spider.
    It stepped along delicately, almost gracefully. It was like a cat stalking a mouse. Rainbow colours flitted over its body. Roger had learned in his talks with Captain Ike and Omo that this was a sign of great anger.
    For the octopus was quite capable of emotions. It could be affectionate with its young and furious with enemies. It had a highly developed brain far finer than that of any fish, eyes that were similar to human eyes, and it was as cunning as a fox.
    Roger could see the beast’s mantle swelling. He yelled again, for he knew that the final struggle was now only a matter of seconds.
    Then the mantle squeezed tight like the bulb of a squirt-gun. The octopus catapulted up through the water and whipped its arms around its dinner.
    A boy with less fighting spirit than Roger would have given up now. He kept battling and, at the same time, trying to remember. What was it Omo had told him? A way the islanders sometimes used to conquer the terror of the deep. Something about a nerve centre between the eyes. If you could get at it, the beast could be paralysed.
    He would win yet. He would not only beat this devil, he would take it alive. They wanted an octopus for the collection. Perhaps they would forgive the scare he had given them if he made good now.
    He stayed with his head above the water as long as possible, clinging to the coral. Then the octopus with a terrific jerk pulled him under. But his lungs were full of air and his heart full of fight. Only he did not struggle this time against the enveloping arms. He saved his strength.
    He was drawn closer to the two evil eyes. They were exactly like the small slanting eyes of an angry rhino such as the one he had seen maim a foreman at this father’s animal farm.
    The monster’s jaws, until now concealed under the mantle, opened to receive him. They were shaped like the beak of a parrot, but many times as large. They could smash a coconut or a robber crab at one crunch - so what chance would his head have? And yet he let himself be drawn closer. He pretended to be weaker than he was. The Old Man of the Sea would mink that he had given up. The octopus did not clutch him so tightly now - it did not need to. This was going to be an easy victim after all. The tentacles drew the morsel closer.
    He felt as if his lungs would burst. But he must stick it out a little longer. Where was that thing? - Omo had said it was just between the eyes. All the nerves of the body met there in a little ganglia about the size of a pea.
    Yes, there it was - a little bump, like a wart or a pimple. He nerved himself. He looked