In such an appalling crisis most creatures of sea or land would have been utterly demoralized by terror. Not so the octopus. Maintaining undaunted the clutch of one tentacle upon his prize, he turned the others, along with the effectual menace of his great beak, to the business of battle. The meshes fettered him in a way that drove him frantic with rage, but two of his tentacles managed to find their way through, and writhed madly this way and that in search of some tangible antagonist on which to fasten themselves. While they were yet groping vainly for a grip, he felt himself lifted bodily forth into the strangling air, and crowded--net, prey, and all--into a dark and narrow receptacle full of water. This fate, of course, was not to be tamely endured. Though he was suffocating in the unnatural medium, and though his great, unwinking eyes could see but vaguely outside their native element, he was all fight. One tentacle clutched the rim of the metal vessel; and one fixed its deadly suckers upon the bare black arm of a half-seen adversary who was trying to crowd him down into the dark prison. There was a strident yell. A sharp, authoritative voice exclaimed: "Look out! Don't hurt him! _I'll_ make him let go!" But the next instant the frightened darky had whipped out a knife and sliced off a good foot of the clutching tentacle. As the injured stump shrank back upon its fellows like a spade-cut worm, the other tentacle was deftly twisted loose from its hold on the rim, and the captive felt himself forced down into the narrow prison. A cover was clapped on, and he found himself in darkness, with his prey still gripped securely. Upset and raging though he was, there was nothing to be done about it, so he fell to feasting indignantly upon the prize for which he had paid so dear. CHAPTER II Left to himself, the furious prisoner by and by disentangled himself from the meshes of the net, and composed himself as well as he could in his straitened quarters. Then for days and days thereafter there was nothing but tossing and tumbling, blind feeding, and uncomprehended distress; till at last his prison was turned upside down and he was dropped unceremoniously into a great tank of glass and enamel that glowed with soft light. Bewildered though he was, he took in his surroundings in an instant, straightened his tentacles out before him, and darted backwards to the shelter of an overhanging rock which he had marked on the floor of the tank. Having backed his defenceless body under that shield, he flattened his tentacles anxiously among the stones and weeds that covered the tank-bottom, and impassively stared about.