This time the splash was unusually heavy, and he was surprised to see a massive, roundish creature, with a little, pointed tail sticking out behind, a small, snake-like head stretched out in front, and two little flippers outspread on each side. With these four flippers the stranger came swimming down calmly towards him. He had never seen anything at all like this daring stranger; but without the slightest hesitation he whipped up two writhing tentacles and seized him. The faces beyond the glass surged with excitement. When that abrupt and uncompromising clutch laid hold upon the turtle, his tail, head, and flippers vanished as if they had never been, and his upper and lower shells closed tight together till he seemed nothing more than a lifeless box of horn. Absolutely unresisting, he was drawn down to the impassive eyes and gaping beak of his captor. The tentacles writhed all over him, stealthily but eagerly investigating. Then the great parrot-beak laid hold on the shell, expecting to crush it. Making no impression, however, it slid tentatively all over the exasperating prize, seeking, but in vain, for a weak point. [Illustration: "Without the slightest hesitation he whipped up two writhing tentacles and seized him."] This went on for several minutes, while the watching faces outside the glass gazed in tense expectancy. Then at last the patience of the octopus gave way. In a sudden fury he threw himself upon the exasperating shell, tumbling it over and over, biting at it madly, wrenching it insanely with all his tentacles. And the faces beyond the glass surged thrillingly, wondering how long the turtle would stand such treatment. Shut up within his safe armor, the turtle all at once grew tired of being tumbled about, and his wise discretion forsook him. He did not mind being shut up, but he objected to being knocked about. Some prudence he had, to be sure, but not enough to control his short temper. Out shot his narrow, vicious-looking head, with its dull eyes and punishing jaws, and fastened with the grip of a bulldog upon the nearest of the tentacles, close to its base. A murmur arose outside the glass. The rage of the octopus swelled to a frenzy, and in his contortions the locked fighters bumped heavily against the glass, making the faces shrink back. The small stones on the bottom were scattered this way and that, and the fine silt rose in a cloud that presently obscured the battle.