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Updated: May 27, 2025
When Harry Boyns thought of all this he sighed deeply, and made up his mind to remain by the Swordfish, and sink or swim with her.
'Congratulate me, pretty Kitty, said the young man, almost out of breath; 'I am appointed mate of the brig Swordfish, which I am to join at Dunbar. 'How! you are going? 'In an hour. 'For a long time? 'For three years at least. In a fortnight we set sail for the East Indies. It will be a great commercial voyage and a voyage of discovery.
The swordfish, when swimming at the surface, usually allows its dorsal fin and the upper lobe of its caudal fin to be visible, projecting out of the water. It is this habit which enables the fisherman to detect the presence of the fish. It swims slowly along, and the fishing-schooner with a light breeze finds no difficulty in overtaking it. When excited its motions are very rapid and nervous.
Still, I knew I had him beaten, and I calculated that in another hour, perhaps, I could lead him alongside. Then, like thunder out of a clear sky, something went wrong with the great B-Ocean reel. It worked hard. When a big swell carried the swordfish up, pulling out line, the reel rasped. "It's freezing on you!" shouted Captain Dan, with dark glance.
In some way the leader had looped around him with the hook catching under the wire. No wonder it had nearly killed me to bring him to the boat, and surely I never would have succeeded had it not been for the record Captain Dan coveted. That was the strangest feature in all my wonderful Clemente experience to see that superb swordfish looped in a noose of my long leader. He was without a scratch.
And one swordfish caught out of ten strikes is good work!" But Danielson was optimistic and encouraging, as any good boatman ought to be. If I had not been fortunate enough to secure Captain Dan as my boatman, it is certain that one of the most wonderful fishing experiences on record would have fallen to some other fisherman, instead of to me.
A new reel sometimes clogs and stops from friction and heat. I had had von Hofe and other reels freeze. But in this instance, it seemed that for the reel to freeze would be simply heartbreaking. Well it froze, tight as a shut vise! I sat there, clutching the vibrating rod, and I watched the swordfish as the swells lifted him. I expected the line to break, but, instead, the hook tore out.
Up and up came the long, dark, vague object. "You've got him licked!" exclaimed Dan. "Not a wag left in him!" It did seem so. And that bewildering instant saw the birth of assurance in me. I was going to get him! That was a grand instant for a fisherman. I could have lifted anything then. The swordfish became clear to my gaze.
We often saw them darting after other fish, and no doubt they sometimes killed them with their ivory swords. Jack remembered having heard once of a swordfish attacking a ship, which seemed strange indeed; but as they are often in the habit of attacking whales, perhaps it mistook the ship for one.
He found among the copies of the city newspaper they took at The Poplars a recent number from which a square had been cut out. He procured another copy of this paper of the same date, and found that the piece cut out was an advertisement to the effect that the A 1 Ship Swordfish, Captain Hawkins, was to sail from Boston for Calcutta, on the 20th of June. The second fact was the following.
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