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Updated: June 6, 2025
I was puffing away here at my ease, with my mind filled with happy thoughts of two or three weeks with Miss Minturn on this floating paradise, where she was bound to see a good deal of me, and couldn't help liking me better, and depending on me more and more every day, when I felt a little jerking shock. It was the same thing that we had felt before. The Water-devil still had hold of us!
Without turning to observe the effect of these last words, the marine went on. "Suddenly I heard behind me a most dreadful sound. 'Good Heavens, I exclaimed, 'can a Water-devil bray? "The sound was repeated. Without knowing what I did, I turned. I heard what sounded like words; I saw in the fog the stern of a vessel, with a man above it, shouting to me through a speaking-trumpet.
"Oh, that is easily explained," interrupted the marine, "for of course the Water-devil could not know that a lot more people were not left in the ship, and if he let go his hold on her, to try and grab a boat that was moving as fast as men could row it, the steamer might get out of his reach, and he mightn't have another chance for a hundred years to make fast to a vessel.
"In an hour or so the officer in charge of the operations on the General Brooks came aboard. As he passed me on his way to the captain, he said, 'We found your Water-devil, my man. 'And he truly had us in tow? I cried. 'Yes, you are perfectly correct, he said, and went on to make his report to the captain." "Now, then," said the blacksmith, "I suppose we are going to get to the pint.
There isn't a native seaman on any of these coasts that would sail over that point if he knowed it and could help it, for that's the spot where the Water-devil lives. "It made me jump to hear the grunt that went through that crowd when he said this, but nobody asked any questions, and he went on.
All that this Water-devil gets to eat is what happens to come swimmin' or sailin' along where he can reach it, and it doesn't matter to him whether it's a shark, or a porpoise, or a shipful of people, and when he takes a grab of anything, that thing never gets away.
I know what's the matter; I've sailed these seas afore, and I've been along the coast of this bay all the way from Negapatam to Jellasore on the west coast, and from Chittagong to Kraw on the other; and I have heard stories of the strange things that are in this Bay of Bengal, and what they do, and the worst of them all is the Water-devil and he's got us!
Who is in command? I informed him, that, strictly speaking, no one was in command, but that I represented the captain, officers, and crew of this steamer, the General Brooks, from San Francisco to Calcutta, and I then proceeded to tell him the whole story of our misfortunes; and concluded by telling the officer, that if we had not moved since his vessel had come in sight, it was probably because the Water-devil had let go of us, and was preparing to make fast to the other ship; and therefore it would be advisable for us all to get on board his vessel, and steam away as quickly as possible.
"The chief officer said he would go below and see how the captain was getting on, and the crew huddled together in the bow, and began whispering among themselves, as if they were afraid the Water-devil would hear them. I turned to walk aft, feeling pretty queer, I can tell you, when I saw Miss Minturn just coming up from the cabin below.
'This here Water-devil, said he, 'is about as big as six whales, and in shape very like an oyster without its shell, and he fastens himself to the rocks at the bottom with a million claws.
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