"Hugo's imagination could not give him a creature--no matter how
formidable--larger than one of four feet stretch. This one had three
tentacles around me, two others gripped the port and starboard
pin-rails, and three were gripping the stump of the mainmast. It had a
reach of forty feet, I should think, comparing it with the beam of the
craft.
"But there was one part of each picture, ill defined and missing. My
knife and right hand were not shown. They were buried in a dark lump,
which could be nothing but the blood from my veins. Unconscious, but
still struggling, I had struck into the soft body of the monster, and
struck true."