In an instant a bell-shaped sucker mouth has fastened to
his side. In another instant, from one lip, a concave double
proboscis, just like a tapir's (another instance of the repetition
of forms), has clasped him like a finger; and now begins the
struggle: but in vain. He is being "played" with such a fishing-
line as the skill of a Wilson or a Stoddart never could invent; a
living line, with elasticity beyond that of the most delicate fly-
rod, which follows every lunge, shortening and lengthening,
slipping and twining round every piece of gravel and stem of sea-
weed, with a tiring drag such as no Highland wrist or step could
ever bring to bear on salmon or on trout. The victim is tired now;
and slowly, and yet dexterously, his blind assailant is feeling and
shifting along his side, till he reaches one end of him; and then
the black lips expand, and slowly and surely the curved finger
begins packing him end-foremost down into the gullet, where he
sinks, inch by inch, till the swelling which marks his place is
lost among the coils, and he is probably macerated to a pulp long
before he has reached the opposite extremity of his cave of doom.
Once safe down, the black murderer slowly contracts again into a
knotted heap, and lies, like a boa with a stag inside him,
motionless and blest.
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