He hated the whole tribe with bitter hatred; but
at the same time his caution was unsleeping. He bided his time for
vengeance, and used his sword on crabs and flatfish and fat groupers.
And so he grew at a great rate, till in the swelling sense of his power
and swiftness his caution began to fade away. Even the incident itself
faded from his memory, but not the hatred which had sprung from it, or
the knowledge which it had taught him.
"When Little Sword was about five feet in length he carried a weapon on
his snout not far from a foot long. By this time he was a great rover,
hunting in the deep seas or the inshore tides as the whim of the chase
might lead him, and always spoiling for a fight. He would jab his
sword into the belly of a twenty-foot grampus just to relieve his
feelings, and be off again before the outraged monster, bleeding
through his six inches of blubber, had time to even make a pretense of
charging him. And he was already a terror to the seals, who, for all
their speed and dexterity, could neither catch him nor escape him.
"But he was getting a little careless. And one day, as he was
sleeping, or basking, some ten feet below the surface, the broad, dark
form of a sawfish arose beneath him and thrust at him with his dreadful
saw.
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