pustules, and the sensation was much as if each dot were charged with a red-hot needle, gradually making its way through the nerves. The slightest touch of the clothes was agony, and as I had to walk more than two miles before reaching my lodgings, the sufferings endured may be better imagined than described.
Severe, however, as was this pain, it was the least part of the torture inflicted by these apparently insignificant weapons. Both the respiration and the action of the heart became affected, while at short intervals sharp pangs shot through the chest, as if a bullet had passed through heart and lungs, causing me to stagger as if struck by a leaden missile. Then the pulsation of the heart would cease for a time that seemed an age, and then it would give six or seven leaps as if it would force its way through the chest. Then the lungs would refuse to act, and I stood gasping in vain for breath, as if the arm of a garotter were round my neck. Then the sharp pang would shoot through the chest, and so da capo.
After a journey lasting, so far as my feelings went, about two years, I got to my lodgings, and instinctively sought for the salad oil flask. As always happens under such circumstances, it was empty, and I had to wait while another could be purchased. A copious friction with the oil had a sensible effect in alleviating the suffering, though when I happened to catch a glance of my own face in the mirror I hardly knew it—all white, wrinkled, and shrivelled, with cold perspiration standing in large drops over the surface.
How much brandy was administered to me I almost fear to mention, excepting to say that within half an hour I drank as much alcohol as would have intoxicated me over and over again, and yet was no more affected by it than if it had been so much fair water. Several days elapsed before I could walk with any degree of comfort, and for more than three months afterwards the shooting pang would occasionally dart through the chest.
Yet, as before mentioned, the result might have been more disastrous than was the case. Severe as were the effects of the poisoned filaments, their range was extremely limited, extending just above the knee of one leg, the greater part of the right arm, and a few lines on the face, where the water had been splashed by the curling waves. If the injuries had extended to the chest, or over the epigastrium, where so large a mass of nervous matter is collected, I doubt whether I should have been able to reach the shore, or, being there, whether I should have been able to ascend the cutting through the cliffs before the flowing tide had dashed its waves against the white rocks.
It may be easily imagined that so severe a lesson was not lost upon me, and that ever afterwards I looked out very carefully for the tawny mass of fibre and membrane that once had worked me such woe.
On one occasion, after just such a gale as had brought the unwelcome visitant to our shores, I was in a rowing boat with several companions, and came across two more specimens of Cyanea capillata, quietly floating along as if they were the most harmless beings that the ocean ever produced. My dearly bought experience was then serviceable to at least one of my companions, who was going to pick up the Medusa as it drifted past us, and was only deterred by a threat of having his wrist damaged by a blow of the stroke oar.
Despite, however, of all precautions, I again fell a victim to the Cyanea in the very next season. After taking my usual half-mile swim I turned towards shore, and in due course of time arrived within a reasonable distance of soundings. As all swimmers are in the habit of doing on such occasions, I dropped my feet to feel for sand or rock, and at the same moment touched something soft, and experienced the well-known tingling sensation in the toes. Off I set to shore, and this time escaped with a tolerably sharp nettling about one foot and ankle that rendered boots a torture, but had little further effect. Even this slight attack, however, brought back the spasmodic affection of the heart; and although nearly fourteen months have elapsed since the last time that Medusa shook her venomed locks at me, the shooting pang now and then reminds me of my entanglement with her direful tresses.
For the comfort of intending sea-bathers, it may be remarked that although the effects of the Cyanea’s trailing filaments were so terrible in the present instance, they might be greatly mitigated in those individuals who are blessed with a stouter epidermis, and less sensitive nervous organisation than have fallen to the lot of the afflicted narrator. How different, for example, are the effects of a wasp or bee sting on different individuals, being borne with comparative impunity by one, while another is laid up for days by a precisely similar injury. And it may perchance happen that whereas the contact of the Cyanea’s trailing filaments may affect one person with almost unendurable pangs, another may be entangled within their folds with comparative impunity.
As, however, the comparative degree is in this case to be avoided with the utmost care, I repeat the advice given in the earlier portion of this narrative, and earnestly counsel the reader to look out carefully for the stinger, and, above all things, never to swim across its track, no matter how distant the animal may be, for the creature can cast forth its envenomed filaments to an almost interminable length, and even when separated from the parent body, each filament, or each fragment thereof, will sting just as fiercely as if still attached to the creature whence it issued. It will be seen, therefore, that the safest plan will always be to keep well in front of any tawny mass that may be seen floating on the waves, and to allow at least a hundred yards before venturing to cross its course. Perhaps this advice may be thought overstrained by the inexperienced.
Those jest at scars who never felt a wound;
but he who has purchased a painful knowledge at the cost of many wounds, will deem his courage in nowise diminished if he does his best to keep out of the way of a foe who cares nothing for assaults, who may be cut into a thousand pieces without losing one jot of his offensive powers, and who never can be met on equal terms.
J. G. Wood.
