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Then, the barracouta's powerful tail twisted with a violence that sent the water swirling as from a screw.

The gorge, too, was alive with barracoutas and sharks, leaping out of water, or with their stiff triangular fins cutting just above the surface, and sometimes even grazing the blades of the cutter’s oars.

As buoyant as a cork, he soon came to the surface, and, scrambling upon the stage, he seized a barracouta from the boat, and rushed at his mate.

Now and again a long, black shadow would sail slowly over the scene of freakish life—the shadow of a passing albacore 176 or barracouta.

"Not too fast for a barracouta," said Tom; so we put out lines and watched the stretched strings, and listened to the sea.