Mind what you're doing, or you'll have the sea serpent aboard."
"What!" cried the lad, looking aghast.
"Hurrah! I've got one too," cried the doctor. "Humph! only a little one;" and he began to haul in. "Hurrah! something else has taken it,"
he shouted. "Here, Bartlett, I've got hold of a whale."
"We've got a shark," said the mate. "Look at the boat."
"Let go--let go quick!" cried Jack excitedly; "the fish is running away with us."
"And no mistake," said the doctor. "Mine's helping. Why, Jack, this is something like sport."
"How can you laugh!" cried the boy; "it must be horribly dangerous. Cut the line;" and Edward's knife was hastily opened.
"Oh no," said the mate, "we don't want to lose that, it will break directly close to the hook."
"Think we could get them both alongside?" said the doctor.
"Not with tackle like this," replied the mate; "we should want fine rope and a bit of chain. Mine must be six feet long. Look what a rate we're going at."
"Why, it's like being fast to a whale," cried the doctor.
"Not quite so bad as that," said the mate, laughing. "There he goes,"
he added, as the line suddenly hung loose in his hands.
"Gone?" cried Jack with a sigh of relief.
"Yes, and it's a good proof of the quality of the lines. They are wonderfully strong to hold out so long. Cut into my hands pretty well."
"Come and give me a hand, Jack," cried the doctor.
The boy moved unwillingly, but he reached over and took hold, half expecting to see a head come out of the water, a pair of menacing jaws open close to his hands, and a pair of fierce eyes give him a questioning look as to what he was doing to a peaceable inhabitant of the deep. But he had hardly felt the throbbing drag at the end of a hundred yards of line when the shark dived, and he and the doctor sank back in the boat, whose steady progress through the water was checked.
"How do you like fishing?" said the doctor merrily.
"But I don't quite understand," said Jack. "Oh, it's easy enough, boy,"
cried the doctor, smiling; "we threw out little fish or imitations.
Bigger ones took them. Then a pair of monsters seized the bigger ones and began to tow the boat; and if we had held on much longer we should have had a pair as big as the yacht take our monsters, and end by swallowing us, boat and all."
"But you don't think they were sea serpents?" said Jack, whose face looked a little sallow.
"Oh no," said the mate. "Sharks without doubt. Look here, the twisted wire is regularly cut through, as if by a pair of shears," he continued, as he held up the end of the line he had drawn in. "How is yours?"
"Haven't got the end yet," said the doctor, who was hauling away. "Here we are," he cried; "mine's broken where the snood joins on. What's to be done now?"
"Put on fresh baits," said Jack sharply; and Edward reached for the basket.
The mate and the doctor exchanged glances. "Very well," said the latter; "but I expect it only means another fight like the last. Eh, Bartlett?"
"I'm afraid so. The sharks are evidently following this great shoal to pick up a helpless one now and then."
"But it's so disappointing," said Jack. "I wanted to see what we had caught, and take them aboard for dinner."
"Yes, it's disappointing," said the doctor. "What do you think they were that we had hold of--there in the shoal?"
"They look to me like some kind of sea perch," said the mate, "something like the bass one gets down in Cornwall."
"Seem like it from their playing about," said the doctor, and drawing the basket toward him, he proceeded to fit on another artificial bait.
"I'll try and stir them up again with the spoon," he said, with a droll look at Jack.
"I shall keep to the imitation fish," said Jack, who was deeply interested. "I think we ought to pull them in more quickly, before the sharks have time."
"Couldn't pull in more quickly than I did," said the doctor. "Well, we will have this try, and if we don't succeed we had better give it up.
We don't want to be towed right away from the yacht."
"What?" said Jack, looking up sharply. "I say it would be rather awkward to be towed out of sight of the yacht."
Jack gave an anxious glance in the direction of their sea-going home, and then laughed.
"No fear of that," he said; and as soon as Lenny had placed the boat once more quietly at a little distance from the shoal, the boy threw in his bait, seeing the fish rush in all directions; but directly after there was a jerk, and a thrill, and he felt that he was fast to a big fish.
This time he began to haul at once, as quickly as he could, hand over hand, while after a few frantic dashes the fish gave in, and was half-way to the boat, then three-parts of the way, showing its silvery sides, and apparently about two feet long, and all before the doctor had thrown out.
"Get your hook, Mr Bartlett," cried Jack eagerly.
"All ready."
"Washed?"
"Yes, thoroughly."
"Now then, here he is! Oh!"
"Murder! Look out!" shouted Edward, ducking down.
There was a tremendous splash, the water being thrown in their faces as Jack and the mate stood up, the one drawing in the fish, the other ready to make a snatch with the gaff-hook, when a great dark object suddenly rose within six feet of the boat, taking the fish in its jaws, curved over, and dived down, waving a great grey and black tail high in the air, and sending the water flying over them as it disappeared with the line running rapidly out.
"Let me come, Mr Jack," cried the mate; "it's of no use to let it burn or cut your hands. I'll show you."
As he spoke he stooped, took hold of the line a few rings below those which were rapidly gliding over the side, and passed it round the copper rowlock, letting it still run, but at a slower rate, and gradually adding weight, till the boat began to move, when he checked the line entirely by giving it another turn round and holding on.
"Now take hold. You can let him run or make him tow us, whichever you like," he said to Jack, who seized the line, and stood there feeling as if he were driving in a marine chariot drawn by sea monsters that were quite under his control.
"The line cannot bear such a strain long," said the mate. "If we had heavy tackle we might haul the brutes alongside, and kill them with a lance or a shot."
"Let's try next time," cried Jack excitedly. "How it is pulling us along."
"Yes; we are going pretty well," said the doctor dryly. "I _hope_ the brute won't turn round and attack us."