III
In the mid-deep of the lake the silence was absolute. There was no hiss of tense feathers to accentuate it, as in the upper vast of air. There was no fading and elusive bird-note to measure it by, as in the gloom of the cedar swamp. Down in the gold-brown glimmer the fine silt lay unstirred on the stones. There was no movement, except the delicate, almost imperceptible waving of the great trout's coloured fins.
In the shallower water along the edges of the lake there was always a faint confusion of small sounds. The slow breathing of the lake, as it were, kept up a rhythmic, almost invisible motion among the smaller pebbles, making a crisp whisper which the water carried far beneath the surface while it could not be heard at all in the air above. But none of this stir reached the silent deeps where the big trout, morose and enamoured of his solitude, lay lazily opening and shutting his crimson gills.
Because the water of the lake was dark,—amber-tinted from the swamps about its shores,—the colours of the trout were dark, strong, and vivid. His strangely patterned back was almost black, yet brilliant, like some kinds of damascened steel. His belly was bright pink. His sides had a purplish hue, on which the rows of intense vermilion spots stood out almost incongruously. His fins were as gaudy as the petals of some red-and-white flower.
The trout was staring upward with his blank, lidless eyes. He was hungry, and he felt that it was from that direction that food was like to come to him most easily. Smaller fish had learned, from the fate of so many of their fellows, to shun the haunted stillness of this mid-lake depth; and the big trout was growing tired of caddis bait and such small game.
The surface of the lake, as he looked up at it, presented to him a sort of semitransparent mirror, thronged with reflections, yet allowing the sky overhead, and the shadows of many dreaming insects, to show through. If a swallow, for instance, or a low-winged snipe, flew over, the trout could see not only the bird itself, and the shadow of the bird on the bottom, but also a dim, swift-moving reflection of the shadow, on the silvery mirror above. If a swallow's wing-tip flicked the surface, sending down a bright little jet of bubbles, these bubbles also would double themselves in reflections as they darted up again and vanished in the mirroring ripples.
All this, however, was of little interest to the hungry trout, till he caught sight of a large butterfly zigzagging languidly close above the water. Its flight was so feeble that the big fish's expectations were aroused. Slowly he started upwards, to be on hand for whatever favour fortune might have in store for him.
As he swam up out of the gloom, the butterfly flickered above him, and its big shadow danced along the bottom beside his own. A small beetle, its wings all outspread, struck the surface violently close by, shattering the mirror for a second, then starting a series of tiny ripples. The big trout paid no heed to the convulsive gyrations of the beetle. He was wholly intent upon the butterfly, whose faltering flight drooped ever nearer and nearer to the shining flood. At last, the splendid painted wings failed to flutter; and lightly, softly, like a leaf, the gorgeous insect sank upon the water, hardly marring the surface. Without a struggle, without even a quiver. They rested,—for perhaps a second. Then, there was a heavy boil in the water immediately beneath. A pair of black jaws opened. The dead butterfly was sucked down. With a wanton flick of his broad, powerful tail, just above the surface, the big trout turned to sink back into the watery silence with his spoils.
"THE WATER SPLASHED HIGH AND WHITE ABOUT HIM."