"Now you see what oil-clothes are good for," said he. "I'll give you your chance in a little while."
Percy had kept the Barracouta near by as Jim pulled the dory along the trawl. He could watch the process very well from the sloop, and he was by no means anxious for a personal experience with it. It looked too much like hard work. He made no reply to Jim's offer.
Refreshed by his rest, the latter resumed hauling. Up came a little cluster of yellow plums, as large as small walnuts, each on a stem six inches long, attached to a brownish bunch of roots.
"Nigger-heads! Always grow on rocky bottom; nicest kind of place for fish. Trawl must have run over a patch of ledge. We're likely to pick up something here besides hake. What's this?"
A heavy fish appeared, hanging motionless on the next ganging. Jim gave a shout.
"Haddock! Twelve-pounder. Swallowed the hook and worried himself to death. Drowned!"
"Drown a fish!" jeered Percy.
"Sure you can, any kind of fish, if you only keep his mouth open. If this fellow hadn't taken the bait in so deep he'd have been liable to break away. Fishermen call 'em 'butter-mouths,' their flesh is so tender; under jaw's the only place where a hook will hold to lift 'em by. See his red lips, and that black streak down each side. And look at these two black spots, big as silver dollars, on his shoulders; that's where they say the devil got him between his thumb and forefinger, but couldn't hold on."
It was now not far from four o'clock. The sun, rising straight from the water, lifted his fiery red disk above the eastern horizon. It was a strange sight to Percy. The sunrises he had seen could almost be numbered on the fingers of one hand. He yawned. The novelty of trawling was wearing off; he wished himself back in his hard bunk.