So they went on laughing and talking and pulling in eels until two o'clock in the morning, when their bucket was so full of eels that it would not hold any more.
"Now it is time to turn in," said Frank; "take up the bucket, Jimmy, and put it by the foremast with something over it to keep the eels from crawling out, while I do up the lines."
Jimmy took up the bucket, and was walking aft with it, when his foot slipped on an eel that had made its escape, and was wriggling about the deck. In an instant, Jimmy, the bucket, and the eels all went into the water. Jimmy rose to the surface and swam to the yacht, and climbed on board, with the bucket still in his hands, but all the eels had of course disappeared.
"What an extraordinary thing!" spluttered Jimmy, as he rose to the surface.
"Very," said Frank, as soon as he could speak for laughing; "but hadn't you better dive after the eels?"
"Do you mind my losing them, Frank?" said Jimmy, rather ruefully.
"Not at all, old man. We don't want the eels, and a good laugh is better for us."
While they were undressing, Dick was peering through one of the side lights and at length said,
"I suppose it is impossible for any one to have been smoking here lately, yet there are two or three things which are like cigar-ends gleaming on the bank. Is it possible that they are glow-worms?"
"Yes, of course they are," said Jimmy; "I will go and get them;" and presently he came back with the little, soft, brown things, which shed a circle of phosphorescent light for two or three inches around them.