“The line will break directly,” thought Harry. “It must be either a great conger or a monster hake, or else it’s a small shark. Small!—no, that it isn’t!” he exclaimed as he felt himself steadily drawn along with the current; “I shall never get it.”
Now he was able to haul in a little, the fish coming towards the surface in obedience to his steady drag; now it turned and went off again to the last yard of line, and then the boat was steadily drawn along, while Harry’s wonder was that the strands did not break or the hook drag out.
“This comes of having good new tackle,” he said; and then, “Ah, I must lose it if it pulls like this.”
For the fish made so furious a strain upon the line that he felt that it must break; no such line could bear it.
He felt in despair, for he was all eagerness now to see the monster he had hooked, when a happy thought suggested itself, and in an instant he had made three or four hitches round one of the oars with the end of the line, and cast it overboard.
“There,” he said, “you may tug at that, and I’ll follow you.”
Away went the light oar over the surface, bobbing down at one end, and raising the blade in the air, while, putting the other over the stern, Harry stood up, full of excitement, and began sculling after the novel travelling float, when a wild cry for help, that seemed to send a shudder through his frame, came from behind him over the surface of the sea.