“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mike. “I daresay there’s plenty of sand down below.”
“Well, it is a flat fish, and a heavy one too,” said Vince, as he hauled in cautiously, full of excitement, drawing in foot after foot of his line; and then he cried, with a laugh, “Why, it’s a big crab!”
“Then you’ll lose it, for certain. ’Tisn’t hooked.”
“Shall I lose him!” said Vince, with another laugh, as he lifted out his prize for it to come on to the rock with a bang. “Why, he has got the line twisted all round his claw, and— Ah! would you bite! I’ve got him safe this time, Mike.”
Safe enough; for, after the huge claws of the monstrous crab had been carefully tied with a couple of bits of fishing line, it was quite a task to disentangle the creature, which, in its eagerness to seize the bait, had passed the line round and under its curious armoured joints, and in its struggles to escape, made matters worse.
“This is about the finest we’ve seen, Mike,” said Vince. “Well, I’m sorry for him, and we’ll try and kill him first; but his fate is to be cooked in his own shell, and delicious he’ll be.”
“I should like to take him home,” said Mike, as he wound up his line.
“So should I; but if either of us did we should be bothered with questions as to where we got it, and we couldn’t say. We shall have to cook it and eat it ourselves, Ladle. Come on; we don’t want any more fish to-day.”
They stepped back over the rocks, and while Mike hung up the lines Vince thrust his prize into the big creel they had close to the place they used for their fire, and then hurried towards the inner cave to fetch the tinder-box and a portion of the wood they had stored up there for firing, as well as the extra provisions they had brought with them that day.
“It strikes me, Mikey, that we’re going to have a regular feast,” said Vince. “Lucky I caught that fellow!—if I hadn’t we should have come short off.”