“Yah! Don’t talk stuff,” was the answer. “Look out! Is he coming your way?”
“No!” we both shouted, and then “Yes!” for there was a quick movement in the channel between the two pools, and the next instant a large eel was splashing and writhing in the water and sea-weed of the pool which we had baled.
“Here he is, Bob!” we shouted; and, as we finished the struggle which resulted in our getting the eel into one of the nets, and then out on the open rocks, and in a position to make it cease its writhings, Bob Chowne backed out to look on and help us gloat over our capture, which proved to be a plump young conger of a yard long.
“Well, that’s something,” said Bob. “Now I’m going after the prawns. No, you go, Sep,” he said. “I don’t see why I should do all the work.”
I went into the dripping grotto nothing loth, and by careful search among the wet weed I found first one prawn and then another, till I had thrown out six, the work being tolerably easy, for the little horny-coated fellows made known their presence by their movements, flipping their tails sharply and making a noise that betrayed their hiding-places.
The grotto-like place, shut in by some rocks overshadowed by others, was so gloomy that it was hard to make out everything, but twice over I noted a bit of a rift on my left all fringed with sea-weed and slippery with anemones, where it was not rough with limpets and barnacles.
“Was it down here, Bob, down on the left, that you found the conger?”
“No,” he shouted, “on the right.”
I looked round, and found the crack where the conger must have been, and then came a summons from without.
“Well, can’t you find any more?”