Dave ceased poling, and all watched the surface for the return of the bladder, as whale-fishers wait for the rising of the great mammal that has thrown his flukes upward and dived down toward the bottom of the sea; but they watched in vain.
A minute, two minutes, five minutes, then quite a quarter of an hour, but no sign of the submerged buoy.
“Yow two look over the sides,” said Dave. “I’ll run her right over where the blether was took down.”
Dave sent the punt along slowly, and the lads peered down into the dark water, but could see no bladder.
“She’ll come up somewheers,” said Dave at last, sweeping the surface with his keen eyes, and then smiling in his hard, dry, uncomfortable way, as he looked right back over the way by which they had come, and nodding his head, “There she is!” he said.
Sure enough there lay the bladder on the surface forty yards behind them perfectly motionless.
“Yow take howd o’ this one, young Tom Tallington,” said Dave; and the lad prepared to hook the line as the punt was carefully urged forward.
“Take care, Tom!” whispered Dick excitedly. “Now, now! Oh, what a fellow you are!”
Tom did not dash in the hook when his companion bade him, but all the same he managed to do it at the right time, catching the line just below the bladder, and then stooping to seize it with his hand ready for the struggle which was to ensue.
Both boys were flushed with excitement, and paid no heed to the grim smile upon their companion’s face—a smile which expanded into a grin as the line came in without the slightest resistance, and the lads looked at each other with blank dismay.