Chapter Sixteen.
An awkward customer.
There was no need to go far afield in search of sport, for before Lenny and the mate had rowed them a couple of hundred yards, with Jack and the doctor preparing their lines, they were passing close by a large shoal of fish, another being some distance astern.
These were leaping and playing about on the surface, making the water ripple and sparkle, and every now and then there was a flash as of a bar of silver darting into the sunny air, and falling back with a loud splash.
“This looks promising,” said the doctor; “but my word, how hot the boat is. I touched that copper rowlock, and it quite burned my band.”
“I could hardly bear mine on the side,” said Jack; “but let’s begin.”
“Yes, we must have a few of these fellows, Jack. I wish we had rods, we could throw so much better.”
“I don’t think you will need them,” said the mate, as he finished attaching a spoon-bait to Jack’s line; “the current will carry the bait right through the shoal.”
“Yes, but fair play, Jack. I’m not ready, let’s start together.”
But he was too late. Jack dropped his bait over the side as the doctor spoke, and away it glided, sinking slowly and turning and twinkling in the sunlit water, while when, in obedience to the mate’s instructions, Jack checked the line as it ran over the side, and drew it a few feet back, the resemblance to a fish was strangely apparent.