“Will you fetch me a long fishing-line?”

“No good now, sir; tide’s going out.”

“Never you mind about that. I want a line.”

Bostock carefully placed the auger against one end of a plank, grunted twice over, and then began to turn the handle.

“Precious hard bit o’ wood, sir.”

“Are you going to fetch me that line, sir?” cried Carey.

“Bime-by, my lad.”

“No, I want it now,” cried Carey.

Bostock took the auger from the hole he had begun to make, and held it as if it was a hammer with which he was going to threaten the boy.

“Look ye here, my lad,” he said, “do you know what the fish is like as comes into this lagoon?”