I nodded, eager enough to try and get something in the way of food, so that we might be better able to bear our day’s journey, for I felt that somehow we must get back; but I always hesitated from starting, lest we should be seen by pursuing Indians, and being recaptured, have no chance of giving the alarm at home.
Pomp was not long in finding a deep hole close under the bank, in whose clear, tree-shaded water I could see about a dozen fish slowly gliding about. They were only small, but anything was food for us then; and introducing my lance cautiously, I waited my opportunity, and then struck rapidly at a fish.
Vain effort! The fish was out of reach before the point of the knife could reach him; and a few more such strokes emptied the hole, but not in the way I intended.
“Find another,” I said; and Pomp crept along, and soon signed to me to come.
As he made way for me, and I crept to the edge, I felt a thrill of pleasure, for there, close under the bank, just balanced over some water-weed, was a fine fish about a foot and a half long.
“If I can get you,” I thought, “we shall do.”
Carefully getting my spear-shaft upright, I lowered the point, and aiming carefully, I struck.
Whether I aimed badly, or the refraction of the water was not allowed for, I cannot say, but there was no result. I only saw a quivering of the surface and the fish was off into the river.
The same result for a dozen more tries, and then Pomp said protestingly—
“I nebber tink dat ob any good.”