“Bite? A regular pull; but I was a bit too late. Why don’t you attend to your fishing instead of fiddle-faddling with that revolver? Pull up your line.”
Drew Lennox smiled doubtingly as he drew the leather cover of the holster over the stud before stooping to take hold of the line at his feet.
“I believe that was all fancy, Master Bobby,” he said. “If there have been any fish here, the crocodiles have cleared them out, or the Boers have netted them. It will be dry biscuit for us again to-night, or—My word!”
“Got one?” cried Dickenson, excited in turn, for his brother officer’s manner had suddenly changed from resigned indifference to eager action, as he felt the violent jerk given to his line by something or other that he had hooked.
“Got one? Yes; a monster. Look how he pulls.”
“Oh, be careful; be careful old chap!” cried Dickenson wildly, and he left the stone upon which he was standing to hurry to his friend’s side. “That’s a fifteen or twenty pound fish, and it means dinner for the mess.”
“I believe it’s a young crocodile,” said Lennox. “My word, how it tugs!”
“Play it—play it, man! Don’t pull, or you’ll drag the hook out of its jaws. Give it line.”
“Can’t; he has it all out.”
“Then you’ll have to follow it down-stream.”