“Take my word for it, sir, you have. But I dare say you will be disposed to laugh at me and think that I am making up a bit of gammon, when I ask you if you remember what a frigate looks like when she has got all her ports open and her lanterns lit.”
“I don’t see why I should,” said Uncle Paul quietly. “But of course I have seen a man-of-war like that by night; and a very beautiful object she is.”
“Very, sir. But what should you say if I was to ask you if you had seen a fish looking like a little frigate with her ports all open and her lights shining in a couple of rows along her sides—lights that don’t burn, sir, but shine brightly as if they did?”
“Well, I am not a man to laugh at anything new in science, Chubb,” said the doctor quietly, “but between ourselves, your description is a bit too flowery.”
“Not a bit, sir.”
“I have seen,” continued the doctor, “phosphorescent fish and insects, and even now, swimming round us, the sea is full of light-giving creatures, but nothing approaching your frigates with the ports open, or anything near them.”
“Well, sir, I could take you right away to the eastward into the Indian seas—and I am not romancing, mind, but talking honest truth—I could take you and squire here, where you could drag up fishermen sort of fish, big-mouthed fellows ready to swallow what they catches, fish that guide themselves down in the dark deeps of the sea amongst the seaweed at the bottom, and there they hang out from the tops of their heads long barbels that look like worms, and fish with them for other fishes, to catch them to eat.”
“Oh yes, that’s right enough, captain,” replied the doctor. “You know, Rodd, that great frog fish, the Father Lasher, as the fishermen call him. Why, captain, we have got them at home off the Devon coast.”
“I know,” said the skipper. “I have seen them; but those are not what I mean. He didn’t give me time to finish, squire,” continued the skipper, facing round to Rodd. “My ones out yonder in the Eastern seas always live down below where it’s deep and dark, and where the fishes couldn’t see their baits. So what do you think they do?”
“Swim up to where it’s lighter,” said Rodd. “Not they, sir. They grows a little bait as might be a little bit of meat at the end of their barbel-like fishing-lines, and wave it about in the water for the fish they want to catch to see.”