"But we haven't a single fish-line ready," protested Worth.
"Oh yes, we have," laughed Sumner, lighting one end of the bundle of pine slivers, and giving it to Worth to hold. "You just sit still and hold that. You'll find out what sort of a fish-line it is in a minute." Then he paddled the canoe very gently a few rods off shore, at the same time bearing down on one gunwale until it was even with the surface of the water. "Look out, here they come!" he shouted.
[A] The word "key" is a corruption of the Spanish Cayo or island. Thus Key West was originally "Cayo Hueso," or Bone Island, so called from the quantity of human bones found on it by the first white settlers.
TORCH-FISHING FOR MULLET.
Chapter VI.
PINEAPPLES AND SPONGES.
The next instant Worth uttered a startled cry and very nearly dropped his torch, as a mullet, leaping from the water, struck him on the side of the head, and fell flapping into the canoe.
"Never mind a little thing like that," cried Sumner. "Hold your torch a trifle lower. That's the kind!"
Now the mullet came thick and fast, attracted to the bright light like moths to a candle-flame. They leaped into the canoe and over it, they fell on its decks and flopped off into the water, they struck the two boys until they felt as though they were being pelted with wet snowballs; and at length one of them, hitting the torch, knocked it from Worth's hand, so that it fell hissing into the water.