But no one paid any attention to him just then, for the engineer, gently thrusting the little boy aside, looked from the porthole himself, and what he saw made him cry:
“The little lad has caught something all right. Would you mind running up on deck and telling Captain Crane your brother has caught something,” said Mr. Chase to Bert. “And tell him, if he wants to get it aboard he’d better tell one of the men to stand by with a long-handled net. I think it’s a turtle or a big fish, and it’ll be good to eat whatever it is—unless it’s a shark, and some folks eat them nowadays.”
“Oh, I don’t want to catch a shark!” exclaimed Freddie.
“It’s already caught, whatever it is,” said Mr. Chase, “It seems to be well hooked, too, whatever you used on the end of your line.”
“I tied on a—-” began Freddie, but, once again, no one paid attention to what he said, for the fish, or whatever it was on the end of the line, began to squirm in the water, “squiggle” Freddie called it afterward—and the engineer had to hold tightly to the line.
“Please hurry and tell the captain to reach the net overboard and pull this fish in,” begged Mr. Chase of Bert. “I’d pull it in through the porthole, but I’m afraid it will get off if I try.”
All this while the Swallow was moving slowly along through the blue waters of the deep sea, for when the engineer had run in to see what Freddie had caught he had shut down the motor so that it moved at a quarter speed.
Up on deck ran Bert, to find his father and Captain Crane there talking with Cousin Jasper.
“What is it, Bert?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
“Oh, will you please get out a net, Captain!” cried Nan’s brother. “Freddie has caught a big fish through the porthole and the engineer—Mr. Chase—is holding it now, and he can’t pull it in, and will you do it with a net?”