“They chase the bony-fish along the shore, and when they come close in, you can stand on the beach, and throw the squid right among them. I took sixteen hundred pounds in half a day.”
“Phew!” was the universal chorus.
“’Lige was there, and he knows whether that is true. They averaged fifteen pounds apiece. On those occasions, the only question is whether you know how to land them, and can do it quick enough.”
“Your hands must have been cut to pieces.”
“Not at all; you’ll never cut your hands if you don’t let the line slip.”
“Did you run up ashore with them?”
“No, I had no time for that; I landed them, hand over hand.”
“Well, after that story it’s time we went to bed; so good-night.”
During that night the mosquitoes, bad as they had been, were more terrible than at any time previous. Favored by the late frequent rains, they had become more numerous than had ever been known on the beach; and being consequently compelled to subdivide to an unusual degree the ordinarily small supply of food, they were savagely hungry. Sleep was out of the question, and after trying all sorts of devices from gunpowder to mosquito-nets, the party wandered out of doors, and, scattering in search of a place of retreat, afforded an excellent representation of unhappy ghosts on the banks of the Styx. The shore, near the surf, and the bathing-houses had heretofore been tolerably secure resorts, but, on this unprecedented night, a special meeting of mosquitoes seemed to have been called in that neighborhood.
Those that tried the ground, and covered themselves carefully from head to foot, found that the enterprising long-legs disregarded the customary habits of their race, and consented to crawl down their sleeves, up their pants, or through the folds of the blanket. The sand-fleas also were numerous and lively, bounding about in an unpleasantly active way; and where there were neither mosquitoes nor sand-fleas, the nervous sufferer imagined every grain of stray sand that sifted in through his clothes to be some malignant, blood-sucking, insect.