‘In that case they may trouble the world yet,’ affirmed Ernest. ‘A nation of three hundred millions, with sufficient ingenuity to comprehend Whitworth and Snider, and animal courage to fight to the death, might execute another avalanche movement such as when Attila (of kindred blood, we must remember) swept over Europe.’
‘Not in our time, at any rate,’ quoth Paul, with epicurean indifference. ‘Ah Tin will require a deal of drill before that march takes place. Now, then, here we are off Red Point. Suppose we get the lines out and have some fishing.’
The deep-sea lines were produced by the two ‘waterside characters’ who composed the crew, and suitable bait being forthcoming from some mysterious receptacle, the somewhat serious recreation of schnapper-fishing commenced. Perhaps the poetry of the piscatory art cannot be dissociated from the mimic ephemera with which the fisherman of Europe deceives the leaping trout and the king of all river fish, the mighty salmon, as the angler standing under the ruined wall of a Norman stronghold, patiently whips the purling stream which has furnished relays of delicate fare for a thousand years. Nor is his sport heightened by historic association. The captor of Salmo salar passes from stage to stage of doubt, hope, fear, agony, despair, to unspeakable triumph, as after endless patient playing, he draws within reach of the deadly gaff the captive monarch. But, Izaak Walton notwithstanding, a good afternoon’s fishing in or off Sydney harbour, when the deep-sea denizens are fain and fearless, is not to be despised.
Mr. John Windsor was considerably surprised, though he was careful not to show it, as the first fish, a twelve-pound schnapper, came up glancing and glimmering through the clear water at the end of Mr. Frankston’s line. A rock-cod or two, with their brilliant colouring, added to his wondering observation. But he was, perhaps, more nearly driven from his habitual coolness when a yard-long dogfish was dropped into the bottom of the boat, sufficiently near his legs to cause the lower portions of those limbs to shrink and stiffen, as the ocean-Ishmaelite snapped its sharp teeth within an inch of his ankles.
‘I think we must have got about half a boat load,’ said Paul at length, after a continuous course of baiting, lowering, and hauling up. ‘As the day is so fine, we may go through the Heads for a run out, and then turn back and beat home.’
They glided through the comparatively narrow entrance, on either side of which frowns sullenly the vast sandstone promontory, seamed, channelled, and scarped by winter wind and ocean wave, that for ages have raved and dashed against its sentinel form. Southward a mile or two, and still the deep sea rolls on with slow but resistless force against the base of the tremendous, all inaccessible cliffs which frown a hundred fathoms above.
‘I never pass this place,’ said Antonia musingly, ‘without thinking of that heartrending wreck of the Dunbar. A wreck, at best, is a dreadful thing; but think of these poor creatures, as near to their journey’s end as we are now, only to find a death in the midst of angry breakers and rocks and the dread midnight. How many deaths must they have died! God save us all from a fate like this—
‘On the reef of Norman’s woe.’
‘I did hear something about a vessel going on shore with all hands, near the Heads,’ said Ernest. ‘And was this the very place? Was there any carelessness?’
‘Poor Grant was as good a seaman as ever trod plank. I knew him well,’ said Mr. Frankston. ‘He had been first mate of her for years, under old Fleetby, and this was his second voyage in command. He was as smart a man as Charley Carryall, and that is saying a good deal.’