But common to them all were the rough, rasping scales that grew close up round the carroty-red fins, and the round yellow eyes with coal-black pupils, which seemed to rest on cushions and roll outside the head so that the fish could see both up and down.
The perch were quite as rapacious as Grim herself; they poached upon her small-fish preserves, and often disturbed her in the chase. Had she only been equal to it, she would gladly have devoured some of them, too.
One evening when she was so hungry that she under-estimated everything, she saw her chance of attacking their dark-hued leader, but Rasper, becoming aware of his dilemma, defended himself with the energy of a bulldog. The combat was on the point of turning in his favour, when Grim disappeared from view by taking a bold salmon-leap high into the air. After that they always swam scowling past one another at a respectful distance; but Grim was well aware that the striped swimmer had no friendly feeling towards her.
As she grew bigger, and felt herself more and more the powerful despot, whose dental armature had been provided simply and solely for the purpose of biting others, her hatred of the high-backed one instinctively became greater. They were of such widely different natures!
Grim was passionate, fierce, and reckless in her attacks, and gave herself up to the intoxicating pleasure of the chase until she grew dizzy. She ventured all, and lost herself in rapacious lust. The cunning perch seldom made a false step, but looked carefully ahead, and was always cool and self-restrained in his behaviour; and yet he was always ready--quite as ready as she--to attack, but had a masterly perception of the chances of success. He would frequently dart towards her, then suddenly stop and consider, and stand sniffing at her like a dog.
She was still only a hobbledehoy, flabby and loose-jointed, and not quick enough in emergencies. She had only just found out where the great ones of her own species liked to post themselves, and where it behoved her, therefore, to be on her guard; but beyond this she was not burdened with much experience.
As a young fish she had never been out into deep water, but wisely kept to the quiet parts--the channels and the broad waters of the creek, where her strength was proportionate to the exigencies of her surroundings, and where she instinctively felt that her great enemies would run aground if they pursued her. Here she found shelter among the reeds and the rushes.
But there was something beyond; something great and strong, something always disquieting; and this attracted her.
She began to go farther and farther afield, and one day, when the water was especially bright and clear, she set out on a journey from one end of the lake to the other.
The bottom of the creek was fertile, hilly country. Long slopes, clothed with water-lily plants, and laden with yard-high, round-stalked grass, ran out in parallel chains, framing, as it were, a corresponding stretch of broad, deep valleys. Here and there were steep narrows, passes through which the shoals of fish had to venture when going from one pasture to another.