Unfortunately there were no sleepy, unprepared mussels to surprise; but behind some stones in one of the deep, submarine mountain passes stood a solitary fish, which had apparently got out of its course.
The quiet little Nipper had not much experience regarding the way in which a crayfish catches fish; he was more accustomed to snails and mussels. He could also seize a younger comrade in his claws, and suck him dry, leaving nothing but his coat and trousers; but the finned animal, with fans on back, belly, and tail, the nimblest of all--how did one catch it?
He slyly pushes through a crack at the bottom of the cave, raises himself on the points of his closed claws, and blinks with his diverging eyes. He has turned back his feelers so that they shall not betray him while he is investigating his immediate surroundings.
Grim is standing motionless with her head towards the current, leaving her forked tail to keep her, with slight movements, on the same spot. She is tired and exhausted after her long struggle with the pearly fish, and feeling rather languid and out of sorts. Her lacerated mouth hurts every time she opens it to rinse it with fresh water. She has, therefore, sought shelter in the rocky cave to compose herself and recover.
Something quivers along her breast and cautiously pricks her sides and belly. It must be a waving grass-stalk!
Then a gradually-increasing, continuous pressure is suddenly felt round the thick part of her tail.
With a sudden movement of her body she tries to shake off the supposed reed, but at the same moment the pressure is felt like a bite from the hard, sharp-edged beak of a heron. She struggles and writhes, and warps herself out of the cave; and now she flies, fin-winged, through the water.
Nipper is hanging to her stern. He has only hold with one claw, but hopes to get the other, which he is waving about, also applied. His tail-fan works incessantly.
Grim drags at full speed over stock and stone, and swings him out of one gyration into another; through reed-beds and undergrowth, and far, far into the forest of water-weed; but he hangs on still!
He feels, however, that his prize is rather more than he can manage. There is no time left for him to pick at the fish’s flesh with his other claw; he was growing quite dizzy, for he was not accustomed to going forward at such a pace!