With a jerk of her body she comes nearer, and is now right in the whirlpool of bleak and perch.
Quivering and trembling, the little fish fly in all directions as she tears among them, and with strong beats of her tail to right and left pursues her victims. Her eyes gleam, and her thin lips quiver with insatiable desire.
A big, high-backed perch coolie makes a capture right in front of her. In his eagerness he makes such a commotion in the water that it looks as if it were full of thick, shining snakes. Snap! Snap! There goes a bleak right before her nose!
This is more than she can endure! She dislikes this insolent lake-dog in a still greater degree than when, as a young pike, she stayed in the shelter of the creek. His cunning and deceit, his ability to save himself and to get her into a scrape, has of late frequently irritated her.
A moment later, while she is in the middle of a spring, he happens to be pushed by his comrades right in front of her mouth. Her jaws are already opened, and the water is streaming in like a mill-race; she sees the bleak-fat upon the mouth of her plump opponent, and her ferocity and murderous lust are doubled.
Then she gives way to the innermost need of her being. With an enormous development of energy, intoxicated with the joy of capture, she attacks the Rasper with the full strength of both her serrated jaws, opening them so wide, and dashing at him with such force, that they engulf him to far down his plump hog-back. The hundreds of little teeth with which her palate is paved have the same desire, the same purpose; to bore right in and hold fast.
Just as the pike’s attack is at its height, the Rasper suddenly raises his twelve-spined dorsal fin. During his chase of the little fish, it had lain neatly folded like a fan along his back; now it is transformed into a murderous weapon, and its bony ribs into a bundle of hidden sword-blades, now stiff and sharp like polished bayonets, now elastically pliable like rapiers.
Joyfully Grim takes the big lump into her mouth. She feels that it pricks her, but the cavity of her mouth is not troubled with any exaggerated sensitiveness.
Splendidly heavy and solid the Rasper feels as he lies upon her tongue! And yet--his rough, tile-like scales, and the very small amount of fat and slime on his skin, make it unusually difficult for her to get the lump down.
He is hurting her now. She quickly takes a better hold, even letting her prehensile teeth come into play, and the long board-like tongue warp in co-operation; but no matter what she does, or how wide she opens her mouth, her efforts are in vain: the high-backed one refuses to move beyond a certain point.