Incomprehensible! Impossible!
She tries again. Besides her tongue and her prehensile teeth, she brings the muscles of her throat into play, and the bones of her head expand like a snake’s. Colours dance before her eyes as the gullet opens and closes, trying to draw in the perch’s head. But to no avail. The wedge remains immovable. The big mouthful is too big!
So there is nothing to be done, but give it up! Grim opens her mouth wide, relaxes her prehensile teeth, which, as readily as an adder’s, turning on their hinges, return to the perpendicular; she opens her throat-muscles as far as she can, and even pushes with her tongue. “There! The torture in the spiked barrel is over. The prison is graciously open to the great perch.”
The Rasper, who, all through the battle, has been lashing out with his strong tail, which is hanging out of the pike’s mouth, and throwing Grim from one side to the other, suddenly notices the loosening of the strait-jacket, and backs with a jerk. He thinks he is free, so easily does he swim now, although the darkness before his eyes is just as thick and oppressive.
He is still in the pike’s throat, and cannot get away, for he has his twelve stiffest dorsal spines bored into his enemy’s palate; and the more he worries and works with his dangerous opponent, the deeper and more firmly do the spines fix themselves.
In the meantime Grim, true to her pike-nature, has for a few moments lost nearly all her energy. The spines begin to hurt her, and her mouthful on the whole to incommode her. She cannot get sufficient water over her gills, and what does filter into her mouth in spite of the gag, is needed by the gag itself. She can feel it breathing inside her mouth; incessantly, with every indication of excitement, its gill-covers open and close, and take the lion’s share of the water.
It is impossible for her to bear this suffocation any longer; she must have air; and in ungovernable rage she begins to lash out with her tail. Now it is she who takes the upper hand, and pushes the hog-backed one before her through the water.
Thus the combat continues. Now it is Grim who has the mastery, and shakes her opponent so that the perch’s tail slaps her weakly on the cheeks, and fetches her blow after blow upon the back of her neck. Now it is the Rasper’s turn to use Grim as a ferule, running her against stones and water-plants on the bottom, and whirling her round.
But no matter how much they exert themselves, it is without result; they do not succeed in getting away from one another.
Faint and dead-beat, they fall over on their sides. The blood in their red gills scarcely circulates, their strength is ebbing, and there is no longer any question of either being leader. They only take it in turns now to splash a little with their tails and try to right themselves.