Grim, who is lying with her gills outside in the free water, is still alive and in possession of all her senses, but the Rasper is half dead.
Then they float up and drift over the surface of the water like dead fish.
Thunder is rolling over the lake.
A scorching sun and oppressive heat have long foreboded the storm that is brewing, and now at last it has burst; the clouds and the water have met.
The celestial salute begins rumbling and crackling a long way off in the farthest corner where the reed-forests rally round the mouth of the brook. The lightning ploughs long, white-glowing fibrous sparks out of the sombre, purple horizon, from which the showers come chasing and sweeping over the lake, casting dark, threatening shadows before them.
Under the fringe of forest on the lee-side, where all the grebes have crept together, one of the “big birds” is lying at anchor. She is riding out the storm while the whirlwinds are playing touch over the deep water. She has no lines or fishing-tackle out; she knows well that all angling is in vain.
The water seethes and boils on all sides; the grey troughs of the waves are full of bursting bubbles. Little slate-coloured showers dart about, and plough up the surface of the water like the scratching of a cat on the skin; they dash themselves against the reedy margin and the edge of the wood, cutting broad lanes through them.
All the fish have left the shallow water for the depths where they can lie far enough below the surface to escape the movement of the waves. Only the sheat-fish, the old water-hyena, is out roaming.
The wild weather puts life into Oa; it brings her great opportunities. The fish cannot see in the rough water, they are thrown out of their course, at one moment jumbled together, then separated; and one and another come to grief. It is corpse-weather today. The angry waves stir up carrion from the bottom, or carry it out from bridge and bank. She always gets so hungry in stormy weather, and feels as if she must go to the surface for air.