Feeling her way with her sensitive barbels, she glides out of her hole on the east side of the submarine mountain slope. Like a huge eel she wriggles up to the surface, where she lies in wait, slowly drifting with the current.
Grim’s white belly is not turned down now. The colour that makes the fish look one with the water would then have hidden her well enough for any one looking up from below. Now her flecked sides and black back make a distinct stripe in the water.
A cunning expression comes into Oa’s little eyes. The queer fish with two tails attracts her.
The storm is abating; the last heavy shower is over. A patch of blue sky peeps out like a smiling eye between the frayed, swollen clouds. The lake sinks to rest, and even the pennons of the rushes hang loosely from their stalks; but in the distance can be heard the low rumbling of another storm.
The boat takes advantage of the lull, and is on her way home.
Oa, hearing the swish of her bow, has only time to make a few hasty snaps at the big perch’s already swollen belly; her thick, fleshy lips are still pulling at the Rasper’s intestines as she slowly dives down into deep water.
The gulls and terns, which have begun to gather about the spot, are filled with renewed hope, and swoop down upon their prey with vociferous cries. Involuntarily the angler’s attention is attracted to them.
He takes out his glasses, then rows nearer; and in another moment he has the two fish in his landing-net.
What a haul! A pike that has gorged itself on a giant perch! And it can only just have happened, for as soon as he has them in the boat he puts his nose to them and smells that they are fresh.
The perch, it is true, looks rather poorly, but that is probably because the gulls have been at him already; and he carefully begins to release it, and is greatly pleased when he discovers that the big, voracious pike, which is quite lively, is one of his marked fish.