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He first, however, tied up the pocket of the trawl again, preparatory to heaving it overboard; so that they could "kill two birds with one stone," as he said, and be fishing and eating at the same time. Each had something to do after this important operation. Dick began by scraping some soles which the Captain selected from the number he had put aside for Mrs Gilmour.

"That's very strange," he observed; "I think, Peter Trawl, that we have met before, when you were a very little chap. Do you remember your father taking off the doctor and the mate of a ship lying at Spithead, when you and your brother Jack were in the boat, and he was to be put on board the brig?"

Our trawl was in, our fish in the waist of the dory, and we lay to our roding line and second anchor, so we might not drift miles to loo'ard while waiting for the vessel to pick us up. We could see the vessel to her hull, when to the top of a sea we rose together; but nothing of her at all when into the hollows we fell together. She had picked up all but the dory next to wind'ard of us.

"After dinner it was calm enough to fish from the decks, Penn and Uncle Salters were very zealous this time, and the catch was large and large fish. "Abishai has shorely took his luck with him," said Salters. "The wind hain't backed ner riz ner nothin'. How abaout the trawl? I despise superstition, anyway." Tom Platt insisted that they had much better haul the thing and make a new berth.

The man was blinded for a few moments by the fish, and his mates were well-nigh choked with laughter. "Come, come no sky-larking!" growled the skipper. "Play when your work is done, boys." Thus reproved, the crew began to clear away the mass of weeds and refuse, after which all hands prepared the trawl to be ready for going down again, and then they set to work to clean and sort the fish.

"Meaning the Danish gun-boat," explained Deakin. The trawl was down before nine. The skipper stood by his lead. Upton took the wheel, and all night they trawled in the shallows, bumping on the grounds, with a sharp eye for the Danish gun-boat.

These "tangles" bring up immense quantities of such animals as have long arms, or spines, or prominences which readily become caught in the hemp, but they are very destructive to the fragile organisms which they imprison; and, now that the trawl can be successfully worked at the greatest depths, it may be expected to supersede them; at least, wherever the ground is soft enough to permit of trawling.

The soundings continuing as regular as before, we stood in-shore to eleven fathoms, and put the trawl overboard for an hour or two in the afternoon, bringing up a great quantity of sea-eggs, a few very small oysters, and some marine insects, but nothing that could furnish us with a fresh meal.

"Many a queer thing have I fished up i' the trawl from the bottom o' the North Sea, but ne'er afore did I make such a haul as this in a pot o' pea-soup. What is't?" "Why, David," replied the wife, examining the substance with a puzzled expression, "I do believe it's the primer!" They both turned their eyes inquiringly on the boy, who sat gravely watching them.

During those two days of April 11-12, the Nautilus didn't leave the surface of the sea, and its trawl brought up a simply miraculous catch of zoophytes, fish, and reptiles. Some zoophytes were dredged up by the chain of our trawl.