ack like
sharks after a dead whale in ha'af an hour."

"What for?" said Harvey.

"Supper, o' course. Don't your stummick tell you? You've a heap to
learn."

"Guess I have," said Harvey, dolefully, looking at the tangle of ropes
and blocks overhead.

"She's a daisy," said Dan, enthusiastically, misunderstanding the look.
"Wait till our mainsail's bent, an' she walks home with all her salt
wet. There's some work first, though." He pointed down into the
darkness of the open main-hatch between the two masts.

"What's that for? It's all empty," said Harvey.

"You an' me an' a few more hev got to fill it," said Dan. "That's where
the fish goes."

"Alive?" said Harvey.

"Well, no. They're so's to be ruther dead--an' flat--an' salt. There's
a hundred hogshead o' salt in the bins, an' we hain't more'n covered
our dunnage to now."

"Where are the fish, though?"

"'In the sea they say, in the boats we pray,'" said Dan, quoting a
fisherman's proverb. "You come in last night with 'baout forty of 'em."

He pointed to a sort of wooden pen just in front of the quarter-deck.

"You an' me we'll sluice that out when they're through. 'Send we'll hev
full pens to-night! I've seen her down ha'af a foot with fish waitin'
to clean, an' we stood to the tables till we was splittin' ourselves
instid o' them, we was so sleepy. Yes, they're comm' in naow." Dan
looked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen dories rowing towards them
over the shining, silky sea.

"I've never seen the sea from so low down," said Harvey. "It's fine."

The low sun made the water all purple and pinkish, with golden lights
on the barrels of the long swells, and blue and green mackerel shades
in the hollows. Each schooner in sight seemed to be pulling her dories
towards her by invisible strings, and the little black figures in the
tiny boats pulled like clockwork toys.

"They've struck on good," said Dan, between his half-shut eyes. "Manuel
hain't room fer another fish. Low ez a lily-pad in still water, Aeneid
he?"

"Which is Manuel? I don't see how you can tell 'em 'way off, as you do."

"Last boat to the south'ard. He fund you last night," said Dan,
pointing. "Manuel rows Portugoosey; ye can't mistake him. East o'
him--he's a heap better'n he rows--is Pennsylvania. Loaded with
saleratus, by the looks of him. East o' him--see how pretty they string
out all along--with the humpy shoulders, is Long Jack. He's a Galway
man inhabitin' South Boston, where