g to right and left, he held
down the head, and, carefully avoiding the threads of the net, stabbed
it first right through, and then dexterously divided the backbone just
at its junction with the skull, before, with the fish writhing feebly,
he gradually shook it clear of the net, and stood looking viciously down
at his captive.

"Won't eat no more mullet right up to the head, will he, lads?"

"No; he has had his last meal," replied Vince, turning the fish over and
displaying its ugly mouth. "Now, if it was six feet long instead of
four, you'd call it a shark."

"Nay, I shouldn't; and he would be a dog-fish still. Well, he's eat a
many in his time. Now his time's come, and something'll eat him. Hyste
the sail."

The dog-fish--a very large one of its kind--was thrown overboard, the
sail hoisted, and the boat began to glide onward toward the semicircular
bay into which they were drifting, with the huge, massive promontory
straight ahead. Then the oar was pressed down, and the boat began to
curve round.

"Hi! stop! Don't go back yet!" cried Vince.

"Eh? Why not? No more lobster-pots down."

"I want to sail across the bay, and get round by the Scraw."

"What!" cried the old man, looking at him fiercely. "You want to go
there? Well!"

He turned his eyes upon Mike, who encountered the fierce gaze, and said,
coolly enough:

"Well, all right; I want to go too. I've only seen the place at a
distance."

"Ay, and that's all you will ever see on it, 'less you get wings like
one o' they shags," said the old man, pointing solemnly at a great black
bird sunning itself upon an outlying rock. "They've seen it, p'r'aps;
and you may go and lie off, if you're keerful, and see it with a
spy-glass."

"And climb along to the edge of the cliff, and look over?" said Vince.

"What!" cried Daygo, with a look of horror. "Nay, don't you never try
to do that, lad; you'd be sure to fall, and down you'd go into the sea,
where it's all by ling and whizzing and whirling round. You'd be sucked
down at once among the rocks, and never come up again. Ah! it's a
horful place in there for 'bout quarter of a mile. I've knowed boats--
big uns, too--sailed by people as knowed no better, gone too near, and
then it's all over with 'em. They gets sucked in, and away they go.
You never hear of 'em again--not so much as a plank ever comes out!"

"What becomes of them, then?" said Vince, looking at the rugged old
fellow curiously.