fastened the warp--a rope made
of best manilla and hemp, always of great strength. The amount of this
paid out depended much on the weather; if very rough it might be about
40 fathoms, if moderate about 100. Sometimes such net and gear is
carried away, and this involves a loss of about 60 pounds sterling. We
may dismiss these statistics by saying that a good night's fishing may
be worth from 10 pounds to 27 pounds, and a good trip--of eight weeks--
may produce from 200 to 280 pounds.

Soon the gear was down in the twenty-five fathom water, and the
trawl-warp became as rigid almost as an iron bar, while the speed of the
smack through the water was greatly reduced--perhaps to three miles an
hour--by the heavy drag behind her, a drag that ever increased as fish
of all sorts and sizes were scraped into the net. Why the fish are such
idiots as to remain in the net when they could swim out of it at the
rate of thirty miles an hour is best known to themselves.

Besides the luminaries which glittered in the sky that night the sea was
alive with the mast-head lights of the fishing smacks, but these lower
lights, unlike the serenely steady lights above, were ever changing in
position, as well as dancing on the crested waves, giving life to the
dark waters, and creating, at least in the little breast of Billy
Bright, a feeling of companionship which was highly gratifying.

"Now, lad, go below and see if Zulu has got something for us to eat,"
said David to his son. "Here, Luke Trevor, mind the helm."

The young fisherman, who had been labouring with the others at the gear
like a Hercules, stepped forward and took the tiller, while the skipper
and his son descended to the cabin, where the rest of the men were
already assembled in anticipation of supper. The cabin was remarkably
snug, but it was also pre-eminently simple. So, also, was the meal.
The arts of upholstery and cookery had not been brought to bear in
either case. The apartment was about twelve feet long by ten broad, and
barely high enough to let Joe Davidson stand upright. Two wooden
lockers ran along either side of it. Behind these were the bunks of the
men. At the inner end were some more lockers, and aft, there was an
open stove, or fireplace, alongside of the companion-ladder. A clock
and a barometer were the chief ornaments of the place. The atmosphere
of it was not fresh by any means, and volumes of tobacco smoke rendered
it hazy.

But what cared