the surface.

He tried again and again, but there was no bottom within reach, and the
lad handed back the pole.

"Why, you knew it was too deep here!" he cried.

"Ay, I knowed, lad," said Dave, taking the pole; "but yow wouldn't hev
been saddisfied wi'out trying yoursen."

He proceeded to row the punt now for a few yards, till, apparently
knowing by experience where he could find bottom, he thrust down the
pole again, gave a few vigorous pushes, and was soon in shallow water.

It was a bit of a race for the river-like opening, but Dave sent the
punt along pretty merrily now, while the bladder came slowly along from
the other direction till it was only about fifty yards away, when there
was a series of bobs and then one big one, the bladder which gleamed
whitely on the grey water going down out of sight.

Dave ceased poling, and all watched the surface for the return of the
bladder, as whale-fishers wait for the rising of the great mammal that
has thrown his flukes upward and dived down toward the bottom of the
sea; but they watched in vain.

A minute, two minutes, five minutes, then quite a quarter of an hour,
but no sign of the submerged buoy.

"Yow two look over the sides," said Dave. "I'll run her right over
where the blether was took down."

Dave sent the punt along slowly, and the lads peered down into the dark
water, but could see no bladder.

"She'll come up somewheers," said Dave at last, sweeping the surface
with his keen eyes, and then smiling in his hard, dry, uncomfortable
way, as he looked right back over the way by which they had come, and
nodding his head, "There she is!" he said.

Sure enough there lay the bladder on the surface forty yards behind them
perfectly motionless.

"Yow take howd o' this one, young Tom Tallington," said Dave; and the
lad prepared to hook the line as the punt was carefully urged forward.

"Take care, Tom!" whispered Dick excitedly. "Now, now! Oh, what a
fellow you are!"

Tom did not dash in the hook when his companion bade him, but all the
same he managed to do it at the right time, catching the line just below
the bladder, and then stooping to seize it with his hand ready for the
struggle which was to ensue.

Both boys were flushed with excitement, and paid no heed to the grim
smile upon their companion's face--a smile which expanded into a grin as
the line came in without the slightest resistance, and the lads looked
at each other with blank dismay.

"