ing way of
stating that the sharks belonged to a lower order of marine species than
any other fish, but he let it pass unchallenged.

"What fish do you mean, then?" asked the boy.

"Not sharks," the keeper replied; "there ain't no sharks near Bermuda
anyway, they can't get near enough. The reefs run ten mile out and they
never come away inside 'ere. No, sir, it's the moray I'm talkin' of."

"The moray?" echoed Colin thoughtfully. "Seems to me I've heard about
that fish somewhere. Isn't it green? It's called the green moray?"

"Yes, sir; that's the fish. But there's more spotted morays around than
green ones."

"But that's hardly more a fish than a shark is," objected Colin. "Isn't
a moray a kind of eel?"

"Yes, sir, but an eel's a fish. Leastways so I was always told, when I
used to work over at the Aquarium on Agar's Island."

"All right," said Colin good-humoredly, "I guess you're in the right
about it. Go ahead and tell me about the moray."

"I was just sayin', sir, that they were the only ugly things around
Bermuda. And they stay quite a bit from shore out around the coral
atolls. You see lots of 'em around the sea-gardens. They 'ides in 'oles
of the rocks and strikes out at other fishes like a snake. I knew a
diver once, who was goin' down after specimens from one of the
sea-garden boats, and was nearly drowned."

"How?" queried Colin a little incredulously. "The moray couldn't bite
through the diving-bell."

"No, sir,--no, sir,--not through the diving-bell. But the india-rubber
tube that put air into the 'elmet came swingin' past a 'ole in a rock in
which a six-foot moray was waitin' for anything that might come along,
and 'e darted out at it."

"Did he bite it through?" cried Colin.

"No, sir; a moray's teeth ain't set that way. 'Is teeth set backwards so
they 'old anything solid. 'E started to swallow the tube, the moray did,
and jerked the diver on 'is back so that 'e couldn't pull the
signal-cord. 'E would have been drowned sure, for 'e was forty feet
down, but the water was so clear that some one on board the boat saw
the fish attack 'im, and they pulled 'im up."

"How about the moray?"

"'E was 'angin' on," was the reply; "'e wouldn't let go, and by the time
they 'ad the diver on board agen, the fish 'ad chewed up the air-tube
pretty well. But that wasn't the worst, sir," said the talkative old
man, growing garrulous, as he saw the boy look at his watch. "Did you
ever 'ear 'ow a big moray '