; but having been adopted by a
Breton fisherman after his father's death, both he and his name had got
considerably "Frenchified."

The two boys had to manage by themselves the boat of which they were
joint owners, for old Simon Lebon, Pierre's real and Jack's adopted
father, was now too aged and rheumatic to help them in their work,
except by advising them when to start and where to go. But his advice
was always good, for in his time he had been one of the best fishermen
on the coast, and the lads were usually very successful.

On this particular day, however, their good luck seemed to have forsaken
them, for, try as they might, they could catch nothing worth mentioning.
Possibly they were thinking too little of their work, and too much of
the reward offered by the Scientific Association; for three thousand
francs would have been quite a fortune to them both. Moreover, the idea
of tracking an under-ground river had a spice of romance and adventure
about it which was the very thing to tempt them.

The little stream of the Larve had long been the acknowledged puzzle of
the whole neighborhood. After skirting the town for some distance, it
vanished into the earth through a narrow cleft, and was seen no more.
Where it went to after that, no one could tell; and, as we have seen,
the first attempt to find out had succeeded so badly that nobody felt
much inclined for a second.

Tired out at length, the unsuccessful fishers went home, inwardly
resolving to try whether they might not have better fortune by night
than by day. Pierre, indeed, when the night came, began to have some
doubts about the wisdom of the idea, having heard his father say once
and again that it was a very dangerous thing to attempt at that season.
But the hardest thing in the world for a boy to do is to draw back from
anything simply because it is dangerous. Rather than let Jack think him
afraid, Pierre would have gone to sea on a hen-coop; so they stole out
of the cottage as noiselessly as possible, and away they went over the
dim gray waste of sea, half lighted by the rising moon.

The "take" of fish was a very good one this time, and the boys began to
think their night voyage a lucky idea; but they were rejoicing too soon.
A little after midnight the sky began to cloud over and the sea to rise
in a way which showed that there was a storm brewing. They put about at
once, and made for the shore, but long before they reached it the storm
burst upon the