k was on the steamer's rail, whence it was hurled
to the deck, narrowly missing the legs and toes of half-a-dozen reckless
men who seized it and sent it below. Almost before Zulu could turn
round Spivin was up again with another trunk, another wild grab was
made, but not successfully, and Spivin sank to rise again. A second
effort proved successful--and thus they went on, now and then missing
the mark, but more frequently hitting it, until the boat was empty.

You have only to multiply this little scene by forty or fifty, and you
have an idea of the loading of that steamer on the high seas. Of course
you must diversify the picture a little, for in one place you have a man
hanging over the side with a trunk in mid-air, barely caught when in its
descent, and almost too heavy for him by reason of his position. In
another place you have a man glaring up at a trunk, in another glaring
down;--in all cases action the most violent and most diversified,
coupled with cool contempt of crushed fingers and bruised shins and
toes.

At last the furore began to subside. By degrees the latest boats
arrived, and in about three hours from the time of commencing, the crew
of the steamer began to batten down the hatches. Just then, like the
"late passenger," the late trawler came up. The captain of the steamer
had seen it long before on the horizon doing its best to save the
market, and good-naturedly delayed a little to take its fish on board,
but another smack that came up a quarter of an hour or so after that,
found the hatches closed, and heard the crushing reply to his hail--"Too
late!"

Then the carrying-steamer turned her sharp bow to the sou'-west, put on
full steam, and made for the Thames--distant nearly 300 miles--with over
2000 trunks of fresh fish on board, for the breakfast, luncheon and
dinner tables of the Great City. Thus, if the steamer were to leave
early on a Monday, it would arrive on Tuesday night and the fish be sold
in the market on Wednesday morning about five o'clock.

With little variation this scene is enacted every day, all the year
round, on the North Sea. It may not be uninteresting to add, that on
the arrival of the steamer at Billingsgate, the whole of her cargo would
probably be landed and sold in less than one hour and a half.

CHAPTER NINE.

ANOTHER DRAG-NET HAULED--THE MISSION SMACK.

When the steamer left the fleet the wind was beginning to moderate, and
all eyes were turned as usua