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d done in the deep waters. I rose early, after having passed so disturbed a night, and soon made my way to the usual haunt of Nero, whom I discovered in the sea near the rocks making all sorts of strange tumblings and divings, apparently after some dark object that was floating in the water. I called him away, to examine what it was that had so attracted his attention, and my surprise may be imagined when I made out the huge form of my enemy of the preceding day. My shouts and exclamations of joy soon brought Mrs Reichardt to the scene, and when she discovered the shape of this prodigious fish, her surprise seemed scarcely less than my own. How to land him was our first consideration; and after some debate on the ways and means, I got a rope and leaped into the water with it, fastened a noose round his gills, and then swimming back and climbing the rock, we jointly tried to pull him up on to the shore. We hauled and tugged with all our force for a considerable time, but to very little effect; he was too heavy to pull up perpendicularly. At last we managed to drag him to a low piece of rock, and there I divided him into several pieces, which Mrs Reichardt carried away to dry and preserve in some way that she said would make the fish capital eating all the year round. It was very palatable when dressed by her, and as she changed the manner of cooking several times, I never got tired of it. By its flavour, as far as I could judge from subsequent knowledge, the creature was something of the sturgeon kind of fish; but its proper name I never could learn; nor was I ever able to catch another, therefore, I must presume that it was a stranger in those seas. Nevertheless, he proved most acceptable to us both, for we should have fared but ill for some time, had it not been for his providential capture. It was one afternoon, when we had been enjoying a capital meal at the expense of our great friend, that I led the subject to Mrs Reichardt's adventures, subsequently to where she broke off in the story of herself and the poor German boy; and though not without considerable reluctance, I induced her to proceed with her narrative. CHAPTER THIRTY THREE. "Our good minister Dr Brightwell," she commenced, "was a man of considerable scholastic attainments, and he delighted in making a display of them. At one time he had been master of an extensive grammar school, and now he employed a good deal of his leisure in te
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