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