Part 13

Joyfully Grim takes the big lump into her mouth. She feels that it pricks her, but the cavity of her mouth is not troubled with any exaggerated sensitiveness.

Splendidly heavy and solid the Rasper feels as he lies upon her tongue! And yet--his rough, tile-like scales, and the very small amount of fat and slime on his skin, make it unusually difficult for her to get the lump down.

He is hurting her now. She quickly takes a better hold, even letting her prehensile teeth come into play, and the long board-like tongue warp in co-operation; but no matter what she does, or how wide she opens her mouth, her efforts are in vain: the high-backed one refuses to move beyond a certain point.

Incomprehensible! Impossible!

She tries again. Besides her tongue and her prehensile teeth, she brings the muscles of her throat into play, and the bones of her head expand like a snake’s. Colours dance before her eyes as the gullet opens and closes, trying to draw in the perch’s head. But to no avail. The wedge remains immovable. The big mouthful is too big!

So there is nothing to be done, but give it up! Grim opens her mouth wide, relaxes her prehensile teeth, which, as readily as an adder’s, turning on their hinges, return to the perpendicular; she opens her throat-muscles as far as she can, and even pushes with her tongue. “There! The torture in the spiked barrel is over. The prison is graciously open to the great perch.”

The Rasper, who, all through the battle, has been lashing out with his strong tail, which is hanging out of the pike’s mouth, and throwing Grim from one side to the other, suddenly notices the loosening of the strait-jacket, and backs with a jerk. He thinks he is free, so easily does he swim now, although the darkness before his eyes is just as thick and oppressive.

He is still in the pike’s throat, and cannot get away, for he has his twelve stiffest dorsal spines bored into his enemy’s palate; and the more he worries and works with his dangerous opponent, the deeper and more firmly do the spines fix themselves.

In the meantime Grim, true to her pike-nature, has for a few moments lost nearly all her energy. The spines begin to hurt her, and her mouthful on the whole to incommode her. She cannot get sufficient water over her gills, and what does filter into her mouth in spite of the gag, is needed by the gag itself. She can feel it breathing inside her mouth; incessantly, with every indication of excitement, its gill-covers open and close, and take the lion’s share of the water.

It is impossible for her to bear this suffocation any longer; she must have air; and in ungovernable rage she begins to lash out with her tail. Now it is she who takes the upper hand, and pushes the hog-backed one before her through the water.

Thus the combat continues. Now it is Grim who has the mastery, and shakes her opponent so that the perch’s tail slaps her weakly on the cheeks, and fetches her blow after blow upon the back of her neck. Now it is the Rasper’s turn to use Grim as a ferule, running her against stones and water-plants on the bottom, and whirling her round.

But no matter how much they exert themselves, it is without result; they do not succeed in getting away from one another.

Faint and dead-beat, they fall over on their sides. The blood in their red gills scarcely circulates, their strength is ebbing, and there is no longer any question of either being leader. They only take it in turns now to splash a little with their tails and try to right themselves.

Grim, who is lying with her gills outside in the free water, is still alive and in possession of all her senses, but the Rasper is half dead.

Then they float up and drift over the surface of the water like dead fish.

* * * * *

Thunder is rolling over the lake.

A scorching sun and oppressive heat have long foreboded the storm that is brewing, and now at last it has burst; the clouds and the water have met.

The celestial salute begins rumbling and crackling a long way off in the farthest corner where the reed-forests rally round the mouth of the brook. The lightning ploughs long, white-glowing fibrous sparks out of the sombre, purple horizon, from which the showers come chasing and sweeping over the lake, casting dark, threatening shadows before them.

Under the fringe of forest on the lee-side, where all the grebes have crept together, one of the “big birds” is lying at anchor. She is riding out the storm while the whirlwinds are playing touch over the deep water. She has no lines or fishing-tackle out; she knows well that all angling is in vain.

The water seethes and boils on all sides; the grey troughs of the waves are full of bursting bubbles. Little slate-coloured showers dart about, and plough up the surface of the water like the scratching of a cat on the skin; they dash themselves against the reedy margin and the edge of the wood, cutting broad lanes through them.

All the fish have left the shallow water for the depths where they can lie far enough below the surface to escape the movement of the waves. Only the sheat-fish, the old water-hyena, is out roaming.

The wild weather puts life into Oa; it brings her great opportunities. The fish cannot see in the rough water, they are thrown out of their course, at one moment jumbled together, then separated; and one and another come to grief. It is corpse-weather today. The angry waves stir up carrion from the bottom, or carry it out from bridge and bank. She always gets so hungry in stormy weather, and feels as if she must go to the surface for air.

Feeling her way with her sensitive barbels, she glides out of her hole on the east side of the submarine mountain slope. Like a huge eel she wriggles up to the surface, where she lies in wait, slowly drifting with the current.

Grim’s white belly is not turned down now. The colour that makes the fish look one with the water would then have hidden her well enough for any one looking up from below. Now her flecked sides and black back make a distinct stripe in the water.

A cunning expression comes into Oa’s little eyes. The queer fish with two tails attracts her.

The storm is abating; the last heavy shower is over. A patch of blue sky peeps out like a smiling eye between the frayed, swollen clouds. The lake sinks to rest, and even the pennons of the rushes hang loosely from their stalks; but in the distance can be heard the low rumbling of another storm.

The boat takes advantage of the lull, and is on her way home.