Part 4

The successful captor, however, is given no peace in which to devour his prey. He has to let it go, and seize it, and let it go again; and now a little fish--a bleak--begins to take a part in the play.

The fluttering chase continues noiselessly across the surface of the water, and urged on by the whirligigs above and the bleak beneath, the moth approaches the reeds.

With muscles relaxed and dorsal fin laid flat, Grim lies motionless at its edge, whence again and again she catches a glimpse of the little silvery fish.

Its delicate body is fat outside and in, plump and well nourished, and to the eyes of the fratricide is an irresistible temptation, making her hunger creep out to the very tips of her teeth.

Her dorsal fin opens out and is cautiously raised, while her eyes greedily watch the movements of the nimble little fish.

Flash follows flash, each bigger and brighter than the other.

Grim feels the excitement and ecstasy of the spoiler rush over her--all that immediately precedes possession of the spoil--and delights in the sensation. She begins to change from her stick-like attitude, and imperceptibly to bend in the middle.

The plump little fish is too much engrossed in its moth-hunt. Unconcernedly it lets its back display a vivid, bright green lake-hue, while with its silvery belly it reflects all the rainbow colours of the water.

Another couple of seconds and the prey is near.

Then Grim makes her first real leap. It is successful. Ever since she was the length of a darning-needle, she had dreamt of this leap, dreamt that it would be successful.

The sedge-warbler in the reedy island heard the splash, and the closing snap of the jaws. They closed with such firmness that the bird could feel, as it were, the helpless sigh of the victim, and the grateful satisfaction of the promising young pirate.

She was the tiger of the water. She would take her prey by cunning and by craft, and by treacherous attack. She was seldom able to swim straight up to her food. How could she chase the nimble antelopes of the lake when, timid and easily startled, they were grazing on the plains of the deep waters; they discovered her before she got near them and could begin her leap!

Huge herds were there for her pleasure. She had no need to exert herself, but could choose her quarry in ease and comfort. The larger its size, and the greater the hunger and lust for murder that she felt within her, the more violence and energy did she put into the leap. But just as the falcon may miss its aim, so might she, and it made her ashamed, like any other beast of prey; she did not repeat the leap, but only hastened away.

But when her prey was struggling in her hundred-toothed jaws and slapping her on the mouth with its quivering tail-fin, then slowly, and with a peculiar, lingering enjoyment, she straightened herself out from her bent leaping posture. If she was hungry, she immediately swallowed her captive, but if not, she was fond, like the cat, of playing with her victim, swimming about with it in her mouth, twisting and turning it over, and chewing it for hours before she could make up her mind to swallow it.

She ate, she stuffed herself; and with much eating she waxed great.

III: GRIM GOES EXPLORING

In the creek where she lived among rushes and reeds, a shoal of perch had their abode. They were scarcely as big as she, but much thicker and older. Their leader in particular, by whose movements the whole flock were guided, was a broad bellied high-backed fellow, who knew the value of the weapon of defence he possessed in his strong, spiny dorsal fin.

He had a peculiar power of varying his colour so that it always suited the light in the water and on the bottom. There were days when he looked an emerald green, without any brassy tinge; at other times he let the black flickerings along his sides stand out like the stripes on a zebra’s skin, and gave a brilliancy to his belly like that of the harvest moon. That was for fine weather. There was life in the water then!

But common to them all were the rough, rasping scales that grew close up round the carroty-red fins, and the round yellow eyes with coal-black pupils, which seemed to rest on cushions and roll outside the head so that the fish could see both up and down.

The perch were quite as rapacious as Grim herself; they poached upon her small-fish preserves, and often disturbed her in the chase. Had she only been equal to it, she would gladly have devoured some of them, too.

One evening when she was so hungry that she under-estimated everything, she saw her chance of attacking their dark-hued leader, but Rasper, becoming aware of his dilemma, defended himself with the energy of a bulldog. The combat was on the point of turning in his favour, when Grim disappeared from view by taking a bold salmon-leap high into the air. After that they always swam scowling past one another at a respectful distance; but Grim was well aware that the striped swimmer had no friendly feeling towards her.

As she grew bigger, and felt herself more and more the powerful despot, whose dental armature had been provided simply and solely for the purpose of biting others, her hatred of the high-backed one instinctively became greater. They were of such widely different natures!

Grim was passionate, fierce, and reckless in her attacks, and gave herself up to the intoxicating pleasure of the chase until she grew dizzy. She ventured all, and lost herself in rapacious lust. The cunning perch seldom made a false step, but looked carefully ahead, and was always cool and self-restrained in his behaviour; and yet he was always ready--quite as ready as she--to attack, but had a masterly perception of the chances of success. He would frequently dart towards her, then suddenly stop and consider, and stand sniffing at her like a dog.

She was still only a hobbledehoy, flabby and loose-jointed, and not quick enough in emergencies. She had only just found out where the great ones of her own species liked to post themselves, and where it behoved her, therefore, to be on her guard; but beyond this she was not burdened with much experience.

As a young fish she had never been out into deep water, but wisely kept to the quiet parts--the channels and the broad waters of the creek, where her strength was proportionate to the exigencies of her surroundings, and where she instinctively felt that her great enemies would run aground if they pursued her. Here she found shelter among the reeds and the rushes.

But there was something beyond; something great and strong, something always disquieting; and this attracted her.

She began to go farther and farther afield, and one day, when the water was especially bright and clear, she set out on a journey from one end of the lake to the other.

The bottom of the creek was fertile, hilly country. Long slopes, clothed with water-lily plants, and laden with yard-high, round-stalked grass, ran out in parallel chains, framing, as it were, a corresponding stretch of broad, deep valleys. Here and there were steep narrows, passes through which the shoals of fish had to venture when going from one pasture to another.