It's half a mile
down.... Swimming about.... I can see its eyes; they must be about ten
feet in diameter. I can see its fins moving. And there are about a dozen
others, much deeper, swimming around.... This is easily the most
overwhelming contribution made to science since the discovery of the
purple-spotted dingle-bock, _Bukkus dinglii_.... We've got to catch one
of those gigantic fish!"
"How?" I gasped. "How are we going to catch a minnow as large as a
sleeping car?"
"I don't know, but we've got to do it. We've got to manage it, somehow."
"It would require a steel cable to hold such a fish and a donkey engine
to reel him in! And what about a hook? And if we had hook, line,
steam-winch, and everything else, _what_ about bait?"
He knelt for some time longer, watching the fish, before he resigned the
hydroscope to me. Then I watched it; but it came no nearer, seeming
contented to swim about at the depth of a little more than half a mile.
Deep under this fish I could see others glittering as they sailed or
darted to and fro.
Presently I raised my head and sat thinking. The sun now gilded the
water; a little breeze ruffled it here and there where dainty cat's-paws
played over the surface.
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