always carried with him when after _kablejauw_, the great hundred pounders which come up as far as this point in the spring tides. Now thoroughly alarmed for his safety, I rode down towards the sea, from which, six miles away, there came the continuous roar and thunder of the surf, and, to my great relief, met him in a bush path, with a full-grown otter on his back, and the water oozing from his top boots and from his clothes, which clung to his lank body. "Halloa! Uncle; I thought you were drowned." "That's me," he said, sweeping the water from his eyes; "I've been drowned twice over. Got a pipe and baccy? I'm jest perishing for a smoke." I saw now that his knuckles were skinned, and that his face was pinched and blue. "Get up," I said dismounting. "Not me. I'd spoil the saddle. Lemme catch hold of the stirrup--so. Now get along quick, for I want to boil this yer soaking of water outer my bones and body." We went along, and presently I had a bright fire going in the cave, and the kettle singing, while Abe, stripped of his clothes, sat shivering still in his skin kaross, his eyes fixed on the red torrent, which stretched across for a mile. A tin beaker of boiling coffee soon brought back the warmth to his body, and when he had my pipe between his teeth he began to talk. "I believe I'm getting old, sonny; and I've lost my fishin' tackle." "Not the _kablejauw_ tackle?" "Jest that. It's stood by me, man and boy, for twenty-five years. I've waxed it and waxed it, and wired it about the shank, till it were strong enough to haul in a shark, and now it's gone--all along of this yer flood. I don't like loosing old things, and the loss of it pains me as tho' you'd pulled the sinews outer me." "How did it happen?" "Yesterday I came here to fish, and in the afternoon--when the tide crept whispering along the rushes--I cast in from the big rock. 'Twas as quiet as Sunday, with a fringe of bubbles right across the river marking when the tide moved up. On the mud bank, jest below where the big fish would soon be routing up the mud like pigs, there was a blue crane dozing on one leg, with his head bunched between his shoulders; on a dead tree above sat a big black and white kingfisher, with his red beak pointing up, and on the top of the krantz a white-headed eagle was all huddled up. After a smoke, I built up the fire in the cave, then made another cast with the line, for the fish were coming up, and the tide had reached up so high that the crane had to quit. I heaved the lead out about thirty yards, and was drawing her in when there comes a tug, and I was into a _steinbrasse_. That same moment the eagle started into the air, sailing roun' and roun', and letting go screech after screech; and when I looked up at him, surprised at the racket, I yeard a hollow murmur, like an echo that comes from a cave. I knew what it meant.