He saw fish-shapes in the water beyond and above him, and headed them again as they would dash back to the estuary. The mullet swam away from him at thrice his speed, but he followed surely. The spring-tide was now flowing at six knots and the mullet went up with the press of water, Tarka drove them under another bridge, past which, by some steps in the quay, water from a mill-leat was splashing under a culvert. Above this the walls of stone ended, and rows of weed-hung stakes leaned over the mud glidders. Following the westward curve of the pill, Tarka passed by a timber-yard, and after a minute’s swimming, swung north again and then east. The creek was like a great hollow slug filling with water.
Above the next bridge the leading fish rushed back and skurried by him, missing his snap by a curve that gleamed all its side, and a flack of its tail that filled Tarka’s mouth with air. It escaped, with six of its grey brethren, but the last two were headed again. Tarka drove them up the straight and narrowing pill, through the collar of the tide and into still water, which was strange to the mullet, it was so clear and shallow.
Tarka was now a mile from the pill-mouth. The image of the bright moon rolled in shaken globules in the hollows of the brook’s swift waters, blending as quicksilver. Every ten yards two clusters of small bright beads arose out of the blackness and vanished in a dipping streak. Sometimes a delicate silver arrow pointed up the brook and was tangled in a fish-tail swirl. Every
