turned to rise and take it, and the shag saw the gleam of its side at the same time as Tarka saw it. Oylegrin tipped up and kicked rapidly downwards, faster than an otter could swim. Its tight feathers glinted and gleamed as it pursued the pollack. Garbargee also saw the pollack and uncurled a muscular tail from its hold on a jut of rock. The conger was longer than a man is tall, and thicker through the body than Tarka. It weighed ninety pounds. It waved above the weedy timbers, and as it passed over, crabs hid in the mouths of cannon.
Bird, animal, and fish made a chasing arrowhead whose tip was the glinting pollack; conger the flexible shaft, otter and shag the barbs. Oylegrin swam with long neck stretched out, hooked beak ready to grip, while it thrust with webbed feet farther from the bubbles which ran out of its gullet. The pollack turned near Tarka, who swung up and followed it. Oylegrin braked and swerved with fourteen short, stiff tail-feathers and one upturned web. The pollack turned down a sheer rock hung with thong-weed, but, meeting Tarka, turned up again and was caught by Oylegrin.
The chasing arrow-head buckled against the rock, in a tangle of thongs and ribbons and bubbles shaking upwards. The giant conger had bitten the shag through the neck. Wings flapped, a grating, muffled cry broke out of a bottle of air. Tarka’s mouth opened wide, but his teeth could not pierce the conger’s skin. The gloom darkened, for an opaqueness was spreading where there had been movement.
92
