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At five o'clock Code wound his line on the reel (he usually used

two at a time, but one had been plenty with such fishing), and

started to pull for the distant Charming Lass. He was now fully

five miles from her, and his nearest neighbor was Bill Kent,

three miles away. All hands were drawing in toward her, for they

knew they must take a quick mug-up and then dress down until the

last cod lay in his shroud of salt.

The schooner lay to the northeast of Schofield, and as he bent to

his work he did not see a strange, level mass of gray that

advanced slowly toward him. From a distance to the lay observer

this mass would have looked like an ordinary cloud-bank, but the

experienced eyes of a fisherman would have discerned its ghastly

gray hue and its flat contour.

All the afternoon there had been a freshening breeze, and now

Schofield found himself rowing against a head sea that

occasionally slapped over the high bow of the dory and ran aft

over the half ton of fish that lay under his feet.