THE BLOCKADE OF THE MULLET


"Up with a sally and a flash of speed
As if they scorned."

The rains which came at the New Year flooded all the creeks of the
Island. Accumulations of sand usually form beds through which the sweet
water slowly mingles with the salt, but with the violence and impetus of
a downpour of ten inches during the night, each torrent had cut a
channel, through which it raced from the seclusion of the jungle to the
free, open sea. Twice in the twenty-four hours the impassive flowing tide
subdued the impertinence of each of the brawlers, smothered its gurgling,
and forced it back among the ferns and jungle and banana-plants which
crowded its banks.

The largest stream at high water was four feet deep. As I prepared to
wade across George, the black boy, shouted over his shoulder towards a
slowly swaying cloud in the deep pool overhung with foremost flounces of
the jungle. The cloud was a shoal of sea mullet. Save for a clear margin
of about three feet, the fish filled the pond--an alert, greyish-blue mass
edged with cream-coloured sand. There were several hundred fish, all
bearing a family resemblance as to size as well as to feature.

It was slack water. The fish were, no doubt, about to move down-stream to
the sea, for all headed that way when the disturbing presence of man
blocked the passage. A thrill went through the phalanx, and it swayed to
the left and then to the right. The movement--spontaneous and