in THE DEATH-CURTAIN 127 



deep. For mackerel it would hang from the 

 surface downwards, but for herrings it would be 

 sunk in the depth of the water, supported by 

 buoys and lanyards, so that Its foot was just free 

 of the bottom — an improvement in fishing dis- 

 covered not so very many years ago. The motion 

 of the death-curtain, hanging free and unleaded 

 from its headrope, would be inconceivably grace- 

 ful; for not the finest fabric floating in air, nor 

 the most accomplished dancer, nor even smoke, 

 can vie in delicacy and softness and exquisite 

 suspense with the waving of net in water. So, 

 throughout the night, it would be just visible, 

 drifting in the flood and the ebb tides, and curling 

 back on itself during slack water. And towards 

 dawn the two men in charge of it would be seen 

 tO' peep out over the gunwale, the boat and nets 

 would draw towards each other, and finally the 

 whole curtain, that had stretched far out of sight, 

 would return to the unknown land whence it had 

 come, snugly piled up between two thwarts of the 

 drifter. To a fish of some intelligence, yet without 

 enough tO' distinguish between human limbs and 

 the apparently animate nets they shoot out, there 

 would be something terrible in the long arm of 

 fishermen; something as mysterious and as darkly 



