“I say, old Log-a-thing, how deep is this bally lake?”

Log-a-log smiled mischievously. “Hmm, let me see. It comes two-thirds of the way up a boat or halfway up a duck.”

“Oh, I see.” Pikkle nodded understandingly. “Now hang on a bally moment, old shrew. Who are you tryin’ to fool?”

Nordo laughed. “Watershrews always say that to landlubbers. Actually nobeast knows how deep this lake is, though my grandfather tried to plumb it when he was Log-a-log, and he said it was bottomless.”

Pikkle turned faintly pale around the gills. “D’you hear that, Mara? Bottomless! That means there’s nothin’ beneath this boat for goodness knows how deep but water. Oh corks, I knew I shouldn’t have come!”

Mara smiled. “Have a nap Pikkle, you’ll feel better.”

“Hah, listen to the creature! Better, she says. I’ve never felt so absobloominlutely awful in me li—What was that?”

Log-a-log came alert. “What was what?”

“Over there, sort of a big splash!” Pikkle pointed.

Nordo was about to say something when Log-a-log shot him a warning glance and shook his head. “Oh, that. It was probably a fish jumping. They do that a lot.”

Pikkle held on to the boat’s side. “Well, I wish they’d bally well stop. It makes a chap nervous, wot!”

“There it goes again. That’s no fish jumping!” A shrew paddler stood up behind them, his normally bass voice shrill and frightened.

The crews of both boats shuffled their paws restlessly and began murmuring among themselves. Log-a-log banged a paddle noisily on the prow of his logboat.

“Silence, back there. It was a fish, I saw it myself. Now stop that old mousewives’ scuttlebutt and get your lunches eaten!”

Mara looked to her left. A rippling wave was building up some distance away, but it was coming toward the boats. She pointed. “That looks a bit big for one fish; it must be a shoal of them.”

One of the shrews stared accusingly at Log-a-log. “You shouldn’t have banged your paddle on the boat like that. It’s heard you and it’s coming for us. It’s coming, I tell you!”

From the other boat Tubgutt could be heard yelling accusations: “It’s those two, the badger and the hare. They’ve brought bad luck down on us all!”

Others started shouting as panic set in with the advance of the rippling wave toward the two boats.

“Back the way we came, shrews. Paddle for land!”

“It’s the Deepcoiler, mates!”

“Turn back, let us off these boats!”

“If it’s the Deepcoiler we’re all deadbeasts!”

Log-a-log drew his rapier, rapping out commands over the hubbub. “Silence and sit down, fools, or you’ll turn these boats over! If you want to save yourselves sit tight and shut up!”

*   *   *