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Several hands made the dory ready. Into it they put three or four

tubs or half casks in which was coiled hundreds of fathoms of

stout line furnished with a strong hook every two or three feet.

Each hook was baited with a fat salt clam, for the early catch of

squid had been exhausted by the dory fishing. There was also a

fresh tub of bait, buoys, and a lantern.

A youth aboard clambered up to the cross-trees, gave them the

direction of the trawl buoy-light, and they started. It was a

clear, starlit night with only a gentle sea running and no wind

to speak of. There was not a hint of fog.

The Charming Lass lay now in the Atlantic approximately along the

forty-sixth parallel, near its intersection with the fifty-fifth

of meridian; or eighty to a hundred miles southwest of Cape Race,

Newfoundland, and almost an equal distance southeast of the

Miquelon Islands, France's sole remaining territorial possession

in the New World.