When the boys told of their experience with the big seal-like creatures, Cap’n Pem laughed uproariously.
“Them’s sea leopards,” he told them. “Lucky ye didn’t git too clost, they ain’t like these ’ere elephants. Bite ye quicker’n Jack Robinson, ’bout as fierce as a lion an’ mighty touchy too.”
“Aren’t they good for anything?” asked Tom. “Do you ever kill them?”
“Hides is wuth somethin’,” replied the old man, “but ain’t got enough blubber ter make ’em wuth the danger o’ killin’ of ’em. Time was, when we used fer to hunt ’em an’ fur seals, too. But ’ain’t nothin’ in it now, with elephant ’ile so high.”
Cap’n Pem also explained that the big penguins they had seen were King Penguins and that the moonstones, though pretty, had little value.
“Whole beaches on ’em over ter Kerguelan,” he told them. “Took up derned nigh a bucket full on ’em one trip. Couldn’t sell ’em fer ’nough ter keep me in terbaccy. Guv ’em all ter the wimmin folks.”
Boiling was going on when the boys reached camp, and after eating, for they were ravenously hungry, they watched the operation for some time and then made their way towards the spot where the men were stripping the blubber from the last of the dead elephants. Everywhere, the enormous raw carcasses were scattered about, and, almost hiding them from sight, were thousands of albatrosses, Molly Mokes and other sea birds, screaming and quarreling over the feast and tearing the flesh from the bones with their powerful bills. So bold were the birds that they frequently swooped down and attempted to carry off pieces of blubber under the noses of the working men and one man constantly was kept busy shooing and beating them off.
“Wouldn’t they clear out if you shot some of them?” inquired Tom.
“Yep, I expect they would,” replied a boat steerer, “but we need ’em an’ don’t want to drive away. What’d we do with all them there dead elephants if ’twan’t fer them birds? Why, they’d smell so ye couldn’t live on the islan’, an’ a breedin’ plague.”
“Do you mean the birds will eat them all up?” asked Jim in surprise.