"Sh-h-h!" from Raed, holding back a warning hand: he was a little ahead of us. "Creep up still! Peep by me! See him! By Jove! he's wiggling off the ice! Jump up and shoot him!"
We sprang up, cocking our muskets, just in time to get a glimpse and hear the great seal splash heavily into the sea. Wade and Kit fired as the waters buried him; Guard rushed past, and Donovan bounded down the rocks, butcher-knife in hand.
"Too late!" exclaimed Raed.
We ran down to the spot. The water went off deep from the ice on which it had lain. It was nowhere in sight. Dirt and gravel had been scattered out on to the ice, and its ordure lay about. Evidently this was one of its permanent sunning-places.
"Get back among the rocks, and watch for him!" exclaimed Kit. "Only thing we can do now."
"I suppose so," said Raed.
We secreted ourselves a little back from the water behind different rocks and in little hollows, and, with guns rested ready to fire, waited for the re-appearance of the big seal. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed; but he didn't re-appear much.
"I say," Wade whispered: "this is getting a little played!"
We were all beginning to think so, when a horrible noise—a sound as much like the sudden bellow of a mad bull as anything I can compare it with—resounded from the other side of the island.
"What, for Heaven's sake, is that?" Kit exclaimed.