In this manner she proceeded until she was within a hundred feet of them. Then she inflated her great lungs and silently sank from sight. It was to be a sort of submarine attack.
For an instant, twenty-five feet nearer, the white nose again appeared. Then all was still about the walrus family.
In the meantime, the calf had decided it was time to feed and was at the water's edge calling for the cow to come down to him.
The walrus calf suckles under water, just as the young hippopotamus does. It was not until a hippopotamus in captivity gave birth to a youngster, that this fact was known. Then the care takers in the circus killed the calf by trying to make it suckle above water.
Although the walrus mother is a great fat mountain without shape or beauty, yet her love for her calf is very beautiful. She guards and mothers it as faithfully as the most fastidious heifer. So she slipped down into the water and the calf began feeding. This was not just as the white hunter had planned, but she was almost upon them and could not turn back.
Presently, as the calf came to the surface to breathe, it uttered a plaintive bleat and struggling sank from sight.
With an agonized cry the mother walrus turned just in time to see the white coat of the dread hunter sink in the dark water carrying the struggling calf with it.
Her cry of distress and appeal was like a call to battle to the sleeping bull. It is an unwritten law in the chivalric code of the male walrus that he defend his mate and his young with his life. So, with a roar of rage that echoed along the frozen ice field, the bull splashed into the water.