“No wonder that some of the old mariners who first saw these large seals fancied that there were mermen and mermaids at sea,” said the doctor, as they watched the peculiar semi-human faces of the creatures gazing at them with their great, soft eyes.
“You might almost fancy, if you saw one of them looking over a rock at you at a little distance, that it was some kind of savage.”
“Yes, but it would have to keep its body out of sight.”
“She has never seen the walrus, then?” said Andrew.
“Only a stuffed specimen.”
“Nay, she tidn’t say a stuff spessaman; she said ta walrus, sir.”
“No, I never saw a live walrus,” said the doctor, smiling.
“Then she’ll just wait a wee till she sees a big bull walrus lift her het oot o’ ta watter and look, and she’ll say tat she’s seen a chiant having a swim.”
The captain came on deck about an hour after with the haggard, drawn look gone out of his face, and he mounted the bridge at once to the mate, who handed him the glass, and Steve saw him take a long look to the north-east before closing the telescope. Directly after Mr Lowe descended and fetched the instruments to take their observations, with the result that soon after the mate went below for a rest, leaving the captain to direct the movements of the vessel.
There was so much open water around them now, and so direct a channel toward the land, while all the rest of the space about them was hemmed in with ice drifting northward, that to go to the north coast was the least perilous course.