Suddenly, “Stand by your clubs and guns, men!” cried the mate; “Here they come. Now we’re in for it. I knew they’d seek revenge.”
The sea around them seemed alive with the great tusked heads of walruses, coming from all directions and making straight for the boat.
“In oars, and keep cool, lads,” said the mate, seizing an axe; “but for mercy’s sake keep the boat trimmed. If she capsizes we are all dead men.”
How long they fought with those desperate brutes Frank could never tell; but it seemed to him an age ere the other boats came to their relief, and poured volley after volley into the midst of the pack of walruses. Then they disappeared, and but for the sea around them, all reddened with blood, and the floating corpses—which, however, speedily sank—there was not a sign of the fearful hand-to-hand and all-unequal contest.
Chapter Five.
The West Land of Greenland—A Fall! a Fall!—Danger on all Sides—“Man the Ice-saws”—Working for Life—Beset in the Dreary Pack.
