So down they came to the feast. They had not had such a treat for a whole day, and that is a long time for a bear to fast, and they made good use of their time, you may be sure, and so earnest were they, that they did not perceive a long, hairy creature that came creeping stealthily towards them. When at last one of them did observe this strange animal “with the tail of his eye,” he said to himself,—
“Oh! it is only a tiny bit of a young seal, hunting for a lost mother, perhaps. Well, I’ll have it presently by way of dessert.”
And almost immediately after, the sound that had startled our friends at their dessert rang out in the clear, frosty air, and Bruin’s head dropped never more to rise. His brother bears suddenly discovered they had eaten enough; anyhow, they remembered that it was always best to rise up from the table feeling that you could eat a little more, so they shambled away across the pack as fast as four legs could carry them.
“Bravo, Seth, old boy,” cried Rory and Allan, coming on the scene.
Ralph only waited to finish some pastry, then he too joined them.
“Why,” said the latter, “it is the biggest bear we have seen yet.”
In true trapper fashion, Seth was already on his knees beside the enormous carcass, engaged with knife and fist and elbow, “working the rascal out of his jacket,” as he called it, when Rory, who was not far from the edge of the water, started, or rather sprang back in horror.
“Oh! Allan, Allan! Ray, Ray! look!” he cried.
Well might he cry “look,” for a more terrible or revolting apparition never raises head over the black waters of the Greenland ocean than the zugaena, or hammer-headed shark. The skull is in shape precisely what the name indicates, that of a gigantic hammer, with a great eye at each end, and the mouth beneath. This shark is not unfrequently met with in the northern seas, and he is just as fierce as he is fearful to behold.
Allan and Ralph both saw the brute, and neither could repress a shudder. It appeared but for a few moments, then dived below again.