With blank amazement we beheld a fine, well-grown young walrus, harpooned and quite dead.
"Did you kill this creature, my dear Fritz?" I exclaimed, looking round in some anxiety, and half expecting to see a naked savage come to claim the prize.
"To be sure, father! don't you see my harpoon? Why do you doubt it?"
"Well, I scarcely know," replied I, laughing; "but success so speedy, so unexpected, and so appropriate, to an amateur Greenlander, took me by surprise. I congratulate you, my boy! But I must tell you that you have alarmed us by making this long trip. You should not have gone out of the bay. I left your mother in grievous trouble."
"Indeed, father, I had no idea of passing out of sight, but once in the current, I was carried along, and could not help myself. Then I came on a herd of walruses, and I did so long to make a prize of one that I forgot everything else, and made chase after them when beyond the influence of the current, until I got near enough to harpoon this fine fellow. He swam more slowly, and I struck him a second time; then he sought refuge among these rocks, and expired. I landed, and scrambled to where he lay, but I took care to give him the contents of my pistol before going close up, having a salutary recollection of the big serpent's parting fling at you, Jack."
"You ran a very great risk," said I. "The walrus is an inoffensive creature; but when attacked and wounded, it often becomes furious, and, turning upon its pursuer, can destroy, with its long tusks, a strongly built whale boat. However, thank God for your safety! I value that above a thousand such creatures. Now, what's to be done with him? He must be quite fourteen feet long, although not full grown."
"I am very glad you followed me, father," said Fritz; "but our united strength will not remove this prodigious weight from among these rocks; only do let me carry away the head, with these grand, snow-white tusks! I should so like to fasten it on the prow of the cajack, and name it the Sea-horse."
"We must certainly carry away the beautiful ivory tusks," said I; "but make haste; the air feels so excessively close and sultry, I think a storm is brewing."
"But the head! the head! we must have the whole head," cried Jack; "just think how splendid it will look on the cajack!"
"And how splendid it will smell too, when it begins to putrify," added Ernest; "what a treat for the steersman?"