"Well?" the latter asked.
"Well, we must wait. Hatteras is doing all this to save us."
The doctor was agitated; he looked at the bear, which had grown excited, as if he had become conscious of the danger which threatened him. A quarter of an hour later the seal was crawling over the ice; he made a circuit of a quarter of a mile to baffle the bear; then he found himself within three hundred feet of him. The bear then saw him, and settled down as if he were trying to hide. Hatteras imitated skilfully the movements of a seal, and if he had not known, the doctor would certainly have taken him for one.
"That's true!" whispered Johnson.
The seal, as he approached the bear, did not appear to see him; he seemed to be seeking some hole through which to reach the water. The bear advanced towards him over the ice with the utmost caution; his eager eyes betrayed his excitement; for one or perhaps two months he had been fasting, and fortune was now throwing a sure prey before him. The seal had come within ten feet of his enemy; the bear hastened towards him, made a long leap, and stood stupefied three paces from Hatteras, who, casting aside the sealskin, with one knee resting on the ground, was aiming at the bear's heart.
The report was sounded, and the bear rolled over on the ice.
"Forward!" shouted the doctor. And, followed by Johnson, he hastened to the scene of combat. The huge beast rose, and beat the air with one paw while with the other he tore up a handful of snow to stanch the wound. Hatteras did not stir, but waited, knife in hand. But his aim had been accurate, and his bullet had hit its mark; before the arrival of his friends he had plunged his knife into the beast's throat, and it fell, never to rise.
| "He plunged his knife into the beast's throat." |
"Victory!" shouted Johnson.