“No. If those were seals we saw last night, this was no seal,” said Nina decisively. “It had small, fiery eyes and long tusks. I think it had flappers, though, in place of feet, but it was enormous.”
“Sounds like a walrus,” put in Sturgess.
“There are no walruses in the South Pacific,” said Maseden. “Anyhow, now that the magazine works all right, let’s go and have a look.”
Ample corroboration of the girl’s story was soon forthcoming. The splashing of water behind the group of big rocks sheltering the pool in which they had taken their bath showed that something unusual was going on.
They all reached the spot in time to witness the last struggles of a gigantic sea-lion, one of the most fearsome-looking of the ocean’s many strange denizens. The shot fired by Nina Forbes had struck it fairly in the throat, inflicting a wound which speedily proved mortal.
The animal was a full-grown male, fully ten feet in length, with a neck and shoulders of huge proportions. Its tusks and bristles gave it a most menacing aspect. The wonder was not that the bathers ran, but that Nina had the courage to face such a monster.
Maseden was delighted, and patted her on the shoulder.
“Well done!” he cried. “You’ve supplied the larder with fresh meat for days. We must even try our ’prentice hands at curing what we can’t eat to-day or to-morrow.”
The girl herself was not elated by her triumph. The water in which the sea-lion lay was deeply tinged with its blood, which had also bespattered the rocks.