Kings in Exile

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

But it often enough happens that wild animals, no less than human beings, may be ignorant 206 of something which their health requires them to know. There was another bear in Labrador—a smallish, rusty-coated, broad-headed, crafty cousin of the ordinary American black bear. And one of these, who had acquired a taste for seal, along with some cleverness in gratifying that taste, had his headquarters, as it chanced, in that near-neighboring fir wood.

The Pup lay crowded in snugly between his two mothers. He liked the warmth of being crowded; for the light breeze, drawing up from the water, was sharp with frost. There is such a thing, however, as being just a little too crowded, and presently, waking up with a protest, he pushed and wriggled to get more space. As he did so, he raised his head. His keen young eyes fell upon a black something a little blacker than the surrounding gloom.

The black something was up the slope halfway between the water and the wood. It looked like a mass of rock. But the Pup had a vague feeling that there had been no rock thereabouts when he went to sleep. A thrill of apprehension went up and down his spine, raising the stiffish hairs along his neck. Staring with all his eyes through the dimness, he presently saw the black shape move. Yes, it was 207 drawing nearer. With a shrill little bark of terror he gave the alarm, at the same time struggling free and hurling himself toward the water.

In that same instant the bear rushed, coming down the slope as it were in one plunging jump. The seals, light sleepers all, were already awake and floundering madly back to the water. But for one of them, and that one the Pup’s assistant mother, the alarm came too late. Just as she was turning, bewildered with terror of she knew not what, the dark bulk of the bear landed upon her, crushing her down. A terrific blow on the muzzle broke her skull, and she collapsed into a quivering mass. The rest of the band, after a moment of loud splashing, swam off noiselessly for the safe retreat of the outer ledges. And the bear, after shaking the body of his victim to make sure it was quite dead, dragged it away with a grunt of satisfaction into the fir wood.

After this tragedy, though the travellers continued to ascend the creeks and inlets when the whim so moved them, they took care to choose for sleep the ruder security of outlying rocks and islands, and cherished, by night and by day, a wholesome distrust of dark fir woods. But for all their watchfulness their journeying 208 was care-free and joyous, and from time to time, as they went, their light-heartedness would break out into aimless gambols, or something very like a children’s game of tag. Nothing, however, checked their progress southward, and presently, turning into the Belle Isle Straits, they came to summer skies and softer weather. At this point, under the guidance of an old male who had followed the southward track before, they forsook the Labrador shore-line and headed fearlessly out across the strait till they reached the coast of Newfoundland. This coast they followed westward till they gained the Gulf of St. Lawrence, then, turning south, worked their way down the southwest coast of the great Island Province, past shores still basking in the amethystine light of Indian summer, through seas so teeming with fish that they began to grow lazy with fatness. Here the Pup and other younger members of the company felt inclined to stay. But their elders knew that winter, with the long cold, and the scanty sun, and the perilous grinding of tortured ice-floes around the shore-rocks, would soon be upon them; so the journey was continued. On they pressed, across the wide gateway of the Gulf, from Cape Ray to North Cape, the eastern point of Nova Scotia. Good 209 weather still waited upon their wayfaring, and they loitered onward gayly, till, arriving at the myriad-islanded bay of the Tuskets, near the westernmost tip of the peninsula, they could not, for sheer satisfaction, go farther. Here was safe seclusion, with countless inaccessible retreats. Here was food in exhaustless plenty; and here was weather benignant enough for any reasonable needs.

It was just here, off the Tuskets, that the Pup got another lesson. Hitherto his ideas of danger had been altogether associated with the land where eagles swooped out of a clear sky and bears skulked in the darkness, and where, moreover, he himself was incapable of swift escape. But now he found that the sea, too, held its menace for the gentle kindred of the seals. It was a still, autumnal morning, blue and clear, with a sunny sparkle on sea and air. The seals were most of them basking luxuriously on the seaward ledges of one of the outermost islands, while half a dozen of the more energetic were amusing themselves with their game of tag in the deep water. Pausing for a moment to take breath, after a sharp wrestling-match far down among the seaweeds, the Pup’s observant eyes caught sight of a small, black triangular object cutting swiftly the smooth surface 210 of the swells. He stared at it curiously. It was coming towards him, but it did not, to his uninitiated eyes, look dangerous. Then he became conscious of a scurrying of alarm all about him; and cries of sharp warning reached him from the sentinels on the ledge. Like a flash he dived, at an acute angle to the line of approach of the mysterious black object. Even in the instant, it was close upon him, and he caught sight of a long, terrible, gray shape, thrice as long as a seal, which turned on one side in its rush, showing a whitish belly, and a gaping, saw-toothed mouth big enough to take him in at one gulp. Only by a hair’s-breadth did he avoid that awful rush, carrying with him as he passed the sound of the snapping jaws and the cold gleam of the shark’s small, malignant eye.

Hideously frightened, he doubled this way and that, with a nimbleness that his huge pursuer could not hope to match. It took the shark but a few seconds to realize that this was a vain chase. An easier quarry caught his eye. He darted straight shoreward, where the deep water ran in abruptly to the very lip of the ledge. The Pup came to the surface to watch. One of the younger seals, losing its wits utterly with fright, and forgetting that its safety lay in 211 the deep water where it could twist and dodge, was struggling frantically to clamber out upon the rocks. It had almost succeeded, indeed. It was just drawing up its narrow, tail-like hind flippers, when the great, rounded snout of the shark shot into the air above it. The monstrous shape descended upon it, and fell back with it into the water, leaving only a splash and trickle of blood upon the lip of the ledge. The other seals tossed their heads wildly, jumped about on their fore-flippers, and barked in lively dismay; and in a few moments, as if the matter had been put to vote and carried unanimously, they betook themselves in haste to one of the inner islands, where they knew that the shark, who hates shoal water, would not venture to follow them.

In this sheltered archipelago the little herd might well have passed the winter. But after a few weeks of content the southing spirit again seized upon the old male who had hitherto been the unquestioned leader. At this point, however, his authority went to pieces. When he resumed the southward wandering, less than half the herd accompanied him. But among those faithful were the Pup and his mild-eyed mother.

Rounding the extremity of Nova Scotia, the 212 travellers crossed the wide mouth of the Bay of Fundy, and lingered a few days about the lofty headlands of Grand Manan. By this time they had grown so accustomed to ships of all kinds, from the white-sailed fishing-smack to the long, black, churning bulk of the ocean liner, that they no longer heeded them any more than enough to give them a wide berth. One and all, these strange apparitions appeared quite indifferent to seals, so very soon the seals became almost indifferent to them. Off the island of Campobello, however, something mysterious occurred which put an end to this indifference, although none of the band could comprehend it.

A beautiful, swift, white craft, with yellow gleams flashing here and there from her deck as the sun caught her polished brasswork, was cleaving the light waves northward. The seals, their round, dark heads bobbing above the water at a distance of perhaps three hundred yards from her port-quarter, gazed at the spectacle with childlike interest. They saw a group of men eying them from the deck of the swift monster. All at once from this group spurted two thin jets of flame. The Pup heard some tiny vicious thing go close over his head with a cruel whine, and zip sharply through a wave-crest 213 just beyond. On the instant, even before the sharp clatter of the two reports came to their ears, all the seals dived, and swam desperately to get as far away as possible from the terrifying bright monster. When they came to the surface again, they were far out of range. But the restless old male, their leader, was not among them. The white yacht was steaming away into the distance, with its so-called sportsmen congratulating themselves that they had almost certainly killed something. The little band of seals waited about the spot for an hour or two, expecting the return of their chief; and then, puzzled and apprehensive, swam away toward the green-crested shore-line of Maine.