His remembrance, no doubt, returned to the eagles on board, and which, by the bye, had been committed to his care. But the ducks kept a pretty good elevation, being more timid, or wary than the gulls; and my rifle now came into play. I took a random shot at the entire group just as it was making a masterly evolution; and a drake, evidently the general commanding, having ceased his quacking, and tumbling in tee-totum style to the water, sufficiently proved how correctly I had, for the first time, done my duty. The uproar of furious gulls and routed ducks was never heard in these silent Fiords since the Flood to such a clamorous extent; and I would not venture to say that the echoes were not as surprisingly loud as the cries of the birds themselves. Urged on by the entreaties and gesticulations of the warlike cockswain, the slaughter lasted for an hour; but seeing that we had killed an ample quantity to feed the eagles for some days, and remembering that powder and shot could not be bought among the mountains of Norway, we retreated from the rock, and getting into the boat, began to gather our game. This occupied some little time; and after collecting a decent boatful, we lighted our meerschaums, and floated homewards.
We might have proceeded nearly half way, when P—— suddenly dropped the pipe from his mouth, and seizing his gun, fired it towards the shore, from which we were not twenty feet, without uttering a word.
"Be quick—load!" he said, at last, to both of us, ramming down his own charge as fast as he could. "Here's a seal."
"Where?" I asked,—"where?"
"Why, there," and he fired without any other explanation a second time at the, apparently, bare rock.
"I see him, and here goes," said R——, and taking a deliberate aim, fired also. "Missed him," he murmured.
I just caught a glimpse of the seal's flat tail, as the animal slided from the rocky shore into the water.
"We have him," said P——, with brightened eyes, "if we act properly."
"There he is!" shouted one of the sailors, with a set of lungs that might be needful in a gale, as the seal rose about ten feet from the spot where it first sank.
"Don't make such a confounded row; you'd frighten the devil!" said R——, to the seafaring Stentor.