far beyond the roaring track of the homeward-bound merchantman, lie in the south pacific the grim clusters of salt-whitened isles marked on the chart as the south shetlands. many years have come and gone since their hungry shores were busy with the labours of the sealers, that, disdainful of the terrors of snow-laden gale and spindrift-burdened air, toiled amid the antarctic weather to fill their holds with the garments of the sea-folk. then, after perils incredible, the adventurers would return to port, and waste in a week of debauch the fruit of their toil, utterly forgetful of crashing floe or hissing sea, frozen limbs or wrenching hunger pains. when all was spent they would return, resolutely forgetting their folly and wreaking upon the innocent seal all the rage of regret that would rise within them. they spared none—bull, cow, and calf alike were slain, as if in pure lust of slaughter, until the helplessness of utter fatigue compelled them to desist and snatch an interval of death-like sleep, oblivious of all the grinding bitterness of their surroundings. life was held cheap among them, a consequence, not to be wondered at, of its hardness and the want of all those things that make life desirable. and yet the stern existence had its own strong fascination for those who had become inured to it. few[314] of them ever gave it up voluntarily, ending their stormy life-struggle in some sudden ghastly fashion and being almost immediately forgotten. occasionally some sorely-maimed man would survive the horrors of his disablement, lying in the fetid forecastle in sullen endurance until the vessel reached a port whence he could be transferred to civilisation. but these unhappy men fretted grievously for the vast openness of the antarctic, the gnashing of the ice-fangs upon the black rocks, the unsatisfied roar of the western gale, and the ceaseless combat with the relentless sea.
many years came and went while the southern sealer plied his trade, until at last none of the reckless skippers could longer disguise from themselves the fact that their harvest fields were rapidly becoming completely barren. few and far between were the islets frequented by the seals, the majority of the old grounds being quite abandoned. one by one the dejected fishermen gave up the attempt, until in due time those gaunt fastnesses resumed their primitive loneliness. the long, long tempest roared questioningly over the deserted islands, as if calling for its vanished children, and refusing to be comforted because they were not. years passed in solitude, but for the busy sea-fowl, who, because they had no commercial value, were left unmolested to eat their fill of the sea’s rich harvest, and rear among the bleak rock-crannies their fluffy broods. at last, out of the midst of a blinding smother of snow, there appeared one day off the most southerly outlier of the south shetlands a little[315] group of round velvety heads staring with wide, humid eyes at the surf-lashed fortresses of the shore. long and warily they reconnoitred, for although many generations had passed since their kind had been driven from those seas, the memory of those pitiless days had been so steadily transmitted through the race that it had become a part of themselves, an instinct infallible as any other they possessed. no enemy appearing, they gradually drew nearer and nearer, until their leader, a fine bull seal of four seasons, took his courage in both flippers and mounted the most promising slope, emerging from the foaming breakers majestically, and immediately becoming a hirpling heap of clumsiness that apparently bore no likeness to the graceful, agile creature of a few moments before. obediently his flock followed him until they reached a little patch of hard smooth sand sheltered by a semi-circle of great wave-worn boulders, and admirably suited to their purpose. here, with sleepless vigilance of sentinels, they rested, rather brokenly at first, as every incursion of the indignant sea-fowl startled them, but presently subsiding into ungainly attitudes of slumber.
whence they had come was as great a mystery as all the deep-water ways of the sea-people must ever be to man, or how many halting-places they must have visited and rejected at the bidding of their unerring instinct warning them that the arch-destroyers’ visits were to be feared. however, they soon made themselves at home, fattening marvellously upon the innumerable multitudes of fish that[316] swarmed around the bases of those barren islands, and between whiles basking in the transient sun-gleams that occasionally touched the desolate land with streaks of palest gold. and as time went on, being unmolested in their domestic arrangements, the coming generation tumbled about the rugged shore in those pretty gambols that all young things love, learning steadily withal to take their appointed places in the adult ranks as soon as they had proved their capability so to do. thus uneventfully and happily passed the seasons until the little party of colonists had grown to be a goodly herd, with leaders of mighty prowess, qualified to hold their own against any of their kind, and inured to combat by their constantly recurring battles with each other, their love affairs, in which they fought with a fury astonishing to witness.
but one bright spring morning, when after a full meal the females were all dozing peacefully among the boulders, and the pups were gleefully waddling and tumbling among them, there came a message from the sea to the fighting males, who instantly suspended their family battles to attend to the urgent call. how the news came they alone knew, its exact significance was hidden even from them, but a sense of imminent danger was upon them all. the females called up their young and retreated farther inland among the labyrinth of rocky peaks that made the place almost impossible for human travel. the males, about forty of them, ranged uneasily along the shore, their wide nostrils dilated and their whiskers bristling with apprehension.[317] ever and anon they would pause in their watchful patrol and couch silently as if carved in marble, staring seaward with unwinking eyes at the turbulent expanse of broken sea. presently, within a cable’s length of the shore, up rose an awful head—the enemy had arrived. another and another appeared until a whole herd of several scores of sea-elephants were massed along the land edge and beginning to climb ponderously over the jagged pinnacles shoreward. not only did they outnumber the seals by about four to one, but each of them was equal in bulk to half-a-dozen of the largest of the defenders. huge as the great land mammal from whom they take their trivial name, ferocious in their aspect, as they inflated their short trunks and bared their big gleaming teeth, they hardly deigned to notice the gallant band of warriors who faced them. straight upward they came as if the outlying rocks had suddenly been endowed with life and were shapelessly invading the dry land. but never an inch did the little company of defenders give back. with every head turned to the foe and every sinew tense with expectation they waited, waited until at last the two forces met. such was the shock of their impact that one would have thought the solid earth trembled beneath them, and for a while in that writhing, groaning, roaring mass nothing could be clearly distinguished. presently, however, it could be seen that the lighter, warier seals were fighting upon a definite plan, and that they carefully avoided the danger of being overwhelmed under the unwieldy masses of their[318] enemies. while the huge elephants hampered each other sorely, and often set their terrible jaws into a comrade’s neck, shearing through blubber and sinew and bone, the nimbler seals hung on the outskirts of the heavy leviathans and wasted no bite. but the odds were tremendous. one after another of the desperately fighting seals fell crushed beneath a mammoth many times his size; again and again a fiercely struggling defender, jammed between two gigantic assailants, found his head between the jaws of one of them, who would instantly crush it into pulp. still they fought on wearily but unflinchingly until only six remained alive. then, as suddenly as if by some instant agreement, hostilities ceased. the remnant of the invaders crawled heavily seaward, leaving the rugged battle-ground piled mountainously with their dead. the survivors sank exhausted where they had fought such a memorable fight, and slept securely, knowing well that their home was safe, the enemy would return no more. and the rejoicing, ravenous birds came in their countless hosts to feast upon the slain.
