Leo, Anders, and timid little Oblooria, however, were not lost! Their case was bad enough, but it had not quite come to that.

 

On parting from Benjy, as described in the last chapter, these three went after a walrus, which coquetted with them instead of attacking, and drew them a considerable distance away from the island. This would have been a matter of trifling import if the weather had remained calm, but, as we have seen, a sudden and violent gale arose.

 

When the coming squall was first observed the boat was far to leeward of Paradise Isle, and as that island happened to be one of the most northerly of the group over which Amalatok ruled, they were thus far to leeward of any land with the exception of a solitary sugar-loaf rock near the horizon. Still Leo and his companions were not impressed with any sense of danger. They had been so long accustomed to calms, and to moving about in the india-rubber boats by means of paddles with perfect ease and security, that they had half forgotten the force of wind. Besides, the walrus was still playing with them provokingly—keeping just out of rifle-shot as if he had studied fire-arms and knew their range exactly.

 

“The rascal!” exclaimed Leo at last, losing patience, “he will never let us come an inch nearer.”

 

“Try ’im once more,” said Anders, who was a keen sportsman, “push him, paddle strong. Ho! Oblooria, paddle hard and queek.”

 

Although the interpreter, being in a facetious mood, addressed Oblooria in English, she quite understood his significant gestures, and bent to her work with a degree of energy and power quite surprising in one apparently so fragile. Leo also used his oars, (for they had both oars and paddles), with such good-will that the boat skimmed over the Arctic sea like a northern diver, and the distance between them and the walrus was perceptibly lessened.

 

“I don’t like the looks o’ the southern sky,” said Leo, regarding the horizon with knitted brows.

 

“Hims black ’nough—any’ow,” said Anders.

 

“Hold. I’ll have a farewell shot at the brute, and give up the chase,” said Leo, laying down the oars and grasping his rifle.

 

The ball seemed to take effect, for the walrus dived immediately with a violent splutter, and was seen no more.

 

By this time the squall was hissing towards them so fast that the hunters, giving up all thought of the walrus, turned at once and made for the land, but land by that time lay far off on the southern horizon with a dark foam-flecked sea between it and them.

 

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