We put off in the boat, and just halfway from the cutter Claude gave
a start, and the women a scream, as the enormous brute quietly raised
his head and shoulders out of the water ten yards off, with a fish
kicking in his mouth, and the water running off his nose, to take a
deliberate stare at us, after the fashion of seals, whose ruling
passion is curiosity. The sound of a musical instrument, the sight
of a man bathing--anything, in short, which their small wits cannot
explain at first sight, is enough to make them forget all their
cunning, and thrust their heads suicidally into any danger; and even
so it fared with the 'black man,' as the girls, in their first
terror, declared him to be. Some fellow's gun went off--of itself I
should like to believe--but the whole charge disappeared into his
sleek round visage, knocking the mackerel from between his teeth; and
he turned over, a seven-foot lump of lifeless blubber.
'Wretch!' cried Claude, as we dragged the seal into the boat, where
he lay with his head and arms hanging helplessly over the bows, like
a sea-sick alderman on board a Margate steamer.
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