Delights of Motherhood 53 



enough to admit her. She dashed through and wound 

 her way among the mazy interstices of the scattered 

 reefs inside in the smooth placid lagoon until she 

 reached a sort of natural little dock, where, with just 

 sufficient water to float them, she and her baby might lie 

 in perfect peace and security beyond the reach of those 

 blood-thirsty creatures who had never left her since her 

 little one came. Sweet, passing sweet it was to lie and 

 bask in the full sun-glare, to feel the joyous gambolling 

 of the youngling all around her, varied by an occa- 

 sional tugging at her bounteous breast, to exhale lazy 

 spoutings and watch the pretty tuft of vapour from 

 the spiracle of her offspring, to lie, in short, so perfectly 

 at peace as to forget that ever a danger existed. 



One drawback there was which she hardly felt — the 

 lack of food. To feed it was necessary for her to go 

 into deeper waters and that she dared not do yet. 

 But this want, in spite of her enormous bulk, troubled 

 her scarcely at all, she was quite content to starve 

 awhile for the sake of her young one, who she knew 

 would gain so rapidly in vigour every day spent in that 

 calm retreat as to be able, before her supply of milk ran 

 short through lack of nourishment, to accompany her 

 far enough to find food in safety, to cruise among the 

 islands and between the reefs where in deep water she 

 could obtain the necessaries of life. All that, however, 

 was matter that did not immediately concern her. 

 For the time she was supremely happy in the conscious- 

 ness of safety for her young one, in the knowledge that 

 she was where none of her enemies could ever come. 



Poor thing, the limitations of her instinctive appre- 

 hension of danger did not, could not warn her against 

 man, the universal destroyer, man, whose skilful hand, 

 active brain, and unscrupulous ferocity when directed 

 against the lower animals, makes him their most terrible 



