HABITS AND THE CHASE. 131 



water, the hunter is flat and motionless ; as he begins to sink, 

 alert and ready for a spring. The animal's head is hardly be- 

 low the water-line before every man is in a rapid run; and 

 again, as if by instinct, before the beast returns, all are motion- 

 less behind i)rotecting knolls of ice. They seem to know before- 

 hand not only the time he will be absent, but the very spot at 

 which he will reappear. In this way, hiding and advancing by 

 turns, Myouk, with Morton at his heels, has reached a plate 

 of thin ice, hardly strong enough to bear them, at the very brink 

 of the water-i)Ool the Walrus are curvetting in. 



" Myouk, till now phlegmatic, seems to waken with excite- 

 ment. His coil of Walrus-hide, a well-trimmed line of many 

 fathoms' length, is lying at his side. He fixes one end of it in 

 an iron barb, and fastens this loosely by a socket upon a shaft 

 of Unicorn's [ISTarwhal's] horn : the other end is already looped, 

 or, as sailors would 'say, ' doubled in a bight'. It is the work of 

 a moment. He has grasped the harpoon : the water is in mo- 

 tion. Puffing with pent-up respiration, the Walrus is within a 

 couple of fathoms, close before him. Myouk rises slowly ; his 

 right arm thrown back, the left flat at his side. The Walrus 

 looks about him, shaking the water from his crest : Myouk throws 

 up his left arm ; and the animal, rising breast-high, fixes one 

 look before he x)lunges. It has cost him all that curiosity can 

 cost: the harpoon is buried under his left flipper. 



" Though the Awuk finnuit name of the Walrus] is down in 

 a moment, Myouk is running at desperate speed from the scene 

 of his victory, paying off" his coil freely, but clutching the end 

 by its loop. He seizes as he runs a small stick of bone, rudely 

 pointed with iron, and by a sudden movement drives it into the 

 ice : to this he secures his line, pressing it close down to the 

 ice surface with his feet. 



" Now comes the struggle. The hole is dashed in mad com- 

 motion with the struggles of the wounded beast ; the line is 

 drawn tight at one moment, the next relaxed : the hunter has 

 not left his station. There is a crash of the ice ; and rearing up 

 through it are two Walruses, not many yards from where he 

 stands. One of them, the male, is excited and seemingly terri- 

 fied : the other, the female, collected and vengeful. Down they 

 go again, after one grim survey of the field ; and on the instant 

 Myouk has changed his position, carrying his coil with him and 

 fixing it anew. 



" He has hardly fixed it before the pair have again risen, 



