76 SECURE A " JUNGER." 



e 



ever we can pull the oars ; up come the sea- 

 horses again, pretty close this time, and hefore 

 they can draw breath the boat rushes into the 

 midst of them : lohish ! goes the harpoon : 

 j)irr I goes the line over the gunwale : and a 

 luckless junger on whom Christian has kept 

 his eye, is " fast ! " : his bereaved mother 

 charges the boat instantly with flashing eyes 

 and snorting with rage ; she quickly receives a 

 harpoon in the back and a bullet in the brains, 

 and she hangs lifeless on the line : now the 

 junger begins to utter his plaintive grunting 

 bark, and fifty furious walruses are close 

 round the boat in a few seconds, rearing up 

 breast high in the water and snorting and 

 blowing as if they would tear us all to pieces ! 

 Two of these auxiliaries are speedily harpooned 

 in their turn, and the rest hang back a little, 

 when as bad luck would have it, the junger 

 gave up the ghost owing to the severity of his 

 harpooning, and the others, no longer attracted 

 by his cries, retire to a more prudent distance. 

 But for the " untoward " and premature decease 

 of the junger, the men tell me we should 

 have had more walruses on our hands than 

 we could manage. We now devote our atten- 

 tion to " polishing off " the two live walruses 



