74 A SEAL AND AN EEL. 
a snap, which you couldn't hear, of course, 
and, without a pause in its headlong. speed, 
the shape shot upwards, and vanished. So 
did the eel. 
A moment later the fiercest-looking, biggest 
seal that you ever clapped eyes upon cleaved 
the jade-green waves, and remained bobbing 
on end like some huge, fat bottle. 
Full eight feet long, he was grizzly, and so 
bloated that his head and tail seemed to have 
been tied with a string round them to keep 
them from being as fat as the rest. Nor was 
there any gentleness in those eyes, or in the 
big, dog-fanged jaws. 
He was a great, gray seal, one of a species 
nowhere numerous, which will vanish for 
ever, so that ‘all the king’s horses and all the 
king’s men’ will not be able to bring it back 
again, unless some effort be made to save it. 
Have you ever tried to handle even a small 
conger eel? If not—don’t! This one was 
big, and the seal had no hands, only flippers 
and a mouth. None the less, he managed 
that conger with consummate ease, just as if 
it wasn’t barking and snapping, and lashing 
and winding, and writhing and squirming, 
with almost the power of a boa-constrictor. 
Ponderous and bloated as he was, the seal 
looked almost beautiful there in that setting— 
