I Take my Place 347 



screamed, the waves of the sea were all torn and boiling 

 with the m3niads of hungry fish who were seeking 

 their share of the feast, and in the midst of it all 

 lay solemnly still, majestic in death, the body of 

 the feast. Heedless of passing blows, only limging 

 back at the givers, I fought my way into the middle 

 of the tumult and found food, fat ; deUdous, satisfying 

 food. I ate and fought and shrieked with the rest, 

 all the time feeling sensible that I was now a free 

 citizen of the ocean, henceforward able to hold my 

 own among my kind. 



My hunger satisfied, I drifted away from the tre- 

 mendous clamouring crowd, and quietly rocking upon 

 the mighty billows which swept up from the South 

 Pole like walls of water, I slept as peacefully as I 

 had ever done beneath my mother's sheltering wing. 

 I was not in the least disturbed by the incessant 

 coming and going of multitudes of birds, any more 

 than I was by the uproar of the storm or the hissing 

 of the spindrift about me ; I was in my own rightful 

 realm, and fully conscious that it was so. No necessity 

 was laid upon me to rise from my rolling couch, so 

 that the mass of food I had eaten was fully digested, 

 and when I at last became conscious that it was time 

 to seek more food I felt splendidly grown and fit for 

 action. I rose on the wing and returned to where, 

 very greatly reduced but still enormous, the body of 

 the whale floated surroimded by vociferous birds as 

 thickly as ever. The sight invigorated me, and with 

 a long scream of triumph and defiance I again took 

 my place at the great meal. 



Another feast, another rest, and I began my long 

 roaming. I followed one ship for many days, easily 

 keeping up with her at her utmost speed, in fact my 

 motion was so easy though so swift that I was barely 



