a-lice they
were always scratching. Quite close to the cave mouth three great bulls
were lying and every now and then one of them would turn and twist round
and scratch himself with his flippers, the nearest bull had lost an eye
in some past battle and they were all scarred about the necks, and seen
close like this, in their natural state and as one of their company, the
marvel of them, was beyond speaking.

She took off the oilskin coat and laid it on the sand of the cave, took
the things from the blanket and spread the two blankets out and folded
them. As she moved about she saw that the bulls had turned slightly,
attracted by her movements, but they shewed not the slightest sign of
mind disturbance. Then, having placed the things in order, she came out
and walked down to the water's edge, making a detour now and then to
avoid treading on the flippers or the tail of a monster. On coming
amongst them a few minutes ago she had felt not the slightest fear, but
this walk in cold blood from the cliff to the sea edge made her hold her
breath. She felt as she had felt that first day when she sat down close
to them. Angry, and with a sudden movement, one of these creatures could
have destroyed her as a man destroys a fly; but she held on, and was
rewarded.

Not one of them shewed any wish to destroy her, or anger, or uneasiness.
They had accepted her into their company by not attacking or ejecting
her, she ran counter to none of their desires or needs and evidently her
form called up no recollections of the beast Man in their dim brains.

Then she was a female. Sex is more than a physical difference between
one being and another, one can fancy it as one of the outstanding signs
of the Wild to be read by instinct, as instinct reads the weather or
season signs, or the sea mile posts that lead the seals and sea
elephants thousands of leagues to strike some particular beach as an
arrow strikes the bull's eye of a target.

The female, unless with young, is not dangerous to the male. One may
fancy that amongst the few but burningly important warnings and
directions in the book of Instinct.

Here, at the sea edge and within a few feet of the breaking waves, she
sat down on a projecting rock and tried to measure with her eye the vast
herd. The whole beach from where she sat to where the flat rocks ceased
a mile and a half away on her right was spotted with them and she
noticed that here and there they were always putting out to