ce their flippers on the edge of the rock and with a quick flirt of
their flukes, project themselves to the shelf in the most graceful
manner. Later in the morning, Paul noticed one enormous brute on a ledge
opposite him and about fifty feet below. It appeared to be heavy and
sleepy. Around it were clustered several smaller ones, seeming to be its
immediate retainers or most intimate friends. The big fellow was
uneasy. Several times he lifted his head, looked about with his blood
shot eyes and then dropped back again as though to finish a nap. Paul
expected an attack and braced himself for it. The monster finally edged
slowly over and plunged into the water. He did not appear again until
he had passed Boyton's ledge, then he came to the surface, gave a loud
snort, either of defiance, fear or astonishment, sank again and went out
to join his comrades.

Paul dare not venture out of the cave in the daylight. He sat there in
his dress and dozens of baby seals crawled up on the ledge beside him,
playing all over and around him, some of them sucking the fingers of his
gloves with mouths like red coral. Sometimes the anxious mothers swam
in and bellowed at their young; but as they grew accustomed to the
stranger and saw no injury came to the little fellows, they became
quiet.

At sundown, the seals began pouring in again and climbed to their
respective couches, uttering the most weird cries, snarling and
bellowing as though quarreling about their beds. Paul had had nothing
to eat or drink all day; but owing to the dampness of the cavern, he
felt no thirst. Twilights are short in that latitude and nightfall
followed fast in the wake of sundown; so he quietly unlimbered himself,
slipped off the rock so as not to disturb the seals and dipping his
paddle gently in the phosphorescent water, slid out of the gloomy jaws
of the cave into the starlit night. He made a wide sweep against the
tide around Frouton and by steady, cautious pulling all night,
was close under the fortifications of Callao by morning.

Not wishing to land until daylight for fear of being shot by some of the
sentinels, he laid off and then came very near getting what he had
waited to escape, for in the grey light of the morning, he discovered a
sentinel with a gun aimed at him. He shouted "Peru, Peru," several
times before the guard would understand and lower the rifle.

Landing safely at last, he immedia