nd took to his
natural weapon, the knife.

I can see him yet rolling over and over embracing a big cow, his head
jammed in an ecstasy of ferocity between the animal's front flippers,
his legs clasped to hold her body, only his right arm rising and
falling as he plunged his knife again and again. She struggled,
turning him over and under, wept great tears, and fairly whined with
terror and pain. Finally she was still, and Perdosa staggered to his
feet, only to stare about him drunkenly for a moment before throwing
himself with a screech on another victim.

The Nigger alone did not jump into the turmoil. He stood just down
the cave, his club ready. Occasionally a disorganised rush to escape
would be made. The Nigger's lips snarled, and with a truly mad enjoyment
he beat the poor animals back.

I pressed against the wall horrified, fascinated, unable either to
interfere or to leave. A close, sticky smell took possession of the
air. After a little a tiny stream, growing each moment, began to flow
past my feet. It sought its channel daintily, as streamlets do,
feeling among the stones in eddies, quiet pools, miniature falls, and
rapids. For the moment I did not realise what it could be. Then the
light caught it down where the Nigger waited, and I saw it was red.

At first the racket of the seals was overpowering. Now, gradually,
it was losing volume. I began to hear the blasphemies, ferocious cries,
screams of anger hurled against the cave walls by the men. The thick,
sticky smell grew stronger; the light seemed to grow dimmer, as though
it could not burn in that fetid air. A seal came and looked up at me,
big tears rolling from her eyes; then she flippered aimlessly away,
out of her poor wits with terror. The sight finished me. I staggered
down the length of the black tunnel to the boat.

After a long interval a little three months' pup waddled down to the
water's edge, caught sight of me, and with a squeal of fright dived
far. Poor little devil! I would not have hurt him for worlds. As far
as I know this was the only survivor of all that herd.

The men soon appeared, one by one, tired, sleepy-eyed, glutted,
walking in a cat-like trance of satiety. They were blood and tatters
from head to foot, and from drying red masks peered their bloodshot
eyes. Not a word said they, but tumbled into the boat, pushed off,
and in a moment we were floating in the full sunshine again. We rowed
home in an abstraction. For the moment B