hat I've come all the way to
the North Pole for _this_! Why I've believed in the great sea-serpent
since ever I could think, I've seen pictures of it twisting its coils
round three-masted ships, and goin' over the ocean with a mane like a
lion, and its head fifty feet out o' the water! Oh! it's too bad, I'd
have given my ears to have seen the great sea-serpent."

"There wouldn't have been much of you left, Benjy, if you had given
_them_."

"Well, well," continued the boy, not noticing his father's remark, "it's
some comfort to know that I've all _but_ seen the great sea-serpent."

It is some comfort to us, reader, to be able to record the fact that
Benjy Vane was not doomed to total disappointment on that memorable day,
for, on the same evening, the voyagers had an encounter with walruses
which more than made up for the previous misfortune.

It happened thus:--

The three boats were proceeding abreast, slowly but steadily over the
still calm sea, when their attention was attracted by a sudden and
tremendous splash or upheaval of water, just off what the Captain styled
his "port bow." At the same moment the head of a walrus appeared on the
surface like a gigantic black bladder. It seemed to be as large as the
head of a small elephant, and its ivory tusks were not less than two
feet long. There was a square bluntness about the creature's head, and
a savage look about its little bloodshot eyes, which gave to it a very
hideous aspect. Its bristling moustache, each hair of which was six
inches long, and as thick as a crow quill, dripped with brine, and it
raised itself high out of the water, turning its head from side to side
with a rapidity and litheness of action that one would not have expected
in an animal so unwieldy. Evidently it was looking eagerly for
something.

Catching sight of the three boats, it seemed to have found what it
looked for, and made straight at them. Leo quietly got ready his
Winchester repeater, a rifle which, as the reader probably knows, can
discharge a dozen or more shots in rapid succession; the cartridges
being contained in a case resembling a thick ram-rod under the barrel,
from which they are thrust almost instantaneously into their places.

But before the creature gained the boats, a second great upheaval of
water took place, and another walrus appeared. This was the real enemy
of whom he had been in quest. Both were bulls of the largest and most
ferocious description. No