Part 7 (1/2)
There were many creatures to be found on Sable Island in those days which would be vainly sought for now. Besides the ponies, a large number of wild cattle and hogs roamed about the interior, and furnished the wreckers with abundant meat; while during the winter the morse, or walrus, and the great Greenland seal paid the beaches regular visits.
The common harbour seal was there all the year round. Of these animals, only the ponies and common seals still remain; the others have been all killed off.
When Ben and Eric drew near the end of the island they dismounted and tethered the ponies, so that they could not run back to the corral.
They then made their way cautiously to the edge of the bank thrown up by the waves. Ben was a little ahead of Eric, and the moment he peeped over the bank he turned and motioned Eric to follow.
”Look, lad!” said he, in a voice full of excitement, as he pointed to the beach in front. ”There they are! Aren't they beauties?”
Eric looked, and his face showed the surprise he had too much sense to put into words. ”Beauties!” he thought to himself. ”Why, they are the most hideous monsters I ever saw in my life.”
And they certainly were hideous, with their huge, dun-coloured, ungainly bodies, their bullet heads, their grizzly beards, their terrible tusks, and their bulging eyes. They looked as ugly as some nightmare vision. Plucky as he was, Eric could not restrain a tremor as he gazed at them. But he had no time to indulge his feelings, for Ben said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper,--
”You take that tusker right in front of you, and I'll take the big fellow to the right, and when I say 'Fire!' let drive. Be sure and aim right at the nose.”
Eric's heart was beating wildly, and he could scarcely breathe for excitement; but his hand was steady as he drew the musket to his shoulder, and took careful aim at the nose of the walrus Ben had a.s.signed to him. Giving a quick glance to see that all was ready, Ben called ”Fire!”
Like the report of one the two muskets cracked together, and the marksmen peered eagerly through the smoke to see the result. Clearly enough their aim had been good; for while the remainder of the little pack of walruses lumbered off into the water snorting with terror, the two that had been picked out as targets did not follow. Ben's fell over on the sand, to all appearance dead; but Eric's plunged madly about, seeming to be too bewildered to take refuge in flight.
Hastily reloading, the hunters rushed upon their prey, and Ben, seizing a good opportunity, put another charge of slugs into the struggling creature's head, just behind the ear, which cut short its sufferings.
”Hurrah!” cried Ben, radiant with pride and satisfaction. ”We've got them both, and no mistake. We'll each have a fine pair of tusks, won't we?”
Eric was no less delighted, and all his nervousness having vanished, executed a sort of war-dance around the prostrate forms of the sea-monsters, which looked all the uglier the closer he got to them.
Drawing a big knife from his belt, Ben approached his walrus to sever the head from the body, Eric standing a little distance off to watch him. They were quite sure the creature was dead; but the instant the sharp steel touched its neck it came to life, for it had been only stunned. With a sudden sweep of its fore-flipper, it hurled Ben over upon his back, sending the knife flying from his hand.
”Eric! quick! for G.o.d's sake!” cried Ben, as he fell.
The infuriated monster was right over him. In another moment those terrible tusks would have been buried in his body, when, with a roar like that of a lion, Prince launched himself full at the walrus's head, and his great fangs closed tightly in the soft part where the head joins the neck. Uttering a roar quite equal to the dog's, the morse turned upon his new a.s.sailant; but just as he did so, Eric's rifle spoke again. Its bullet crashed into the monster's brain, and with a mad flurry, which loosened even Prince's hold, it rolled over upon the sand, this time dead beyond question.
Ben sprang to his feet, and rus.h.i.+ng upon Eric flung his arms around him, and gave him a hug that fairly squeezed the breath out of him.
Then, without a word, he turned to Prince, and repeated the operation.
He then expressed his grat.i.tude in these words,--
”It was a good day for me when I saved your lives. You've done me good ever since; and now you've saved my life, and it's only t.i.t for tat.
All right, my lad; so long as there's a drop of blood in my body, no harm shall come to either of you that Ben Harden can fend off.”
The business of beheading, which had been so startlingly interrupted, was now resumed. From the way Ben handled his knife, he was evidently quite experienced at the work. They wanted only the tusks, but to get them out in perfect condition, it would be necessary to boil the heads until the flesh came off readily; so they had to take them back to the hut for that purpose.
Well satisfied with the result of their hunt, they ate their lunch and took a good rest before returning to the hut, which they reached early in the afternoon. They both felt that they were now bound to each other by ties of peculiar strength. Eric, uncertain and full of difficulty as to the future, somehow felt convinced that Ben would bring it out all right for him. He little imagined how much he would help himself in escaping.
Chasing ponies and hunting walruses were not the only amus.e.m.e.nts Sable Island afforded Eric. As has been already mentioned, the gra.s.sy dells abounded with rabbits and the marshy lake and ponds with wild fowl.
The rabbit-shooting was really capital sport. The bunnies were fine big fellows, as lively and wary as any sportsman could wish, and to secure a good bag of them meant plenty of hard work.
It was the rabbit-hunting that found Prince in his glory. Had he been a greyhound instead of a mastiff he could not have entered more heartily into the chase. To be sure, he proved, upon the whole, rather more of a hindrance than a help; but no suspicion of this fact ever dashed his bright spirit, and not for the world would Eric have hinted it to him. His redeeming quality lay in his retrieving, for he had been carefully trained to fetch and carry, and he quickly learned to hunt out and bring to them the victims of their muskets. The rabbits were not killed in the mere wantonness of sport. There was always an active demand for them at the hut, where Black Joe made them into savoury stews.
About the same time as the walruses came great numbers of the Greenland seal, which a little later brought forth their funny little whelps.
These looked like amphibious puppies as they sprawled about the beach or scuttled off into the water. They took Eric's boyish fancy so strongly that he longed to have one for a pet.