and looking down, he saw a bone; and near it, other bones, skulls, and shrunken hides. He picked up a jawbone, with grinder teeth, cuspless and oblique, set along it. Many seals had died in the cavern.
Again the wailing, not far away. The boulders sloped upwards, and pressed one against another by his feet, made a noise of pob-pobble that rang solidly and echoed down the cave and up again. Before him something white was stirring. Picking it up, he stroked the soft, warm hair of a baby seal, putting his finger in its mouth to stop the wailing. While he was nursing it, he heard the hollow echo of a plunging splash, a grumbling noise like uch, uch! and a slapping as of the palms of great hands on flat rocks. Turning his torch down into the gloom, he saw two dull red orbs, and heard the angry bleat of a mother seal.
He carried the white calf to the inner wall of the cave and laid it down; then hurried to the other wall, where ledges formed natural steps. On the top ledge an otter was crouching. By the shape of the head he knew it was a bitch-otter; an old otter, with grey and grizzled hairs on its muzzle. He climbed as high as he dared, and saw that it had made a couch of dry seaweed and grasses and thrift. He peered into the couch. The otter moved to and fro on the narrow ledge, tissing. He could see no cubs; nor did she appear to be in whelp.
Uch, uch! gasped the seal, exhausted and aching alter her anguished journey over the boulders of the cavern. She had hurried by pressing the palms of her flippers on the ground
101
