Page:Colymbia (1873).djvu/126

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COLYMBIA.

us. Jack blew a shrill whistle on his fingers, whereupon a man, who was evidently watching for the signal, slipped the chain off the necks of two of the watch seals which lay beside him. These animals immediately flopped into the water and disappeared. In a few minutes their round bullet heads popped up beside us, and their large, intelligent-looking but flattish eye seemed to say, "Here we are; what do you wish us to do?" Jack patted them on the crown, and pointing down below, descended head-foremost. The seals and I quickly followed, and we were soon beside the rest of the company, who were waiting for our arrival. The harpoon-cords, which still hung from the shark's body, were fastened to the collars the seals wore, and they immediately set off with their heavy burden at a pretty good pace.

As the big body moved off, the little pilot-fish frisked around it as if in the exuberance of delight at the visible result of the day's hunt. The huntsmen went along with the seals to assist in getting the shark into the inhabited sea.

The sportsmen followed at their leisure discussing the events of the chase, and disputing with one another as to the relative size, strength and ferocity of this compared with other sharks they had hunted. One of the party produced a bottle filled with compressed exhilarating gas, which was passed from hand to hand, and increased our gaiety.

In this way we gained the enclosed sea, where we found a large number of ladies and gentlemen assembled to meet and congratulate us on our success. None of our party had been injured by the shark, if I except a smart smack on the back one of them had received from a whisk of his tail. I was told that