Page:The Great Secret.djvu/173

Rh kept himself in practice for larger victims by putting them to death in his own cold-blooded and investigating fashion.

He made the acquaintance of sea-elephants, sea-leopards, and. other members of the seal family, stalking them carefully and spearing them with a harpoon which he had found in the carpenter's box, or braining them with the carpenter's adze when he could get close enough. He found these animals, at times far up the fjords as well as on the seashore. Altogether he had opportunities of pursuing his choice occupation of murder even here.

He was living, as they all were, in hopes of being rescued as the season advanced by some sealer or whaler, and they had their story made up. They were to represent themselves as passengers of a sailing vessel from America to Australia, driven out of their course and wrecked here. It would not be difficult to impose on these daring but simple-minded sailors, and get a passage back to Europe. Any point of landing would suit them, for they had secret agents almost everywhere that commerce and money existed.

He took long walks, during the daylight, inland, and explored the country on the side of the island where they had been cast, satisfying himself that this was where ships would most likely put in, climbing the mountains as high as he dared go amongst the snow, which on the heights never melted, although the dampness of the atmosphere rendered it rotten and dangerous. As he explored he came upon many fossilised remains of trees, which proved how abundant the forest must have been at one time on these hills and valleys, although now so barren of such life. It was