Page:The Great Secret.djvu/187

Rh ladies made themselves agreeable to the sealers, and attended to their comfort, so that they soon became friends, and were treated with every mark of confidence and respect.

For three months they hunted and fished with good success, filling their barrels with oil and their holds with skins; and having fairly good weather during that time, for the sun came out and warmed the land, making it bloom with mosses, ferns and grass, and appear almost a pleasant place to live in.

A great number of seals fell before these skilled trappers, so that when they left the shores there was much mourning amongst the seal families at this wholesale slaughter, and doubtless many discussions with the survivors whether an emigration farther south was not advisable; already they were becoming more wary and scarcer than they had been in former years.

Still the Countess de Bergamont and Anatole remained absent, and the doctor was pleased that he had said nothing about them. They would not come now.

At last the ship was loaded up and the hatches securely battened down, then the crew and their dangerous guests went on board, and, hoisting their anchor, they sailed away once again to torment and destroy their unsuspecting fellow-beings.