Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/82

60 English they be and Japanee that hang on the Brown Bear's flank,

And some be Scot, but the worst, God wot, and the boldest thieves, be Yank!

It was the sealer Northern Light, to the Smoky Seas she bore.

With a stovepipe stuck from a starboard port and the Russian flag at her fore.

(Baltic, Stralsund, and Northern Light—oh! they were birds of a feather—

Slipping away to the Smoky Seas, three seal-thieves together!)

And at last she came to a sandy cove and the Baltic lay therein,

But her men were up with the herding seal to drive and club and skin.

There were fifteen hundred skins abeach, cool pelt and proper fur,

When the Northern Light drove into the bight and the sea-mist drove with her.

The Baltic called her men and weighed—she could not choose but run—