Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/86

64 But I've six thousand skins below, and Yeddo Port to see,

And there's never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-Three:

So go in peace to the naked seas with empty holds to fill,

And I'll be good to your seal this catch, as many as I shall kill!'

Answered the snap of a closing lock and the jar of a gun-butt slid,

But the tender fog shut fold on fold to hide the wrong they did.

The weeping fog rolled fold on fold the wrath of man to cloak,

And the flame-spurts pale ran down the rail as the sealing-rifles spoke.

The bullets bit on bend and butt, the splinter slivered free

(Little they trust to sparrow-dust that stop the seal in his sea!),

The thick smoke hung and would not shift, leaden it lay and blue,