Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/81

 tide, for fathoms all about the titanic contest, boiled to the surface, brown and frothy and bloodstreaked.

Then on a sudden, his backbone wrenched apart, the swordfish ceased to struggle and lay limp.

For a few seconds more Ah-wook continued to shake him as a terrier shakes a rat, jerking the body about savagely as if to glut his vengea ice to the full. Then, his labouring lungs warning him that it was time to take breath, he withdrew his tusks and shot up to the surface. Here he lay floating for a minute or two, deeply drinking in the vital air; and presently the water all about him was dotted with the staring heads of his followers. Next, floating belly upward, appeared the long, mangled body of the swordfish, the calf still firmly impaled upon its sword. Ah-wook grunted scornfully at the sight, raised himself high in the water to glare about him as if in challenge to other adversaries, and at length led the way in triumph back to the floe, confirmed in his kingship both by sea and by land.