Page:White and Hopkins--The mystery.djvu/199

Rh I can see him yet rolling over and over embracing a big cow, his head jammed in an ecstasy of ferocity between the animal's front flippers, his legs clasped to hold her body, only his right arm rising and falling as he plunged his knife again and again. She struggled, turning him over and under, wept great tears, and fairly whined with terror and pain. Finally she was still, and Perdosa staggered to his feet, only to stare about him drunkenly for a moment before throwing himself with a screech on another victim.

The Nigger alone did not jump into the turmoil. He stood just down the cave, his club ready. Occasionally a disorganised rush to escape would be made. The Nigger's lips snarled, and with a truly mad enjoyment he beat the poor animals back.

I pressed against the wall horrified, fascinated, unable either to interfere or to leave. A close, sticky smell took possession of the air. After a little a tiny stream, growing each moment, began to flow past my feet. It sought its channel daintily, as streamlets do, feeling among the stones in eddies, quiet pools, miniature falls, and rapids. For the moment I did not realise what it could be. Then the light caught it down where the Nigger waited, and I saw it was red.

At first the racket of the seals was overpowering. Now, gradually, it was losing volume. I began to hear the blasphemies, ferocious cries, screams of anger hurled against the cave walls by the men. The thick, sticky smell grew stronger; the light seemed to grow dimmer, as though it could not burn in that fetid air. A seal came and looked up at me, big tears rolling from her eyes; then she flippered aimlessly away, out of her