Beasts Royal: Twelve Tales of Adventure. Patrick O’Brian

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СКАЧАТЬ islands were too small to support any men or animals other than a few seals, sea-elephants, manatees, and dugongs, who lived on the fish which abounded there.

      But birds lived there in thousands; on the main island legions of penguins waddled about, and myriads of gulls dwelt on the smaller rocky islands.

      Besides the gulls, there were also frigate birds, boobies, solans, albatrosses, swallow terns, albacores, and many others, including one old fishing eagle, blown there from the north in a great wind.

      Skogula found that there was excellent food to be had in the lagoon, where the squids grew to a much larger size than those which he had found in the old feeding ground.

      But he was disappointed to find that the octopi were no better than those which he had eaten before, though he was glad to find that there were more of them.

      A long time passed while the school lived in the lagoon, feeding well and growing fat and contented.

      Skogula was dozing at the surface, digesting an unusually large dinner of squids, one day, when a small school of sperm whales approached the lagoon. They were led by a remarkably large young bull, who made for the main entrance of the lagoon.

      Skogula’s father saw him and swam out to meet him, circling round in a large sweep; these tactics puzzled the newcomer, who soon laid himself open to a side attack. As he did not turn quickly enough, the older bull charged at once, tearing a piece of blubber from the other’s side.

      Then Skogula’s father dived and attacked the newcomer from the other side. Soon the water around the younger bull grew pink, and sharks approached from all sides. After a little time, however, the newcomer managed to get face to face with his antagonist, and in a moment their great jaws were interlocked. After a while they broke away, and the newcomer managed to get a hold on his enemy’s left fin, crushing and crippling it.

      Skogula’s father creamed the water all round with the lashing of his tail, and then he charged forward again, and the fight continued furiously. After a lot of ineffectual butting, the whales got their jaws interlocked again, and they raged up and down until they passed beyond Skogula’s sight; but he could trace their path by the movements of the dense cloud of hoarsely screaming gulls, who followed them, but soon he lost sight of even the gulls, though he could hear the whales beating the water into foam a great way off.

      Some time later the younger bull returned alone to the lagoon, though he was badly wounded in a score of places. Skogula never saw his father again. He might have been killed, but that was not likely. He had probably been badly beaten and, if so, he would go away from the school for ever up to the northern seas.

      Of course, the victorious survivor took over the command of both schools, which soon merged into one large one, and under his leadership they followed just where his fancy prompted him.

      The whales had gone great distances before under their old leader, but now they went even farther afield, never resting in the same place for more than a week. Skogula had fed in the Indian Ocean in one month and off Zanzibar in the next.

      But before a great time had passed, Skogula began to notice that the new leader was not nearly so pleasant as his father had been; he was bad tempered and loved to bully the younger whales, who all came to avoid him as much as they could.

      Once, as Skogula was pursuing an octopus near St. Helena, the leader snapped it up in front of his nose. This was an insult, but Skogula thought that it would be unwise to attack the aggressor, as he would not have a chance and would only be hurt and driven from the school, so he turned aside to look for another meal.

      This occurred again on the next day and the next, until at last Skogula grew quite used to it. A long time passed, during which time the whales had gone a great distance. But as they did not travel in any kind of formation as they did under Skogula’s father, some of the smaller cows and calves were eaten by sharks.

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