I
CHINA MAIL
FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, OCTOBER 14, 1938
TWILIGHT OF THE
BEARS
T is no use attempting to des- cribe that noise. Gunfire would be a mild comparison.. But then the sound 'was nature's, you see, and when, nature speaks none can turn a deaf ear,,
The yellow smudge was. half covered in white snow, and only noticeable at all by reason of one little black spot in a land where black is distinctly unpopular. Lying on a lavender floating ice- block, among thousands of others ice-blocks afloat on a still sea of burnished bronze, the
smudge-
moved and turned itself into an enormous, loose-limbed bear startling proportions.
The bear
waa not fleeing from the wave. He was not such a fool, in- deed, as tó attempt that. He made for the biggest ice floe he
-
could see, and he swam with a power and skill
that stumped
of
him as near-
ly, but not
his
He shook the snow from nine feet of length and sprang up like a gigantic dog, crushing his late hard bed with his thousand- pound weight. He stared about him at the cataclysm of sound, which filled and shook all sea and sky and land, but was. chiefly where the shore ice-pack lay in towards land. Then he slid, and the sea received him with a little burst of foam.
He was fleeing to a larger floe, that bear, as seldom the Polar bear flees, for he had seen what made him afraid-afraid as Polar bears seldom are.
What he beheld was a moun- tain-no less-tumbling into the But the mountain was of
sea.
SHORT
STORY
TYPE: Animal courage Author:
Gilderoy Grant
içe, so that it shimmered and And thous- sparkled in the sun. ands of tons of snow were falling with the ice, all going down in- to the sea together.
But it was at the sea that the bear looked chiefly. When he had gone to sleep, fifteen minutes before, that sea had been a polish- ed bronze shield: Landwards, it was now a wave," one waye, and that wave was as high as a cliff. It was hurrying outwards to sea, roaring as it came, and the sight of the floating blocks of ice poised Inomentarily on the top of it be- fore they went toppling and up- ending over the further side was enough
stoutest to freeze the heart.
quite, a true. water-beast.
But in spite of the power of a dozen men that lay in his immense
forearms, in
spite of seacraft almost equal- ling the otter in streamcraft, it became a race for life,
And, oddly enough, the seals to whom he figured as death incar- nate at ordinary times swept in- to solently and curiously close him.
and The porpoises, too, the dove-like fulmar petrels seem- ed to be gathered about watching him, all much nearer than usual, as if, in anticipation, they had come to see their arch-enemy die.. But he cheated them, and did · not die. He gained the floe with a hundred yards to spare, flung himself at its arched and beau- teous deep blue overhang, circum- vented this, and raced for the centre at full speed and 'out a falter.
"with-
as
The wave caught the floe the mill-ruce catches the floating tree-trunk, and nearly lifted it up on its end; but the bear spurred himself on desperately to reach the centre of things solid. Partly this and because his mate was there; partly because to fall into the water meant getting ground into potted meat between the grinding floes. But the bear never guessed what, beside his mate, he would find there.
*
*
the he so his
a
He galloped blindly into centre of the trouble before knew it, and then he stopped suddenly that he sat upon furry hindquarters and slid.
The apparition, which was
was some twelve feet. walrus, long-probably did not weigh· much less than 2,500lbs.-had no ears, and only tiny eyes; but had tusks, two of them hanging down- wards, and each about a.foot and a half long.
Moreover, it was not alone. The whole ice, as far as could be seen covered in the snow mist, was with rolling, undulating, slug- like forms of immense and terri-. fying proportions all walruses. They had come there to escape the But glacier.
80
The noise that the bear heard was the falling if the ice in one earth-shattering shute; millions of tons, plus snow. That was all. Just one glacier broken off and falling into the sea. the result was enough, and
that a whaler, special- stupendous ly built and designed to battle. with ice, and anchored three miles off shore, capsized and was seon
no more.
But that was not all. There was a yellow blotch dancing gro- tesquely on its hind legs, an ab- surdly uncouth and clumsy caper- ing dance, right in among the crowding, heaving bodies that
"One saw his head come streaming up out of the sea. savagely at mighty tusks hacking downwards at his skull."
.more.
were closing in more and It was the great bear's mate! :
How she had stalked and wounded a young walrug strayed from the herd, how the tidal wave had driven the herd to the floe's centre for safety, and how they had spotted her and become aware of the foul murder-to-be, and gone mad with rage at the scent of blood, the big bear did not know, though he may have guessed. What he did know was that death in several forms hovered over that she-bear, where she danced now, and that by that very dance -she was looking for him-she showed that she knew it.
The big bear's mate was going inland, there to dig a hole in the snow and, comfortably ensconced and sealed in hibernate for the winter.
When she came out in the spring she would probably have two jolly little white baby bears to accompany her. And her mate was going with her as far as her hibernation, to see her comfortably sealed in, as it were, beneath the snow. -Then, he · would return and hunt through the long Arctic night, alone and bad-tempered. Goodness knows how many times they had made that journey together!
VRAS
biting
To upset this programme came the fate in the shape of, first, split glacier; second, the tidal wave; third, the walruses.
The old bear looked and then roared. Also, which was more to the point, he charged.
•
The gigantic wave set up by the falling portion of the glacier had passed them now and was thundering seaward, leaving a seething white wake in an. agony of tumbling waters.
For this reason the big bear's' footing was none too certain. One saw him rear up and strike, the terrible roundarm, clawing stroke of all the bears, and then the ice cracked and opened under him.
One saw his head come stream- ing up out of the sea now biting savagely at
green half
...
a dozen mighty pairs of tusks hacking downwards at his flat. skull. One saw him scramble out, red now in streaks, and rear up,
striking with both huge mam- forepaws-bash! bash! at moth, slug-like walruses rolling one over the other, to get at him,
It was a great fight, but the bear won through to his mate, and then the two yellow bodies could be seen fighting their way (Continued on Page 7)
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