Oh! it was a glorious thing to see the fear-nothing, dare-anything
fashion in which, when he saw how matters stood, Ben Bolt threw down his
stick and bundle, drew his cutlass, and attacked the two bears at once,
single-handed, crying, "Come on," in a voice of thunder. And it was a
satisfactory thing to behold the way in which he cut and slashed at
their heads (the heads having been previously prepared for such
treatment), and the agility he displayed in leaping over their backs and
under their legs, and holding on by their tails, while they vainly
endeavoured to catch him. The applause was frequent and prolonged, and
the two Esquimau prisoners rolled about their burly figures and laughed
till the tears ran down their fat cheeks. But when Ben Bolt suddenly
caught the two bears by their tails, tied them together in a double
knot, and fled behind a hummock, which the Big Bear passed on one side
and the Little Bear on the other, and so, as a matter of course, stuck
hard and fast, the laughter was excessive; and when the gallant British
seaman again rushed forward, massacred the Big Bear with two terrific
cuts, slew the Little Bear with one tremendous back-hander, and then
sank down on one knee and pressed his hand to his brow as if he were
exhausted, a cheer ran from stem to stern of the _Dolphin_, the like of
which had not filled the hull of that good ship since she was launched
upon her ocean home!
It was just at this moment that Whackinta chanced, curiously enough, to
return to this spot in the course of _her_ wanderings.
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