They tossed the heavy casks,
too, high into the air like tennis-balls, and in two instances, while
the crew were watching them, dashed a cask in pieces with a slight blow
of their paws. The tough canvas yielded before them like sheets of
paper, and the havoc they committed was wonderful to behold.
"Most extraordinary!" exclaimed Captain Guy, after watching them for
some time in silence. "I cannot imagine where these creatures can have
got hold of such things. Were not the goods at Store Island all right
this morning, Mr. Bolton?"
"Yes, sir, they were."
"Nothing missing from the ship?"
"No, sir, nothing."
"It's most unaccountable."
"Captain Guy," said O'Riley, addressing his commander with a solemn
face, "haven't ye more nor wance towld me o' the queer thing in the
deserts they calls the _mirage_?"
"I have," answered the captain, with a puzzled look.
"An' didn't ye say there was somethin' like it in the Polar Seas, that
made ye see flags, an' ships, an' things o' that sort when there was no
sich things there at all?"
"True, O'Riley, I did."
"Faix, then, it's my opinion that yon bears is a _mirage_, an' the
sooner we git out o' their way the better."
A smothered laugh greeted this solution of the difficulty.
"I think I can give a better explanation--begging your pardon, O'Riley,"
said Captain Ellice, who had hitherto looked on with a sly smile. "More
than a year ago, when I was driven past this place to the northward, I
took advantage of a calm to land a supply of food, and a few stores and
medicines, to be a stand-by in case my ship should be wrecked to the
northward.
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