"Perhaps it will be the last chance we may have of capturing sea elephants!" "Right you are," replied the lad.

"I'll do my best to kill them; but really, brother, they look awfully formidable fellows!" "Oh, they're not half so dangerous as they look," said Fritz.

"They're like your friends the penguins; their bark is worse than their bite!" "Ha, ha!" laughed Eric good-temperedly; "you will continue to chaff me about those wretched birds I suppose! Never mind, though, I've got the joke about the billy-goat frightening you as a set-off, eh, brother ?" "That's nothing--nothing!" said Fritz in an off-hand way.

"We'd better see about starting round after the seals, I think." "Ah, it's all very well your trying to get out of it like that!" retorted Eric, going off, laughing, to haul the whale-boat down into the bay; when, as soon as she was afloat and all their preparations made, they set off again round the headland for the sealing ground.
They noticed, as they approached, that the animals were much more wary now than at the time of their first visit, many plunging into the water from off the outlying rocks on the boat nearing the shore; consequently, they had to use their rifles at once to secure any seals at all, without trusting to their harpoons.
Fritz fired six shots rapidly from the Remington he carried, Eric, who was not so handy in the use of the weapon, managing about half the number; and then, seeing that some of the animals which were only wounded were endeavouring to wriggle down the beach into the sea, the two dashed in at them with the harpoons and boat-hook--Master Eric selecting the latter weapon from his being more accustomed to its use.
They had a great scrimmage amongst the struggling seals, which roared and bellowed like so many bull calves, looking when they opened their mouths as if they would swallow up the brothers at one gulp; but, it was all bravado, for the poor things had not an ounce of fight in them.
They suffered themselves to be knocked on the head without the slightest resistance, only bleating piteously when they received their death-blow and dropping down in their tracks at once.
One enormous sea elephant Fritz made for, just as he was on the point of sliding off into the sea from a little rocky jetty where he had ensconced himself.
The animal reared itself on its fore flappers and seemed to tower over the young German; but, on Fritz pluckily piercing it with his harpoon right through the chest, the warm blood gushed over him in a torrent and the portentous sea elephant sank down lifeless.
The creature was upwards of eighteen feet long, from the point of his queer-looking nose or snout, which was elongated like an elephant's trunk--hence its name of "sea elephant"-- to the hind flappers; while it must have been pretty nearly ten feet in girth.
"Ah, here are eight barrels of oil at least!" shouted Fritz when he had given the monster his death-blow.

"Fancy all that quantity from one sea elephant!" "You don't say you've caught one of those fellows ?" cried Eric, who was kneeling down and trying to detach a little cub seal from its dead mother.