s and then dipping and vanishing
only to reappear still closer in and closing on the beach with the
swiftness of destroyers.

Then she knew, and, springing up, turned to run; but her retreat was cut
off towards the caves by the females herded up and, before she could
collect her thoughts, the army of invasion was flinging itself from the
water, and the whole sea beach from end to end was filled with the
thunder of battle.

For days the lone bulls had been cruising at sea waiting and watching
till all the females were on shore under guard of their husbands. So it
happened every year as now, ending in a battle for the possession of
wives, a battle waged without quarter and with a fury whose sound
reached the echoes of the hills.

Safe on the little rock plateau she watched the thunderous onslaught,
frightened and then terrified and crying out.

The invaders drove in from the sea like the sweep of a curved sword.
They struck the beach first a mile away and the battle ran towards her
like fire along tinder, boomed towards her ever loudening till it broke
to right and left where the sea bulls flung themselves on the rocks and
the land bulls charged the on-comers like battering rams. Some were
hurled back, only to return again, others held their ground. Then the
real business began whilst the ground trembled and the air shook and the
rocks poured blood.

Round her, and for a mile away, they fought like rams and they fought
like dogs and they fought like tigers, and over the roaring siren sounds
of the fight the gulls flew like the fume of it, screaming and swooping
and circling in spirals, and through everything like the continuous
thud-thud of a propeller came the dunch of tons of flesh meeting tons of
flesh head on, shoulder on, or side on.

She saw bulls ripped beyond belief, with shoulders slashed as if by the
down strokes of a sword, yet still fighting as though untouched, with
rumps raised and tails up and teeth in the necks of their enemies, one
had his eye torn out, yet tremendous and victorious he was literally
punching his antagonist back into the sea.

The foam broke red and suddy; she saw that, just as she had seen the
name of the _Albatross_ in the tremendous moment of the great ship's
eclipse, and, just as the name, the red breaking foam seemed to
concentrate in itself the whole terror of the business.

Then, standing like a person helpless in a dream during the full hour
that the battle raged, she saw