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I did not sleep much the night before I went to the
place of the sea-elephants. I thought again about the
law that forbade women to make weapons. I wondered if my
arrows would go straight and, if they did, would they
pierce the animal's tough hide. What if I were injured
and then had to fight the wild dogs as I dragged myself
homeward? I thought about these things most of the night, but with
the sun I was up and on my way to the place where the
sea-elephants lived. When I reached the cliff, the
animals had left the reef and gathered along the shore.
Like grey boulders, the bulls sat on the pebbly slope.
Below them the cows and their babies played in the
waves.
Perhaps it is not right to speak of young sea-elephants
as babies, for they are as large as a man. But they are
still babies in many ways. They follow their mothers
around, waddling along on their flippers like children
learning to walk, making crying sounds and sounds of
pleasure that only the young make. And before they will
leave the shore and learn to swim their mothers have to
push them into the sea, which is often difficult to do
because of their size.
Some distance separated the bulls from each other, for
they are bad-tempered, very jealous by nature and quick
to fight over anything that displeases them. There were
six of them below me on the slope, each sitting alone
like a great chief, watching his herd of cows and
babies. The cow has a smooth body and a face that looks
much like that of a mouse, with a sharp-pointed nose and
whiskers, but the bull is different. His nose has a
large hump on it which hangs down over his mouth. His
skin is rough and looks like wet earth that has dried in
the sun and cracked. He is an ugly animal.
From the top of the cliff I looked down at each of the
sea-elephants and tried to choose the smallest of the
six. They were all of the same size except one, which
was the farthest from me and partly hidden by a rock. He
was about half as large as the others, a young bull.
Since no cows were playing among the waves in front of
him, I knew that he did not have a herd of his own, and
for that reason would not be so wary or quickly angered.
Quietly I let myself down over the edge of the cliff. To
reach him I had to pass behind the others, being careful
not to alarm them. They fear nothing and would not move
even if they saw me, but it was better, I thought, not
to put them on their guard. I carried my new bow, which
was almost as tall as I was, and five arrows. The path
was rough and covered with small stones. I took pains
not to send them tumbling down the slope. I was also
careful not to be seen by the cows, which get alarmed
easily and would have warned the rest of the herd with
their cries. I crawled behind a big rock near the young
bull. I then got to my feet and fitted an arrow to the
bow, although I suddenly remembered my father's warning
that, because I was a woman, the bow would break. |
