Then he began to mutter a prayer . `` Do n't touch him , Patalamon . There has never been a white seal since -- since I was born . Perhaps it is old Zaharrof 's ghost . He was lost last year in the big gale . '' `` I 'm not going near him , '' said Patalamon . `` He 's unlucky . Do you really think he is old Zaharrof come back ? I owe him for some gulls ' eggs . '' `` Do n't look at him , '' said Kerick . `` Head off that drove of four-year-olds . The men ought to skin two hundred to-day , but it 's the beginning of the season and they are new to the work . A hundred will do . Quick ! '' Patalamon rattled a pair of seal 's shoulder bones in front of a herd of holluschickie and they stopped dead , puffing and blowing . Then he stepped near and the seals began to move , and Kerick headed them inland , and they never tried to get back to their companions . Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of seals watched them being driven , but they went on playing just the same . Kotick was the only one who asked questions , and none of his companions could tell him anything , except that the men always drove seals in that way for six weeks or two months of every year . `` I am going to follow , '' he said , and his eyes nearly popped out of his head as he shuffled along in the wake of the herd . `` The white seal is coming after us , '' cried Patalamon .
`` That 's the first time a seal has ever come XXXXX the killing-grounds alone . ''
after at for holluschickie in near of since to year