By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore - George Lewis Becke (mystery books to read txt) 📗

yells of excitement from the natives. Then suddenly the line fell slack, and the half-a-dozen men who were holding it went over on their backs, heels up.

In mournful silence we hauled it in, and then, oh woe! the hook, our prized, our beautiful hook, was gone! and with it two feet of the chain, which had parted at the centre swivel. That particular ta~nifa was seen no more.

Nearly two months later, two ta~nifa of a much larger size, appeared at the mouth of the Vaivasa. Several of the white residents tried, night after night, to hook them, but the monsters refused to look at the baits. Then appeared on the scene an old one-eyed Malay named 'Reo, who asserted he could kill them easily. The way in which he set to work was described to me by the natives who witnessed the operations. Taking a piece of green bamboo, about four feet in length, he split from it two strips each an inch wide. The ends of these he then, after charring the points, sharpened carefully; then by great pressure he coiled them up into as small a compass as possible, keeping the whole in position by sewing the coil up in the fresh skin of a fish known as the isuumu moana--a species of the "leather-jacket." Then he asked to be provided with two dogs. A couple of curs were soon provided, killed, and the viscera removed. The coils of bamboo were then placed in the vacancy and the skin of the bellies stitched up with small wooden skewers. That completed the preparation of the baits.

As soon as the two sharks made their appearance, one of the dead dogs was thrown into the water. It was quickly swallowed. Then the second followed, and was also seized by the other ta~nifa. The creatures cruised about for some hours, then went off, as the tide began to fall.

On the following evening they did not turn up, nor on the next; but the Malay insisted that within four or five days both would be dead. As soon as the dogs were digested, he said, the thin fish-skin would follow, the bamboo coil would fly apart, and the sharpened ends penetrate not only the sharks' intestines, but protrude through the outer skin as well.

Quite a week afterwards, during which time neither of the ta~nifa had been seen alive, the smaller of the two was found dead on the beach at Vailele Plantation, about four miles from the Vaivasa. It was examined by numbers of people, and presented an extremely interesting sight; one end of the bamboo spring was protruding over a foot from the belly, which was so cut and lacerated by the agonised efforts of the monster to free itself from the instrument of torture, that much of the intestines was gone.

That the larger of these dreaded fish had died in the same manner there was no reason to doubt; but probably it had sunk in the deep water outside the barrier reef.



On Board the "Tucopia."

The little island trading barque Tucopia, Henry Robertson, master, lay just below Garden Island in Sydney Harbour, ready to sail for the Friendly Islands and Samoa as soon as the captain came on board. At nine o'clock, as Bruce, the old, white-haired, Scotch mate, was pointing out to Mrs. Lacy and the Reverend Wilfrid Lacy the many ships around, and telling them from whence they came or where they were bound, the second mate called out--

"Here's the captain's boat coming, sir."

Bruce touched his cap to the pale-faced, violet-eyed clergyman's wife, and turning to the break of the poop, at once gave orders to "heave short," leaving the field clear to Mr. Charles Otway, the supercargo of the Tucopia, who was twenty-two years of age, had had seven years' experience of general wickedness in the South Seas, thought he was in love with Mrs. Lacy, and that, before the barque reached Samoa, he would make the lady feel that the Reverend Wilfrid was a serious mistake, and that he, Charles Otway, was the one man in the world whom she could love and be happy with for ever. So, being a hot-blooded and irresponsible young villain, though careful and decorous to all outward seeming, he set himself to work, took exceeding care over his yellow, curly hair, and moustache, and abstained from swearing in Mrs. Lacy's hearing.

* * * * *


A week before, Mr. and Mrs. Lacy had called at the owner's office and inquired about a passage to Samoa in the Tucopia, and Otway was sent for.

"Otway," said the junior partner, "can you make room on the Tucopia for two more passengers--nice people, a clergyman and his wife."

"D----all nice people, especially clergymen and their wives," he answered promptly--for although the youngest supercargo in the firm, he was considered, the smartest--and took every advantage of the fact. "I'm sick of carting these confounded missionaries about, Mr. Harry. Last trip we took two down to Tonga--beastly hymn-grinding pair, who wanted the hands to come aft every night to prayers, and played-up generally with the discipline of the ship. Robertson never interfered, and old Bruce, who is one of the psalm-singing kidney himself, encouraged the beasts to turn the ship into a floating Bethel."

"Mr. Harry" laughed good-naturedly. "Otway, my boy, you mustn't put on so much side--the firm can't afford it. If you hadn't drunk so much whisky last night you would be in a better temper this morning."

"Oh, if you've got some one else to take my billet on the Tucopia, why don't you say so, instead of backing and filling about, like a billy-goat in stays? I don't care a damn if you load the schooner up to her maintop with sky-pilots and their dowdy women-kind. I've had enough of 'em, and I hereby tender you my resignation. I can get another and a better ship to-morrow, if--"

"Sit down, you cock-a-hoopy young ass," and "Mr. Harry" hit the supercargo a good-humoured but stiff blow in the chest. "These people aren't missionaries; they're a cut above the usual breed. Man's a gentleman; woman's as sweet as a rosebud. Now look here, Otway; we give you a pretty free hand generally, but in this instance we want you to stretch a point--you can give these people berths in the trade-room, can't you?"

The supercargo considered a moment. "There's a lot returning this trip. First, there's the French priest for Wallis Island--nice old buffer, but never washes, and grinds his teeth in his sleep--he's in the cabin next to mine; old Miss Wiedermann for Tonga--cabin on starboard side--fussy old cat, who is always telling me that she can distinctly hear Robertson's bad language on deck. But her brother is a good sort, and so I put up with her. Then there's Captain Burr, in the skipper's cabin, two Samoan half-caste girls in the deck-house--there's going to be trouble over those women, old Bruce says, and I don't doubt it--and the whole lot will have their meals in the beastly dog-kennel you call a saloon, and I call a sweat-box."

"Thank you, Mr. Otway. Your elegant manner of speaking shows clearly the refining influence of the charming people with whom you associate. Just let me tell you this--you looked like a gentleman a year or two ago, but become less like one every day."

"No wonder," replied Otway sullenly, "the Island trade is not calculated to turn out Chesterfields. I'm sick enough of it, now we are carrying passengers as well as cargo. I suppose the firm will be asking us supercargoes to wear uniform and brass buttons soon, like the ticket collector on a penny ferry."

"Quite likely, my sulky young friend--quite likely, if it will pay us to do so."

"Then I'll clear out, and go nigger-catching again in the Solomons. That's a lot better than having to be civil to people who worry the soul out of you, are always in the way at sea, and a beastly nuisance in port. Why, do you know what old Miss Weidermann did at Manono, in Samoa, when we were there buying yams three months ago?"

"No; what did she do?"

"Got the skipper and myself into a howling mess through her infernal interference; and if the chiefs and old Mataafa himself had not come to our help there would have been some shooting, and this firm could never have sent another ship to Manono again. It makes me mad when I think of it--the silly old bundle of propriety and feminine spite."

"Tell me all about it, Otway. 'Twill do you good, I can see, to unburden yourself of some of your bad temper. Shut that door, and we'll have a brandy-and-soda together."

"Well," said Otway, "this is what occurred. I was ashore in the village, buying and weighing the yams, the skipper was lending me a hand, and everything was going on bully, when Mataafa and his chiefs sent an invitation to us to come up to his house and drink kava. Of course such an invitation from the native point of view was a great honour; and then, besides that, it was good business to keep in with old Mataafa, who had just given the Germans a thrashing at Vailele, and was as proud as a dog with two tails. So, although I hate kava, I accepted the invitation with 'many expressions of pleasure,' and felt sure that as the old fellow knew me of old, and I knew he wanted to buy some rifles, that I should get the bulk of a bag of sovereigns his mongrel, low-down American secretary was carrying around. So oft went the skipper and I, letting the yams stand over till we returned; the barque was lying about a mile off the beach. Mataafa was very polite to us, and during the kava drinking I found out that he had about three hundred sovereigns, and wanted to see the Martini-Henrys we had on board. Of course I told him that it would be a serious business for the ship if he gave us away--imprisonment in a dreadful dungeon in Fiji, if not hanging at the yard-arm or a man-of-war--and the old cock winked his eye and laughed. Then, as time was valuable, we at once concocted a plan to get the rifles--fifty--ashore without making too much of a show. Well, among some of the women present there were two great swells, one was the taupo, or town maid, of Palaulae in Savaii, and the other was a niece of Mataafa himself. These two, accompanied by a lot of young women of Manono, were to go off on board the barque in our boats, ostensibly to pay their respects to the white lady on board, and invite her on shore, so as to get her out of the way; then I was to pass the arms out of the stern ports into some canoes which would be waiting just as it became dark. About five o'clock they started off in one boat, leaving me and the skipper to follow in another. I had sent a note off to the mate telling him all about the little game, and to be mighty polite to the two chief women, who were to be introduced to Miss Weidermann, give the old devil some presents of mats, fruits, and such things, and ask her to come ashore as Mataafa's guest.

"Well, something had gone wrong with the Weidermann's temper; for when the women came on board she was sulking