I had my first look at the helmsman.
THE
PEARL LAGOON
By
CHARLES NORDHOFF
ILLUSTRATED BY
ANTON OTTO FISCHER
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT 1924 BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS PUBLICATIONS
ARE PUBLISHED BY
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To
WALTER AND SARAH C. W. NORDHOFF
DEAR PARENTS AND UNDERSTANDING FRIENDS
WHOSE GRANDCHILDREN, I HOPE,
WILL ONE DAY READ
THIS BOOK
PREFACE
For some months past, my daily stint at the typewriter has been cheered by an ambitious hope: that this story might prove entertaining to the young—the finest of all audiences. They are too wise even to glance at so dull a thing as a preface, but to you older people, who are responsible for what the young ones read, I have a word to say.
I make no claim, in the pages which follow, to have done more than muster the familiar marionettes and put them through their paces before your eyes. In one respect, nevertheless, I venture to commit myself. I know the islands fairly well—white man and native; skipper, trader, and pearl-diver; the sea, the lagoons, the small and lonely bits of land; and I can vouch for the genuineness of the story's atmosphere.
As for the story, there is nothing in it which has not happened, or might not happen to-day—for Romance, like the sea itself, is ever old and ever new.
C. N.
TAHITI, 1924
CONTENTS
I. [The Coming of the Schooner]
II. [The Pearls of Iriatai]
III. [Aboard the Tara]
IV. [At Faatemu]
V. [Iriatai]
VI. [The End of the Shark—the Beginning of the Diving]
VII. [South Sea Fishermen]
VIII. [I Turn Pearl-Diver]
IX. [The Cave of the Shark-God]
X. [The Cholita Comes to Iriatai]
XI. [Piracy]
XII. [Boarders!]
XIII. [Tahiti]
ILLUSTRATIONS
[ I had my first look at the helmsman] . . . . . . Frontispiece
[ The shark reared almost vertically beneath the swimmer and, opened his great jaws ]
[ Next moment the wave burst over the gunwale, and we were struggling in the sea ]