NIGHT FISHING IN THE SOUTH SEAS
By Frederick O'Brien
Mr. O'Brien spent some time among the South Sea Islands, and had many interesting adventures there. One of the most exciting was this encounter with a swordfish, which he relates in a delightful manner.
Red Chicken became my special friend and guide,
and on one occasion it was our being together, perhaps,
saved his life, and afforded me one of the most thrilling
moments of my own.
He and I had gone in a canoe after nightfall to spear fish5
outside the Bay of Virgins. Night fishing has its attractions
in these tropics, if only for the freedom from severe
heat, the glory of the moonlight or starlight, and the waking
dreams that come to one upon the sea, when the canoe rests
tranquil, the torch blazes, and the fish swim to meet the10
harpoon. The night was moonless, but the sea was covered
with phosphorescence, sometimes a glittering expanse of
light, and again black as velvet except where our canoe
moved gently through a soft and glamorous surface of
sparkling jewels. A night for a lover, a lady, and a lute.
Our torch of coconut husks and reeds, seven feet high, 5
was fixed at the prow, so that it could be lifted up when
needed to attract the fish or better to light the canoe.
Red Chicken, in a scarlet pareu fastened tightly about
his loins, stood at the prow when we had reached his
favorite spot off a point of land, while I, with a paddle, 10
noiselessly kept the canoe as stationary as possible.
Light is a lure for many creatures of land and sea and
sky. The moth and the bat whirl about a flame; the sea
bird dashes its body against the bright glass of the lonely
tower; wild deer come to see what has disturbed the dark 15
of the forest; and fish of different kinds leap at a torch.
Red Chicken put a match to ours when we were all in readiness.
The brilliant gleam cleft the darkness and sent
across the blackness of the water a beam that was a challenge
to the curiosity of the dozing fish. They hastened 20
towards us, and Red Chicken made meat of those that came
within the radius of his harpoon, so that within an hour or
two our canoe was heaped with half a dozen kinds.
Far off in the path of the flambeau rays I saw the swordfish
leaping as they pursued small fish or gamboled for 25
sheer joy in the luminous air. They seemed to be in pairs.
I watched them lazily, with academic interest in their
movements, until suddenly one rose a hundred feet away,
and in his idle caper in the air I saw a bulk so immense, and
a sword of such amazing size, that the thought of danger 30
struck me dumb.
He was twenty-five feet in length, and had a dorsal fin
that stood up like the sail of a small boat. But even these
dimensions cannot convey the feeling of alarm his presence
gave me. His next leap brought him within forty feet of
us. I recalled a score of accidents I had seen, read, and
heard of; fishermen stabbed, boats rent, steel-clad ships 5
pierced through and through.
Red Chicken held the torch to observe him better, and
shouted: "Apau! Look out! Paddle fast away!"
I needed no urging. I dug into the glowing water
madly, and the sound of my paddle on the side of the canoe 10
might have been heard half a mile away. It served no
purpose. Suddenly half a dozen of the swordfish began
jumping about us, as if stirred to anger by our torch. I
called to Red Chicken to extinguish it.
He had seized it to obey when I heard a splash and the 15
canoe received a terrific shock. A tremendous bulk fell
upon it. With a sudden swing I was hurled into the air
and fell twenty feet away. In the water I heard a swish,
and glimpsed the giant espadon as he leaped again.
I was unhurt, but feared for Red Chicken. He had 20
cried out as the canoe went under, but I found him by the
outrigger, trying to right the craft. Together we succeeded,
and when I had ousted some of the water, Red Chicken
crawled in.
"Papaoufaa! I am wounded slightly," he said, as I 25
assisted him. "The Spear of the Sea has thrust me
through."
The torch was lost, but I felt a big hole in the calf of his
right leg. Blood was pouring from the wound. I made a
tourniquet of a strip of my pareu and, with a small harpoon, 30
twisted it until the flow of blood was stopped. Then,
guided by him, I paddled as fast as I could to the beach,
on which there was little trouble in landing as the bay was
smooth.
Red Chicken did not utter a complaint from the moment
of his first outcry, and when I roused others and he was
carried to his house, he took the pipe handed him and 5
smoked quietly.
"The Aavehie was against him," said an old man.
Aavehie is the god of fishermen, who was always propitiated
by intending anglers in the polytheistic days and who still
has power. 10
There was no white doctor on the island, nor had there
been one for many years. There was nothing to do but
call the tatihi, or native doctor, an aged and shriveled
man whose whole body was an intricate pattern of tattooing
and wrinkles. He came at once, and with his clawlike 15
hands cleverly drew together the edges of Red Chicken's
wound and gummed them in place with the juice of the ape,
a bulbous plant like the edible taro. Red Chicken must
have suffered keenly, for the ape juice is exceedingly caustic,
but he made no protest, continuing to puff the pipe. Over20
the wound the tatihi applied a leaf, and bound the whole
very carefully with a bandage of tapa cloth, folded in surgical
fashion.
—White Shadows in the South Seas.
1. What were the author and Red Chicken doing at the outset? Read the lines where the adventure begins.
2. Like most real adventures this one was all over in a moment. What happened? Why did it occur?
3. Spell, pronounce,and explain: phosphorescence, lure, stationary, propitiated, polytheistic, tattooing, caustic.
(Taken from O'Brien's White Shadows in the South Seas by permission of the publishers, The Century Co.)