Late in the day we sighted it. The pirate was aloft, swinging between heaven and earth, with a glass in his hand, calling out observations to the chief-officer-boatswain below. The crew were attending exclusively to the horizon, and letting the ship look after herself, according to the amiable way of Maories when there is anything interesting afoot. The weather was darkening down, and heavy squalls of rain swept the sea now and then. But there it was, clearly enough to be seen in the intervals of the squalls, a circle of white foam enclosing an inner patch of livid green, clearly marked off from the grey of the surrounding ocean. Here and there a small black tooth of rock projected from the deadly ring of surf, and—significant and cruel sight—two ships’ anchors were plainly to be seen through the glass, as we neared the reef, lying fixed among the rock, so low in the water as only to be visible at intervals.
“A wicked place,” said the captain, who had come down from his eyrie, and was giving orders for the preparation of a boat. “Couldn’t see a bit of it at night—couldn’t see it in broad daylight, if there was a big sea on. And wrong charted too. Think of the last minutes of those poor chaps the anchors belonged to!”
The sea and sky were really beginning to look nasty, and I did not want to think of it. But the pirate went discoursing pleasantly of deaths and wrecks, while the men were putting various things into the whaleboat, and getting ready to lower away. He did not often have a passenger, but when he did, he evidently thought it his duty to keep her entertained.
We were very near to the reef now—so close that I was able to take a photograph of it, a little marred by the rainy weather. Meantime, the boat was being swung out, and the men were getting in. And now “a strange thing happened.” Out of nowhere at all eight sharks appeared—large ones, too—and began to cruise hungrily about the Duchess’s hull, their lithe yellowish bodies sharply outlined in the dark blue water, their evil eyes fixed on me, as I overhung the rail to look at them. “If only!” they said as plainly as possible, with those hideously intelligent green orbs. “If only———”
“What has brought those horrible brutes about us?” I asked.
“Those? oh, they’re waiting to be fed, I suppose. Pretty much all the ships that came this way before us have given them a good dinner. I bet they say grace before meat now every time they see a sail, which isn’t often. Here, you Oki, put in that keg of beef.”
“Where are you going?” I demanded with considerable interest, for the pirate captain never did things like any one else, and I scented an adventure.
“Going to find out what the inside of that lagoon is really like. No one ever put a boat into it yet. No, you can’t be in it this time: very sorry, but——”
“What?”
“Well, you see, one isn’t absolutely sure of getting back again, in a place like this. Didn’t you see me put in grub and water and a compass? I don’t think you’d like a boat voyage down to Niué, if we happened to miss the train. The mate has the course, and could take her on, if I came to grief. No, it isn’t any use asking, I just can’t. Lower away.”