"See—we'll put them in cotton-wool in this tobacco-tin, and stow it away in the safe. The less said the better, I fancy, even among ourselves. Such a temptation might prove too much for almost any man! But tell me about Teura—his aunt was too much cut up to talk."
Marama left us to go on deck while I told my uncle the story of the morning's happenings. He shook his head when I told of how the canoes had gone home, and of our resolution to go down after the two old oysters Marama had seen. Then I spoke of my feeling that I must be the one to dive, and how I had gone down to bring up the oysters from the tonu's cave.
"I know what you mean," he remarked, as I concluded, "and you did the right thing; but don't take such chances very often! You'll have to keep on diving for a few days, if only for the sake of public morale, but I wish you'd slack off gradually and give it up altogether in a week or two."
IX
THE CAVE OF THE SHARK GOD
I went on deck that night and lay alone in the warm darkness, building castles in Spain. Every lad has dreamed of all that he would do for his parents when he had gone out into the world and made his fortune, and now my dreams seemed to have come true at last. I thought of my mother, and the things I might do to brighten the dullness of her life; of Marion, and how my good fortune would send her to the Eastern school she longed for; of my father, who had dreamed for years of improving and restocking the ranch. The old Santa Brigida where I had been born and where I hoped to end my days—a sudden understanding came to me, a rush of gratitude for my father's determined clinging to our land. I realized as never before how I loved the valley, the brown hills, the lonely stretch of coast. A home to go back to—that was the best thing in life!
Teura was to be buried in the morning, and no man on the islet slept that night. After the native fashion the divers were assembled at Maruia's house, and all night long their wild and melancholy songs floated out across the water. The hymns of the islanders have a power to stir one strangely: the voices of the women wailing in a minor key, the deep, chanting refrain of the men—gradually, under the influence of their music, my thoughts wandered, and I fell asleep.
The natives observe Sunday with a strictness unknown among more civilized Christian races. Saving a few unavoidable tasks like cooking, no work of any kind is done on that day, and the man bold enough to break the rule would make an outcast of himself. If he went fishing, they believe that his fishing would be accursed; if by any chance he caught a fish, its flesh would be poisonous; and in all probability a shark would be sent to overturn his canoe and make an end of the impious Sabbath-breaker. White men are a law unto themselves, of course, but my uncle had warned me long since that it would be a mistake to urge Marama to break the rules of his religion. Our Sundays, therefore, were what Sundays should be—days of rest and change from the occupations of the week.
Marama and I often persuaded the cook to put up a cold lunch for us, and set out in our canoe to explore the distant portions of the lagoon. To amuse ourselves, and for easier traveling on these occasions, we had rigged a sail—a bamboo mast, a big leg-of-mutton sail of unbleached cotton, and a spar of tough light wood. We selected from the Tara's stock of lumber a long two-inch plank, and when we set out for a day's sailing this plank was lashed to the canoe—one end to the outrigger, the middle to the gunwales, and the other projecting up and out, six feet on the starboard beam. We carried a tremendous spread of sail for so small a craft, and the long narrow canoe, with a fresh breeze astern or on the beam, skimmed the lagoon at a speed that delighted our hearts. One of us managed the sheet and steered with an oar from the whaleboat; the other took his place on the plank, changing sides when we tacked, and crawling out on the weather beam when the wind freshened and the canoe lay over—bounding forward to rush through the water with a tearing sound.
On the Sunday after Teura's burial, we took our lunch and set out for an all-day sail, and toward the middle of the afternoon the trade wind fell away and died. We were on the west side of the lagoon, a mile or two north of the village of the copra-makers, built on the site of the ancient Paumotan settlement. It was the first time that we had passed close to the place where the shark had met his death, and as we paddled slowly along the coral cliffs rising almost to the surface, we watched for the opening of the cave.