South-Sea Idyls

by Charles Warren Stoddard

I urged him to desist, seeing his condition and fearing a repetition of his first experience; but he would go once more; perhaps there was no pearl in that shell; he wanted to get me a pearl. He sank again and renewed his efforts at the bottom of the sea. I scarcely dared to count the minutes now, nor the bubbles that came up to me like little balloons with a death-message in each. Suppose he were to send his last breath in one of those transparent globes, and I look down and see his body snared in the antlers of coral, stained with his blood? Well, he came up all right, and I postponed the rest of my emotion for a later experience.

Some divers remain three minutes under water, but two or three descents are as many as they can make in a day. The ravages of such a life are something frightful.

No more pearl-hunting after the second dive that day; nor the next, because we went out into the air for a stroll on shore to gather fruit and stretch our legs. There was a high wind and a heavy sea that looked threatening enough, and we were glad to return after an hour's tramp. The next day was darker, and the next after that, when a gale came down upon us that seemed likely to swamp Motu Hilo. A swell rolled over the windward reef and made our quarters in the grotto by no means safe or agreeable. It was advisable for us to think of embarking upon that tempestuous sea, or get brained against the roof of our retreat.

Hua Manu looked troubled, and my heart sank. I wished the pearl oysters at the bottom of the sea, the Great Western back at Tahiti, and I loafing under the green groves of Papeete, never more to be deluded abroad.

I observed no visible changes in the weather after I had been wishing for an hour and a half. The swell rather increased; our frail canoe was tossed from side to side in imminent danger of upsetting.

Now and then a heavy roller entirely filled the mouth of our cavern, quite blinding us with spray; having spent its fury it subsided with a concussion that nearly deafened us, and dragged us with fearful velocity toward the narrow mouth of the cave, where we saved ourselves from being swept into the sea by grasping the roots overhead and within reach.

"Could I swim?" asked Hua Manu. Alas, no! That we must seek new shelter at any risk was but too evident. "Let us go on the next wave," said Hua, as he seized a large shell and began clearing the canoe of the water that had accumulated. Then he bound his long hair in a knot to keep it from his eyes, and gave me some hasty directions as to my deportment in the emergency.

The great wave came. We were again momentarily corked up in an air-tight compartment. I wonder the roof was not burst open with the intense pressure that nearly forced the eyes out of my head and made me faint and giddy. Recovering from the shock, with a cry of warning from Hua, and a prayer scarcely articulated, we shot like a bomb from a mortar into the very teeth of a frightful gale.

Nothing more was said, nothing seen. The air was black with flying spray, the roar of the elements more awful than anything I had ever heard before. Sheets of water swept over us with such velocity that they hummed like circular saws in motion.

We were crouched as low as possible in the canoe, yet now and then one of these, the very blade of the wave, struck us on the head or shoulders, cutting us like knives. I could scarcely distinguish Hua's outline, the spray was so dense, and as for him, what could he do? Nothing, indeed, but send up a sort of death-wail, a few notes of which tinkled in my ear from time to time, assuring me how utterly without hope we were.