“Every one came to look, with yells and with songs. The sailors climbed after her, and she went higher and higher, until near the top of that tall mast, taller than the greatest cocoanut-tree in Atuona. There she held to the wood, calling upon Maria Peato. The captain was like a man mad with namu. He called to the sailors to climb higher. But when one reached to take her by the foot, she threw herself into the air and fell a great distance into the water.
“The captain cried that he would give four litres of rum to the man that brought her back. Some ran to get the boat, others dived after her. I was one of these.
“I have said that it was a black night. When in the water we could get no sight of her. Then on the ship one turned a bright lantern on the sea, and all of us saw her arm as it was raised to swim. She was a hundred feet before us, and swimming with great swiftness. The sailors meantime had set out in the boat, but they had drunk much rum, and rowed around and around. We three men swimming in the beams of the lantern came closer to her at every stroke.
“Almost my hand was upon her, when the largest shark I have ever seen rose beside her. You know it is at night that these devils look for their prey. Anna saw the mako at the same moment, and made a great splashing. I heard her call out the name of Bernadette the Blessed.
“The men with me turned about, but I kept on. I cried to the boat to hurry to us. I could see the mako turn in the water, as he must do to take anything into his mouth. I kicked him and I struck him, and I cursed him by the name of Manu-Aiata, the shark god. If I had had a knife I could have killed him easily.
“But, Menike, I could do nothing. He did not want me. The boat came, but not in time. I saw the devil take her in his jaws as the wild boar takes a bird that is helpless, and I felt him descend into the depths of the sea. I could do nothing.”
A cat's-paw stole across the sea from the southeast, the boat rolled hard, and Tetuahunahuna sprang erect.
“A toi te ka! Make sail!” he said.
They raised the slender mast, a rose-wood tree, roughly shaped in the forest, and fastened it to either thwart with three ropes. Through a ring at its head was passed the lift, and the sail of mats, old and worn, was set, men and women all fastening the strings to the boom. Two sheets were used, one cleated about five feet from the rudder, the other at the disposition of the steersman, who let out the boom according to the wind.
The breeze sprang up and died, and sprang up again. At last the deathly calm, the sickening heat, were over, and we sped across the freshening waves.