At the next instant my trusty board turned traitor. Its prow sank, the end beneath me rose, and like a stone discharged from a sling I was thrown under the waves, head over heels, banging my head and body on the sand, leaped upon by following waves that piled me into shallow water, rolling me over and over, striking me a blow with the coffin-lid at every roll.
I lay high and dry, panting and aching, while from all the beach rose shouts of laughter. Exploding Eggs rolled on the sand in his delight, holding his gasping sides, scarcely able to remind me of the necessity, which in my excitement I had forgotten, of keeping the prow of the board pointed upward as I rode.
Often as I repeated this instruction in my mind, firmly as I determined to remember it while I toiled sea-ward again with the coffin-lid, the result was always the same. A moment of rest in the unresting waves, a quick, agile spring, a moment of mad, intoxicating joy, and then—disaster. I became a mass of bruises, the skin scraped inch by inch from my chest by contact with the rough wood. I would not give up until I had to, and then for a week I was convalescing.
One stiff ache from head to foot, I lay ignominiously on the sand, and watched Exploding Eggs, with a piece of box not bigger than a fat man's shirt-front, take wave after wave, standing on the board, dashing far across the breakers to the shore, with never a failure, while Gedge's little half-breed daughter, a beautiful fairy-like creature, darted upon the sea as a butterfly upon a zephyr.
After several weeks of effort and mishap, one day the secret came to me like a flash, and the trick was learned. I had been using the great board and was weary. I exchanged with Exploding Eggs for a plank three feet long and fourteen inches wide. Almost exhausted, I waited as usual with the butt of the board against my stomach for the incoming breaker to be just behind and above me, and then leaped forward to kick out vigorously, the board pressed against me and my hands extended along its sides, to get in time with the wave.
But the wave was upon me before I had thought to execute these instructions, I straightened myself out rigidly, and lo! I shot in like a torpedo on the very top of the billow, holding the point of the board up, yelling like a Comanche Indian. So fast, so straight did I go, that it was all I could do to swerve in the shallow water and not be hurled with force on the sand.
“Metai! Me metai!” cried my friends in excited congratulation, while like all men who succeed by accident, I stood proudly, taking the plaudits as my due.
From that afternoon I had most exhilarating sport, and indeed, this is the very king of amusements for fun and exercise. Skeeing, tobogganing, skating, all land sports fade before the thrills of this; nor will anything give such abounding health and joy in living as surf-riding in sunny seas.
A hundred afternoons on Atuona Bay I spent in this exhilarating pastime. To it we added embellishments, multiplying excitements. A score of us would start at the same moment from the same line and race to shore; we would carry two on a board; we would stand and kneel and direct our course so that we could touch a marked spot on the beach or curve about and swerve and jostle each other. Exploding Eggs was the king of us all, and Teata was queen. She advanced as effortlessly as a mermaid, her superb figure shining on the shining water, tossing her long black hair, and shrieking with delight.
Occasionally we varied these sports by a much more dangerous and arduous game. We would push our boards far out in the bay, half a mile or more, diving under each wave we faced, until after tremendous effort we reached the farthest sea-ward line of breakers. Often while I swam, clinging to the board and struggling with the waves for its possession, I saw in the emerald water curling above me the shadowy shapes of large fish, carried on the crests of the combers, transfigured clearly against the sky, fins and heads and tails outlined with light.