"So I cannot see you at work in the morning."
"No! we are not working now."
I am bitterly disappointed as I have come purposely to see them catching and preparing the bêche-de-mer for market, but I turn in determined to find out all I possibly can, under the circumstances, on the morrow.
Next morning I woke up to find Syyed and an Arab standing near my bed with lines out. With prawns for bait they were having splendid sport. The waters were swarming with fish.
Dressing hurriedly I saw the first of the Frenchman's boats coming in with a load of fish, and I ran along to meet it. Over seventy sharks was the haul, but the biggest one was not more than three feet long. There were very few other fish, and they were mostly gurram. There was some talk between my men and the fishermen.
"This," said the water police sergeant, picking up a shark eighteen inches long, "is a Sheiba (old man), he will not grow another inch!"
"Certainly not, he is dead," I remark.
"I mean he is full grown," replied the sergeant.
The fishermen said that was a fact.
"This," said someone else, picking up a shark with a head like a plane, on the sides of which projected his eyes, "is a youngster, and of all the sharks he is the worst kind."