But it was more than a puff. The seven canoes, all abreast, were still in shallow water, and the paddlers kept them dead in the teeth of the whistling wind and stinging rain, and called out words of encouragement to one another and to the women and children, as another black squall burst upon them and the curling seas began to break. The canoe in which was Atupa's daughter was the largest and best of all the seven, but was much overladen, and on the outrigger grating were four children. These the chief's daughter was endeavouring to shield from the rain by covering them with a mat, when one of them, a little girl, endeavoured to steady herself by holding to one of the thin pieces of grating; it broke, and her arm fell through and struck the water, and in an instant she gave a dull, smothered wail. Palu, the woman, seized her by her hair and pulled the child up to a sitting posture, and then shrieked with terror—the girl's arm was gone.
And then in the blackness of night, lightened now by the white, seething, boiling surge, the people saw in the phosphorescent water countless hundreds of the savage terrors of the Tia Kau darting hither and thither amongst the canoes—for the smell of blood had brought them together instantly. Presently a great grey monster tore the paddle from out the hands of the steersman of the canoe wherein were the terrified Palu and the four children, and then, before the man for'ard could bring her head to the wind, she broached to and filled. Like ravening wolves the sharks dashed upon their prey, and ere the people had time to give more than a despairing cry, those hideous jaws and gleaming cruel teeth had sealed their fate. Maddened with fear, the rest of the people threw everything out of the six other canoes to lighten them, and as the bundles of mats and baskets of food touched the water the sharks seized and bit, tore and swallowed. Then, one by one, every paddle was grabbed from the hands of the paddlers, and the canoes broached to and filled in that sea of death—all save one, which was carried by the force of the wind away from the rest. In this were the only survivors—two men.
The agony could not have lasted long. "Were I to live as long as he whom the FAIFEAU (missionary) tells us lived to be nine hundred and sixty and nine, I shall hear the groans and cries and shrieks of that PO MALAIA, that night of evil luck," said one of the two who lived, to Denison, the white trader at Nanomea. "Once did I have my paddle fast in the mouth of a little devil, and it drew me backwards, backwards, over the stern till my head touched the water. TAH! but I was strong with fear, and held on, for to lose it meant death by the teeth. And Tulua—he who came out alive with me, seized my feet and held on, else had I gone. But look thou at this"—and he pointed to his scarred neck and back and shoulders "ere I could free my FOE (paddle) and raise my head, I was bitten thus by others. Ah, PAPALAGI, some men are born to wisdom, but most are fools. Had not Atupa been filled with vain fears, he had killed the man who caused him to lose so many of our people."
"So," said the white man, "and wouldst thou have killed the man who brought thee the new faith? Fie!"
"Aye, that would I—in those days when I was PO ULI ULI [Heathen, lit. "In the blackest night">[. But not now, for I am Christian. Yet had Atupa killed and buried the stranger, we could have lied and said he died of a sickness when they of his people came to seek him. And then had I now my son Tagipo with me, he who went into the bellies of the sharks at Tia Kau."