Both Niâbon and I laughed at her fears—the sharks were not man-eaters, as we knew by their black-tipped fins, though the species were dangerous when bad weather made the fish on which they preyed scarce; then they became vicious and daring enough, and would at times actually tear the oars out of the hands of a boat's crew. However, Lucia would not come, saying she would await the return of the men and pluck the plover which they were sure to bring back with them.
“Very well, Lucia,” I said, “we'll leave you to yourself. I must have a look at the barque, and find out her name. Wrecks have always had an attraction for me; and, besides that, I want to get a sheet or two of copper to nail over our stem, which was badly hurt when we ran ashore in Apamama Lagoon.”
In another minute or two Niabon and I started, she sitting for'ard and I aft. The wind had died away, and the surface of the lagoon was as smooth as glass, and, through the crystal-clear water, we could discern the glories of the gorgeously-hued coral forest below. Is there such another sight in all the world as is revealed when you look down upon the bottom of a South Sea atoll.
Ah, no, there cannot be! And here as I write, there is before me the cold German Ocean, heaving and tumbling; grey, grim, and sullen under a dulled and leaden sky, and snowflakes beat and beat incessantly upon the opened windows of my room. Out upon the moor there is a flock of snow-white seagulls, driven to land by the wild weather, and as I gaze at them, fluttering to and fro, their presence seems to creep into my heart, and their wild, piping notes to say, “You will go back, you will go back, and see some of us again; not here, under cold skies, but where the bright sun for ever shines upon a sea of deepest blue.”
For half an hour or more we paddled in silence over the smooth waters of that sweet lagoon, the bow of the canoe kept steadily on towards the wrecked barque; and as I looked at the graceful figure of my companion, with her dark, glossy hair flowing over her back and swaying to and fro with every stroke, and saw the graceful poise of her head, and the backward sweep of her two little hands as she plunged her paddle into the water, and withdrew it swiftly and noiselessly, I felt that I could not, I must not delay in asking her to be my wife. Not that her physical beauty had so wrought upon my feelings—I was above that, I thank God, and a level brain—but because I felt that I loved her, ay, honestly loved her, and that she was a good and true woman, and our union would be a happy one.
It took us much longer than we anticipated in coming up to the stranded ship, or rather to the inside edge of the reef on which she lay, high and dry, half a mile further to seaward. Taking my hammer and a blunt chisel—to prize off a sheet of copper—we made the canoe fast to a coral boulder, and set off across the reef, which gave forth a strong but sickly odour caused by the heat of the sun acting on the many-coloured and many-shaped marine organisms and living coral.
Niâbon, whose feet were protected by strong takka (sandals woven of coco-nut fibre), stepped lightly and swiftly on before me; I with my heavy boots crushing into the brittle, delicate, and sponge-like coral, startling from their sunbaths hundreds of black and orange-banded sea-snakes—reptiles whose bite is as deadly as that of a rattlesnake, but which hastened out of our way almost as soon as they heard our footsteps. Here and there we had to turn aside to avoid deep pools, some of which, though not more than ten fathoms in width, were as blue as the ocean beyond, their rocky walls starting sheer up from their bases to the crust of the reef.