FOOD FOR SHARKS.
Blood also attracts them, and where there is blood, they make no distinction between natives and foreigners. In the present instance, the lover had drawn blood from his antagonist, and it instantly occurred to him that both their lives were in danger if any sharks were around. He released his hold, dived under his canoe, and swam away a hundred feet or more, so as to be out of the vicinity of the blood he had drawn.
As he rose to the surface and looked around, he saw that the spy was just recovering from the force of the blow. His head was above the water, and his hands were moving as if he were slowly swimming towards the rocks. Suddenly he gave a shriek, and disappeared as if drawn under, and the lover then knew that his expectations were not incorrect. But with a taste of blood the sharks would be likely to attack him, and he therefore swam farther away, and climbed upon a small reef just even with the surface.
Fortunately a light wind came up and blew his canoe towards him. When it was near the reef he swam out and reached it, and then paddled home with his turtle. For two days he did not go out again; partly through fear that the sharks might be around the spot where his antagonist was killed, and partly in order to allay any suspicions that his previous movements might have aroused.
When he next visited the cavern, he found his princess greatly distressed, and almost dead with grief. Soon after his last visit her maid took it into her head to go outside. She dived into the water, and rose close to the foot of the cliff. The lover had been gone an hour or more, but an empty canoe was floating not far away, and near it a dozen sharks were quarrelling over something which she naturally supposed was the body of the owner of the bark. Of course she thought that the canoe must belong to the young chief; and when she returned and told her story, it is no wonder that the princess went into hysterics. On the next day he came not, and they then knew that he was lost. Their grief had been great, and so were their surprise and relief at his return.
BATTLE OF THE WARRIORS.