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Updated: May 6, 2025
Tetuahunahuna listened to the smashing waves and peered for the blacker outlines of the stairway and the faint gleam of the foam. The boat approached; the sea leaped to break it against the rocks. The steersman held it a second, and in that second you had to leap. It is touch and go, and heaven help you! If you miss, you fall into the sea, or the boat crushes you against the rocks.
I saw the devil take her in his jaws as the wild boar takes a bird that is helpless, and I felt him descend into the depths of the sea. I could do nothing." A cat's-paw stole across the sea from the southeast, the boat rolled hard, and Tetuahunahuna sprang erect. "A toi te ka! Make sail!" he said.
In his anger he overturned an island, but this did not appease his hate. Since that time all sharks have preyed on women." Sister of Anne moved restlessly in her sleep and put her ena-covered feet across my knees, feet as hot as an iron pump-handle on a July noon. "Hakaia!" exclaimed Ghost Girl, and hung the feet over the side. "Sharks will let men live to kill women," Tetuahunahuna resumed.
Mast and sail out of the way, we stretched ourselves in the boat with more comfort, enjoying the cooling current of air. Tetuahunahuna, the sheet in his hand, squatted again on his narrow perch. "You returned to that ship when the boat picked you up?" I asked. "Aue!" he replied. "The captain was crazed with anger. He cursed me, and said that the girl has swum ashore."
But Tetuahunahuna, waist-deep in the water at our stern, gave a mighty push, and we were safely afloat as he clambered over the edge and stood dripping on the steersman's tiny perch, while the men, holding the boat head-on to the rolling waves, drove us safely through to open water. Outside the bay they put by their oars and we waited for a breeze to give the signal for hoisting mast and sail.
The wind shifted and freshened, the sail was drawn nearer, and our speed became perilous. The waves grew, but Tetuahunahuna, seeing nothing, but feeling with sheet and helm the temper of changing air and water, kept the canoe's prow steady, and the men, in emergencies, threw themselves half over the starboard gunwale.
"But you are not afraid of them. You swim where they are," said I. "Few of us are bitten by sharks," said Tetuahunahuna, sizing up a puff of wind that brought a faint hope. It died, and he continued. "We are often in the sea, and do not fear the mako enough to make us weak against him. I have killed many with a knife.
Return in a canoe to Atuona; Tetuahunahuna relates the story of the girl who rode the white horse in the celebration of the féte of Joan of Arc in Tai-o-hae; Proof that sharks hate women; steering by the stars to Atuona beach. The canoe we had followed to Hanavave stopped in Oomoa on its way to Hiva-oa, my home, for I had bargained with Tetuahunahuna, its owner, for my conveyance to Atuona.
The Marquesans lay comfortably on the seats and bundles, enjoying their pandanus-leaf cigarettes. Every few moments the bow-oar skillfully rolled one, took a few puffs and handed it to the next man, who, after taking his turn, passed it down the waiting line. From time to time Tetuahunahuna, squatting in the stern, made a sign, and a fresh cigarette passed untouched through eight hands to his.
They say that it is beautiful and that the people are joyous. They have all the namu they can drink. The government is good to them." Tetuahunahuna sighed, and looked at my bag, in which was the bottle of rum Grelet had given me. I poured a drink into the cocoanut-shell Ghost Girl had emptied, and gave it to him. "Kaoha!" he said and, having swallowed the rum, went on.
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