By sunset Hikueru bore southeast from her, three miles away.There was a full moon, and by eight o'clock the land was due east and two miles away.She struggled on for another hour, but the land was as far away as ever.She was in the main grip of the current; the canoe was too large; the paddle was too inadequate; and too much of her time and strength was wasted in bailing.Besides, she was very weak and growing weaker.Despite her efforts, the canoe was drifting off to the westward.
She breathed a prayer to her shark god, slipped over the side, and began to swim.She was actually refreshed by the water, and quickly left the canoe astern.At the end of an hour the land was perceptibly nearer.Then came her fright.Right before her eyes, not twenty feet away, a large fin cut the water.She swam steadily toward it, and slowly it glided away, curving off toward the right and circling around her.She kept her eyes on the fin and swam on.When the fin disappeared, she lay face downward in the water and watched.When the fin reappeared she resumed her swimming.The monster was lazy--she could see that.Without doubt he had been well fed since the hurricane.Had he been very hungry, she knew he would not have hesitated from making a dash for her.He was fifteen feet long, and one bite, she knew, could cut her in half.
But she did not have any time to waste on him.Whether she swam or not, the current drew away from the land just the same.A half hour went by, and the shark began to grow bolder.Seeing no harm in her he drew closer, in narrowing circles, cocking his eyes at her impudently as he slidpast.Sooner or later, she knew well enough, he would get up sufficient courage to dash at her.She resolved to play first.It was a desperate act she meditated.She was an old woman, alone in the sea and weak from starvation and hardship; and yet she, in the face of this sea tiger, must anticipate his dash by herself dashing at him.She swam on, waiting her chance.At last he passed languidly by, barely eight feet away.She rushed at him suddenly, feigning that she was attacking him.He gave a wild flirt of his tail as he fled away, and his sandpaper hide, striking her, took off her skin from elbow to shoulder.He swam rapidly, in a widening circle, and at last disappeared.
In the hole in the sand, covered over by fragments of metal roofing, Mapuhi and Tefara lay disputing.
"If you had done as I said," charged Tefara, for the thousandth time, "and hidden the pearl and told no one, you would have it now.""But Huru-Huru was with me when I opened the shell--have I not told you so times and times and times without end?""And now we shall have no house.Raoul told me today that if you had not sold the pearl to Toriki--""I did not sell it.Toriki robbed me."
"--that if you had not sold the pearl, he would give you five thousand French dollars, which is ten thousand Chili.""He has been talking to his mother," Mapuhi explained."She has an eye for a pearl.""And now the pearl is lost," Tefara complained.
