Oti baited his hook with a piece of squid, which he tore with his
teeth from the live and squirming monster, and hook and bait sank in
white flames to the bottom.

"Shark walk about he finish," he said. "I think we catch 'm plenty
fella fish."

His line jerked savagely. He pulled it in rapidly, hand under hand,
and landed a big gasping rock cod in the bottom of the canoe.

"Sun he come up, I make 'm that dam fella trader one present big fella
fish," said Oti.


THE HEATHEN

I met him first in a hurricane; and though we had gone through the
hurricane on the same schooner, it was not until the schooner had gone
to pieces under us that I first laid eyes on him. Without doubt I had
seen him with the rest of the kanaka crew on board, but I had not
consciously been aware of his existence, for the Petite Jeanne was
rather overcrowded. In addition to her eight or ten kanaka seamen, her
white captain, mate, and supercargo, and her six cabin passengers, she
sailed from Rangiroa with something like eighty-five deck
passengers--Paumotans and Tahitians, men, women, and children each
with a trade box, to say nothing of sleeping mats, blankets, and
clothes bundles.

The pearling season in the Paumotus was over, and all hands were
returning to Tahiti. The six of us cabin passengers were pearl buyers.