entered the cold,
subterranean stream. He removed the small stopper from the calabash,
and, as the sweet water gurgled into it, he saw the phosphorescent
glimmer of a big fish, like a sea ghost, drift sluggishly by.

Thereafter, holding the growing weight of the calabashes, he remained on
the surface, while Mauriri took them down, one by one, and filled them.

"There are sharks," Grief said, as they swam back to shore.

"Pooh!" was the answer. "They are fish sharks. We of Fuatino are
brothers to the fish sharks."

"But the tiger sharks? I have seen them here."

"When they come, Big Brother, we will have no more water to
drink--unless it rains."

VII

A week later Mauriri and a Raiatea man swam back with empty calabashes.
The tiger sharks had arrived in the harbour. The next day they thirsted
on the Big Rock.

"We must take our chance," said Grief. "Tonight I shall go after water
with Mautau. Tomorrow night, Brother, you will go with Tehaa."

Three quarts only did Grief get, when the tiger sharks appeared and
drove them in. There were six of them on the Rock, and a pint a day, in
the sweltering heat of the mid-tropics, is not sufficient moisture for a
man's body. The next night Mauriri and Tehaa returned with no water. And
the day following Brown learned the full connotation of thirst, when the
lips crack to bleeding, the mouth is coated with granular slime, and the
swollen tongue finds the mouth too small for residence.

Grief swam out in the darkness with Mautau. Turn by turn, they went down
through the salt, to the cool sweet stream, drinking their fill while
the calabashes were filling. It was Mau-tau's turn to descend with the
last calabash, and Grief, peering down from the surface, saw the glimmer
of sea-ghosts and all the phosphorescent display of the struggle. He
swam back alone, but without relinquishing the precious burden of full
calabashes.

Of food they had little. Nothing grew on the Rock, and its sides,
covered with shellfish at sea level where the surf thundered in, were
too precipitous for access. Here and there, where crevices permitted, a
few rank shellfish and sea urchins were gleaned. Sometimes frigate birds
and other sea birds were snared. Once, with a piece of frigate bird,
they succeeded in hooking a shark. After that, with jealously guarded
shark-meat for bait, they managed on occasion to catch more sharks.

But water remained their direst need. Mauriri prayed to the Goat
God