of her among the under-water caves one day, I waited for what
seemed an eternity. I cannot say how long she was gone, for as the
time lengthened seconds became minutes and hours, while I was torn
between diving after her and remaining ready for emergency in the
boat. When at last she came to the surface, she was nearly dead with
exhaustion, and I had to lift her into the canoe. She said her hair
had been caught in the branching coral, and that she had been barely
able to wrench it free before her strength was gone.

I went down with her several times, but could not master the art of
entrapping the fish, and was overcome with fear when I had entered
one of the dark caves and heard a terrible splashing nearby, as if a
shark had struck the coral in attempting to enter my hazardous refuge.

Even Miss Impossibility had not the courage to face a shark; yet
every time she dived she risked meeting one. Red Chicken had killed
one at this very spot a few weeks earlier. The danger even to a man
armed with a knife was that the shark would obstruct from a cave, or
come upon him suddenly from behind.

Often we had with us in the fishing a Paumotan, Pascual, the pilot
of the ship _Zelee_, who was in Hanavave visiting a relative. He was
the very highest physical and mental type of the Paumotan, a
honey-comb of good-nature, a well of laughter, and a seaman beyond
compare. To be a pilot in the Isles of the Labyrinth demands many
strong qualities, but to be the pilot of the only warship in this
sea was the very summit of pilotry. He had an accurate knowledge of
forty harbors and anchorages, and spoke English fluently, French,
Paumotan, Tahitian, Marquesan, and other Polynesian tongues. From
boyhood until he took up pilotage he was a diver in the lagoons for
shell and in harbors for the repair of ships.

"I have killed many sharks," he said, "and have all but fed them
more than once. I had gone one morning a hundred feet. The water is
always colder below the surface, and I shivered as I pulled at a
pair of big shells under a ledge. It was dark in the cavern, and I
was both busy and cold, so that as I stooped I did not see a shark
that came from behind, until he plumped into my spine.

"I turned as he made his reverse to bite me, and passed under him,
out to better light. I knew I had but a second or two to fight. I
seized his tail quickly, and as he swept around to free himself I
had time to draw the knife from my _pareu_ and stab hi