d
half a mile away. It served no purpose. Suddenly half a dozen of the
swordfish began jumping about us, as if stirred to anger by our torch.
I called to Red Chicken to extinguish, it.

He had seized it to obey when I heard a splash and the canoe
received a terrific shock. A tremendous bulk fell upon it. With a
sudden swing I was hurled into the air and fell twenty feet away. In
the water I heard a swish, and glimpsed the giant espadon as he
leaped again.

I was unhurt, but feared for Red Chicken. He had cried out as the
canoe went under, but I found him by the outrigger, trying to right
the craft. Together we succeeded, and when I had ousted some of the
water, Red Chicken crawled in.

"_Papaoufaa!_ I am wounded slightly," he said, as I assisted him.
"The Spear of the Sea has thrust me through."

The torch was lost, but I felt a big hole in the calf of his right
leg. Blood was pouring from the wound. I made a tourniquet of a
strip of my _pareu_ and, with a small harpoon, twisted it until the
flow of blood was stopped. Then, guided by him, I paddled as fast as
I could to the beach, on which there was little trouble in landing
as the bay was smooth.

Red Chicken did not utter a complaint from the moment of his first
outcry, and when I roused others and he was carried to his house, he
took the pipe handed him and smoked quietly.

"The Aavehie was against him," said an old man. Aavehie is the god
of fishermen, who was always propitiated by intending anglers in the
polytheistic days, and who still had power.

[Illustration: Spearing fish in Marquesas Islands]

[Illustration: Pearl shell divers at work]

There was no white doctor on the island, nor had there been one for
many years. There was nothing to do but call the _tatihi_, or native
doctor, an aged and shriveled man whose whole body was an intricate
pattern of tattooing and wrinkles. He came at once, and with his
claw-like hands cleverly drew together the edges of Red Chicken's
wound and gummed them in place with the juice of the _ape_, a
bulbous plant like the edible _taro_. Red Chicken must have suffered
keenly, for the _ape_ juice is exceedingly caustic, but he made no
protest, continuing to puff the pipe. Over the wound the _tatihi_
applied a leaf, and bound the whole very carefully with a bandage of
_tapa_ cloth folded in surgical fashion.

About the mat on which Red Chicken lay the elders of the village
congregated in the morning to discuss the accid