formed him that he was a dunderhead to go fishing alone at night in
Apia Harbour, Marchmont started off about 2 A.M. in an ordinary native
canoe, meant to hold not more than three persons when in smooth water.
It was a calm night, but rainy, and the crew of the French gunboat
noticed him fishing near the ship about 2.30. A little while after,
the officer of the watch saw a heavy rain squall coming down from the
mountain gorges, and good-naturedly called out to the fisherman to
either come alongside or paddle ashore, to avoid being swamped. The
clever man replied in French, somewhat ungraciously, that he could quite
well look after himself. A little after 3 A.M. the squall ceased, and
as neither Marchmont nor the canoe was visible, the French sailors
concluded that he had taken their officer's advice and gone on shore.

About seven o'clock in the morning, as I was bathing in the little river
that runs into Apia Harbour, a native servant girl of the local resident
medical missionary came to the bank and called to me, and told me a
startling story. My obstinate friend had been picked up at sea, four
miles from Apia Harbour, by a _taumualua_ (native-built whaleboat). He
was in a state of exhaustion and collapse, and when brought into Apia
was more dead than alive, and the doctor was quickly summoned I at once
went to see him, but was not admitted to his room, and for three days he
had to lie up, suffering from shock--and, I trust, a feeling of humility
for being such an obstinate blockhead.

His story was simple enough: During the heavy rain squall his bait
was taken by some large and powerful fish (he maintained that it was
a _La'heu_, though most probably it was a shark), and thirty or forty
yards of line flew out before he could get the pull of it. When he did,
he foolishly made the loose part fast to the canoe seat amidships,
and the canoe promptly capsized, and the fore end of the outrigger
unshipped. Clinging to the side of the frail craft, he shouted to the
gunboat for help, but no one heard in the noise of the wind and heavy
rain, and in ten minutes he found himself in the passage between the
reefs, and rapidly being towed out to sea. He tried to sever the line by
biting it through (he had lost his knife), but only succeeded in
losing a tooth. Then, as the canoe was being dragged through the water
broadside on, a heavy sea submerged her and the line parted, the shark
or whatever it was going off. Never losing his pl