By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories by Louis Becke
page 42 of 216 (19%)
page 42 of 216 (19%)
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As soon as the natives had left the house, Marèko turned to me with a beaming smile. "Let them go on first and net some _atuli_ for us for bait," he said, "you and I shall follow in my own canoe and fish for _gatala_. It will be a great thing for one of us to catch the first _gatala_ of the season. Yesterday, when I was over there," pointing to two tiny islets within the lagoon, "I saw some _gatala_. The natives laugh at me and say I am mistaken--that because the _atuli_ had not come there could be no _gatala_. Now, _I_ think that the big fish came in some days ago, but the strong wind and current kept the _atuli_ outside till now. Come." I needed no pressing. In five minutes I had my basket of lines (of white American cotton) ready, and joined Marèko. His canoe (the best on the island, of course) was already in the water and manned by his two sons, boys of eight and twelve respectively. I sat for'ard, the two youngsters amidships, the father took the post of honour as _tautai_ or steersman, and with a chuckle of satisfaction from the boys, off we went in the wake of about thirty other canoes. Oh, the delight of urging a light canoe over the glassy water of an island lagoon, and watching the changing colours and strange, grotesque shapes of the coral trees and plants of the garden beneath as they vanish swiftly astern, and the quick _chip, chip_ of the flashing paddles sends the whirling, noisy eddies to right and left, and frights the lazy, many-hued rock-fish into the darker depths beneath! On, on, till the half mile or more of shallow water which covers the inner reef is passed, and then suddenly you shoot over the top of the submarine wall, into deepest, loveliest blue, full thirty fathoms deep, and as calm and quiet as an infant sleeping on its mother's bosom, though |
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