Just as the kava was being handed round, some children who were on watch cried out that the ta~nifa had come.  Springing to his feet, Li’o again hailed the enemy’s picket on the other side, and a truce was agreed to, so that “the white men could have a look at the ma|lie”—­shark.

Thirty or forty yards away was what seemed to be a huge, irregular and waving mass of phosphorus which, as it drew nearer, revealed the outlines of the dreaded fish.  It came in straight for the mouth of the creek, passed over the pebbly bar, and then swam leisurely about in the brackish water, moving from bank to bank at less than a dozen feet from the shore.  The stream of bright phosphorescent light which had surrounded its body when it first appeared had now, owing to there being but a minor degree of phosphorus in the brackish water, given place to a dulled, sickly, greenish reflection, accentuated however by thin, vivid streaks, caused by the exudation from the gills of a streaming, viscid matter, common to some species of sharks, and giving it a truly terrifying and horrible appearance.  Presently a couple of natives, taking careful aim, fired at the creature’s head; in an instant it darted off with extraordinary velocity, rushing through the water like a submerged comet—­if I may use the illustration.  Both of the men who had fired were confident their bullets had struck and badly wounded the shark, but were greatly disgusted when, ten minutes later, it again appeared, swimming leisurely about, at ten fathoms from the beach.

Three days later, as we were returning to Apia, we were told by our native friends that the shark still haunted the mouth of the Vaivasa; and I determined to capture it.  I sent Allan on board the cutter for our one shark hook—­a hook which had done much execution among the sea prowlers.  Although not of the largest size, being only ten inches in the shank, it was made of splendid steel, and we had frequently caught fifteen-feet sharks with it at sea.  It was a cherished possession with us and we always kept it—­and the four feet of chain to which it was attached—­bright and clean.

In the evening Allan returned, accompanied by the local pilot (a Captain Hamilton) and the fat, puffing, master of a German barque.  They wanted “to see the fun.”  We soon had everything in readiness; the hook, baited with the belly-portion of a freshly-killed pig (which the Manono people had commandeered from a bush village) was buoyed to piece of light pua wood to keep it from sinking, and then with twenty fathoms of brand-new whale line attached, we let it drift out into the centre of the passage.  Then making our end of the line fast to the trunk of a coconut tree, we set some children to watch, and went into the trenches to drink some kava, smoke, and gossip.

We had not long to wait—­barely half an hour—­when we heard a warning yell from the watchers.  The ta~nifa was in sight.