At length a long gray shape slid from the shadows and wavered below our feet.  Instantly Red Chicken slipped from the rock, slid noiselessly beneath the water, and slipped the noose over the shark’s tail before it knew that he was nearby.  The others, whose hands were on the rope, tightened it on the instant, and with a yell of triumph hauled the lashing, fighting demon upon the rocks, where he struggled gasping until he died.

There was still another way of catching sharks, Red Chicken said, and being now excited with the sport and eager to show his skill, he insisted upon displaying it for my benefit, though I, who find small pleasure in vicarious danger, would have dissuaded him.  For this exploit we must row to the coral caves, where the man-eating fish stay often lying lazily in the grottoes, only their heads protruding into the sun-lit water.

Here we maneuvered until the long, evil-looking snout was seen; then Red Chicken went quietly over the side of the canoe, descended beside the shark and tapped him sharply on the head.  The fish turned swiftly to see what teased him, and in the same split-second of time, over his fluke went the noose, and Red Chicken was up and away, while his companions on a nearby cliff pulled in the rope and killed the shark with spears in shallow water.  Red Chicken said that he had learned this art from a Samoan, whose people were cleverer killers of sharks than the Marquesans.  It could be done only when the shark was full-fed, satisfied, and lazy.

I had seen the impossible, but I was to hear a thing positively incredible.  While Red Chicken sat breathing deeply in the canoe, filled with pride at my praises, and the others were contriving means of carrying home the shark meat, I observed a number of fish swimming around and through the coral caves, and jumped to the conclusion that from their presence Red Chicken had deduced the well-filled stomachs and thoroughly satisfied appetite of the shark.  Red Chicken replied, however, that they were a fish never eaten by sharks, and offered an explanation to which I listened politely, but with absolute unbelief.  Imagine with what surprise I found Red Chicken’s tale repeated in a book that I read some time later when I had returned to libraries.

There is a fish, the Diodon antennatus, that gets the better of the shark in a curious manner.  He can blow himself up by taking in air and water, until he becomes a bloated wretch instead of the fairly decent thing he is in his normal moments.  He can bite, he can make a noise with his jaws, and can eject water from his mouth to some distance.  Besides all this, he erects papillae on his skin like thorns, and secretes in the skin of his belly a carmine fluid that makes a permanent stain.  Despite all these defences, if the shark is fool enough to heed no warning and to eat Diodon, the latter puffs himself up and eats his way clean through the shark to liberty, leaving the shark riddled and leaky, and, indeed, dead.

Should this still be doubted, my new authority is Charles Darwin.