We rolled idly, the sun scorching us.  In an hour I was so hot that I began to wonder if I could endure the torment.  The buckle on my trousers burned my flesh, and I could not touch my clothes without pain.  The Marquesans lay comfortably on the seats and bundles, enjoying their pandanus-leaf cigarettes.  Every few moments the bow-oar skillfully rolled one, took a few puffs and handed it to the next man, who, after taking his turn, passed it down the waiting line.

From time to time Tetuahunahuna, squatting in the stern, made a sign, and a fresh cigarette passed untouched through eight hands to his.  He smoked serenely, gazing at the smooth swells of water and waiting with inexhaustible patience for the wind.  At his feet the fifteen-year-old girl, Sister of Anne, disposed her saffron-colored body upon oars laid across the thwarts and slept.  Ghost Girl, beside me, laid her glossy head in my lap to doze more comfortably.

Jammed against the unyielding thwarts, I passed miserable hours, unable to move more than a few inches in the narrow space.  At noon, with the vertical eye of the evil sun staring down upon us, my clothes were so hot that I had to hold them off my body.  I meditated leaping into the ocean and swimming awhile.  Ghost Girl saw my intention when I stirred, and pulled me back beside her.

“Mako!” she cried. “Puaa hae!” She pointed to starboard.  A gray fin moved slowly through the water twenty feet away.  “A shark, and a wicked beast he is!” She reached to pick up an opened cocoanut and tossed some of the milk over her shoulder to appease the demon. “Mako!” she repeated. “Puaa hae!”

“Requin!” echoed Tetuahunahuna in French.  “The devil of the Marquesas!”

“But you are not afraid of them.  You swim where they are,” said I.

“Few of us are bitten by sharks,” said Tetuahunahuna, sizing up a puff of wind that brought a faint hope.  It died, and he continued.  “We are often in the sea, and do not fear the mako enough to make us weak against him.  I have killed many with a knife.  I have tied ropes about their bellies and made them feel silly as we pulled them in.  I have tickled their bellies with the point of the knife that slit them later.  They are awkward, they must turn over to bite, and they are afraid of a man swimming.  But they are devils, and hate women.  They do not like men, but women they will go far to kill.”

He took the cigarette Ghost Girl handed him and, squatting on the rudder deck, looked at me to see if I were interested.  Wretched as I felt, I returned his glance, and said “Tiatohoa?” which means, “Is that so?” and showed that I was attentive.

“It is so,” he replied.  “There are reasons for this.  In times before the memory of man a shark-god was deceived by a woman.  In his anger he overturned an island, but this did not appease his hate.  Since that time all sharks have preyed on women.”