take
a whaleboat through a bit of surf as well as either Marama or myself. I
replied frankly that I did not.

He snorted with contempt "Bosh. I've taken boats through surf five times
as bad as it is now--a tinker could manage a boat in the little sea that
is running now. You fellows are all alike--you think that you and your
natives know everything."

"Oh, then, do as you like," I replied angrily, "but if you smash that
boat it means a loss of Ј50, and----"

"Hang your Ј50! If I hurt your boat, I'll pay for the damage. But don't
begin to preach at me."

With great misgivings, I saw the boat start off, manned by eight men,
using native paddles, instead of oars, as was customary in surf work.
Marchmont, certainly, by good luck, managed to get her over the reef,
for I could see that he was quite unused to handling a steer oar.
However, my native crew, by watching the sea and taking no heed of the
steersman, shot the boat over the reef into deep water beyond. But in
getting alongside the schooner he nearly swamped, and I was told began
abusing my crew for a set of blockheads. This, of course, made them
sulky--to be abused for incompetence by an incompetent stranger, was
hard to bear, especially as the men, like all the natives of their
islands (Rotumah and Niue), were splendid fellows at boat work.

However, the boat at last cast off, and headed for the shore, and then
I saw something that filled me with wrath. As the lug sail was being
hoisted, March-mont drew in his steer-oar, and shipped the rudder, and
in another minute the boat was bounding over the rolling seas at a great
rate towards the white breakers on the reef, but steering so wildly
that I foresaw disaster. The crew, in vain, urged Marchmont to ship the
steer-oar again, but he told them to mind their own business, and sat
there, calm and strong, in his mighty conceit.

On came the boat, and we on shore watched her as she rose stern up to a
big comber, then down she sank from view into the trough, broached to,
and the next roller fell upon and smothered her, and rolled her over and
over into the wild boil of surf on the reef.

The Man Who Knew Everything came off badly, and was brought on shore
full of salt water, and unconscious. He had been dashed against the
jagged coral, and from his left thigh down to his foot had been terribly
lacerated; then as the crew swam to his assistance--for his clothing had
caught in the coral, and he was under water and drowning--and brought
him to the surface, the despised steer-oar (perhaps out of revenge)
came hurtling along on a swirling sea, and the haft of it struck him a
fearful blow on the head, nearly fracturing his skull.

Fearing his injuries would prove fatal, I sent a canoe off to the
schooner with a message to the captain to come on shore, but the vessel,
having finished her business, was off under full sail, and did not see
the canoe. Then the trader and I did our best for the poor fellow, who,
as soon as he regained consciousness, began to suffer agonies from the
poison of the wounds inflicted by the coral. We sent a runner to Apia
for a doctor, and early next morning one arrived.

Marchmont was quite a month recovering, and when he was fully
convalescent, he kept his opinions to himself, and I think that the
lesson he had received did him good. He afterwards told me that he
determined to sail the boat in with a rudder purely to annoy me, and was
sorry for it.

When he was able to get about again as usual, the devil of restlessness
again took possession of him and he was soon in trouble again--through
the bursting of a gun. I was away from Apia at the time--at the little
island of Manono, buying yams for the ship which was getting ready for
sea again--when I received a letter from a friend giving me the Apia
gossip, and was not surprised that Marchmont figured therein.

"Your friend Marchmont," so ran the letter, "is around, as usual, and in
great form, though he had a narrow squeak of having his head blown
off last week through his gun bursting while out pigeon-shooting up by
Lano-to lake. It seems that it was raining at the time, and the track
down the mountain to the lake was very slippery. He had Johnny Coe the
half-caste, and two Samoans with him. Was carrying his gun under his arm
and going down the track in his usual careless, cock-a-hoopy style when
he tripped over a root of a tree and went down, flat on his face, into
the red slippery soil. He picked himself up again quick enough, and
began swearing at the top of his voice, when a lot of ducks rose from
the lake and came dead on towards him. Without waiting to see if his gun
was all right, although it was covered with mud, he pulled the trigger
of his right barrel, and it burst; one of the fragments gave him a
nasty jagged wound on the chin and the Samoan buck got a lot of small
splinters in his face. After the idiot had pulled himself together he
examined his gun and found that the left barrel was plugged up with hard
red earth. No doubt the other one had also been choked up, for Johnny
Coe said that when he fell the muzzle of the gun was rammed some inches
into the ground."

When I returned to Apia with a cutter load of yams, I called on
Marchmont and found him his old self. He casually mentioned his mishap
and cursed the greasy mountain track as the cause. At the same time he
told me that he was beginning to like the country and that the natives
were "not a bad lot of fellows--if you know how to take 'em".

Then came his final exploit.

There is, in the waters of the Pacific Isles, a species of the trevalli,
or rudder fish, which attains an enormous size and weight. It is a good
eating fish, like all the trevalli tribe, and much thought of by both
Europeans and natives, for, being an exceedingly wary fish, it is not
often caught, at least in Samoa. In the Live Islands, where it is more
common, it is called _La'heu_ and in Fiji _Sanka_. One evening Lama, one
of the Coe half-caste boys, and I succeeded in hooking and capturing one
of these fish, weighing a little over 100 lb. In the morning the Man
Who Knew Everything came to look at it, was much interested, and said he
would have a try for one himself after lunch.

"No use trying in clear daylight," I said; "after dusk, at night (if not
moonlight), or before daybreak is the time."

"Bosh!" was his acidulous comment "I've caught the same fish in New
Zealand in broad daylight." I shook my head, knowing that he was wrong.
He became angry, and remarked that he had found that all white men who
had lived in foreign countries for a few years accepted the rubbishy
dictum of natives regarding sporting matters of any kind as infallible.
Refusing to show me the tackle he intended using, at two o'clock he
hired a native canoe, and paddled off alone into Apia Harbour. Then he
began to fish for _La'heu_, using a mullet as bait. In five minutes
he was fast to a good-sized and lusty shark, which promptly upset the
canoe, went off with the line and left him to swim. The officer of the
deck of the French gunboat _Vaudreuil_, then lying in the port, sent a
boat and picked him up. This annoyed him greatly, as he wanted, like an
idiot, to swim on shore--a thing that a native would not always care to
do in a shark-infested place like Apia Harbour, especially during the
rainy season (as it then was), when the dreaded _tanifa_ sharks come
into all bays or ports into which rivers or streams debouch.

That evening, however, Marchmont condescended to look at the tackle I
used for _La'heu_, said it was clumsy, and only fit for sharks, but,
on the whole, there were "some good ideas" about it; also that he would
have another try that night. I suggested that either one of the Coe lads
or Lama should go with him, to which he said "Bosh!" Then, after sunset,
I sent some of my boat's-crew to catch flying-fish for bait. They
brought a couple of dozen, and I told Marchmont that he should bait with
a whole flying-fish, make his line ready for casting, and then throw
over some "burley"--half a dozen flying-fish chopped into small pieces.
He would not show me the tackle he intended using, so I was quite in the
dark as to what manner of gear it was. But I ascertained later on that
it was good and strong enough to hold any deep sea fish, and the hook
was of the right sort--a six-inch flatted, with curved shank, and
swivel mounted on to three feet of fine twisted steel seizing wire. My
obstinate friend had a keen eye, even when he was most disparaging
in his remarks, and had copied my _La'heu_ tackle most successfully,
although he had "bosh-ed" it when I first showed it to him.

Refusing to let any one accompany him, although the local pilot candidly
informed 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 pluck, he tried in the
darkness to secure the loose end of the outrigger, but failed, owing to
the heavy, lumpy seas. Then for two anxious, miserable hours he clung to
the canoe, expecting every moment to find himself minus his legs by the
jaws of a shark, and when sighted and picked up by the native boat he
was barely conscious.

He learnt a lesson that did him good. He never again went out alone in
a canoe at night, and for many days after his recovery he never uttered
the word "Bosh!"




CHAPTER XXIX ~ THE PATTERING OF THE MULLET

It is a night of myriad stars, shining from a dome of deepest blue.
The lofty, white-barked swamp gums stand silent and ghost-like on the
river's bank, and the river itself is almost as silent as it flows to
meet the roaring surf on the bar of the rock-bound coast fifteen miles
away, where when the south-east wind blows lustily by day and dies away
at night the long billows of the blue Pacific roll on unceasingly.

Overhead, far up in the topmost boughs of one of the giant gums some
opossums squeal angrily at an intruding native bear, which, like
themselves, has climbed to feed upon the young and tender eucalyptus
leaves. Below, a prowling dingo steals slowly over the thick carpet of
leaves, then sitting on his haunches gazes at the prone figures of two
men stretched out upon their blankets at the foot of the great tree.
His green, hungry eyes have discerned a pair of saddle-bags and his keen
nostrils tell him that therein are salt beef and damper. He sinks gently
down upon the yielding leaves and for a minute watches the motionless
forms; then he rises and creeps, creeps along. A horse bell tinkles from
beyond the scrub and in an instant the wild dog lies flat again. Did he
not see one of the men move? No, all is quiet, and once more he creeps
forward. Then from beneath the tree there comes a flash and a report and
a bullet flies and the night prowler leaps in the air with a snarling
yelp and falls writhing in his death agony, as from the sand flats in
the river arises the clamour of startled wild fowl and the rush and
whirr of a thousand wings. Then silence again, save for the long-drawn
wail of a curlew.

One of the men rises, kicks together the dying camp fire and throws on
a handful of sticks and leaves. It blazes up and a long spear of light
shoots waveringly across the smooth current of the river.

"Get him, Harry?" sleepily asks his companion as he sits up and feels
for his pipe.

"Yes--couldn't miss him. He's lying there. Great Scott! Didn't he jump."

"Poor beggar--smelt the tucker, I suppose. Well, better a dead dog than
a torn saddle-bag. Hear the horses?"

"Yes, they're all right--feeding outside the timber belt How's the time,
Ted?"

"Three o'clock. What a deuce of a row those duck and plover kicked up
when you fired! We ought to get a shot or two at them when daylight
comes."

"Harry," a big, bearded fellow of six feet, nodded as he lit his pipe.

"Yes, we ought to get all we want up along the blind creeks, and we'll
have to shift camp soon. It's going to rain before daybreak, and we
might as well stay here over to-morrow and give the horses a spell."

"It's clouding over a bit, but I don't think it means rain."

"I do. Listen," and he held up his hand towards the river.

His companion listened, and a low and curious sound--like rain and yet
not like rain--a gentle and incessant pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat,
then a break for a few seconds, then again, sometimes sounding loud and
near, at others faintly and far away.

"Sounds like a thousand people knockin' their finger nails on tables.
Why, it must be rainin' somewhere close to on the river."

"No, it's the pattering of mullet, heading up the river--thousands,
tens of thousands, aye hundreds of thousands. It is a sure sign of heavy
rain. We'll see them presently when they come abreast of us. That queer
_lip, lap, lip, lap_ you hear is made by their tails. They sail along
with heads well up out of the water--the blacks tell me that they smell
the coming rain--then swim on an even keel for perhaps twenty yards or
so, and the upper lobe of their tails keeps a constant flapping on the
water. You know how clearly you can hear the flip of a single fish's
tail in a pond on a quiet night? Well, to-night you'll hear the sound
of fifty thousand. Once, when I was prospecting in the Shoalhaven River
district I camped with some net fishermen near the Heads. It was a calm,
quiet night like this, and something awakened me It sounded like heavy
rain falling on big leaves. 'Is it raining, mate?' I said to one of
the fishermen. 'No,' he replied, 'but there's a heavy thunderstorm
gathering; and that noise you hear is mullet coming up from the Heads,
three miles away.' That was the first time I ever saw fish packed so
closely together--it was a wonderful sight, and when they began to pass
us they stretched in a solid line almost across the river and the noise
they made was deafening. But we must hurry up, lad, shift our traps a
bit back into the scrub and up with the tent. Then we'll come back and
have a look at the fish, and get some for breakfast."

The two hardy prospectors (for such they were) were old and experienced
bushmen, and soon had their tent up, and their saddles, blankets and
guns and provisions under its shelter, just as the first low muttering
of thunder hushed the squealing opossums overhead into silence. But, as
it died away, the noise of the myriad mullet sounded nearer and nearer
as they swam steadily onward up the river.

Ten minutes passed, and then a heavy thunder-clap shook the mighty trees
and echoed and re-echoed among the spurs and gullies of the coastal
range twenty miles away; another and another, and from the now leaden
sky the rain fell in torrents and continued to pour unceasingly for
an hour. Inside the tent the men sat and smoked and waited Then the
downfall ceased with a "snap," the sky cleared as if by magic, revealing
the stars now paling before the coming dawn, and the cries of birds
resounded through the dripping bush.

Picking up a prospecting dish the elder man told his "mate" that it
was time to start. Louder than ever now sounded the noise made by the
densely packed masses of fish, and as the rays of the rising sun, aided
by a gentle air, dispelled the river mist, the younger man gave a gasp
of astonishment when they reached the bank and he looked down--from
shore to shore the water was agitated and churned into foam showing a
broad sheet of flapping fins and tails and silvery scales. So close were
the fish to the bank and so overcrowded that hundreds stranded upon the
sand.

The big man stepped down, picked up a dozen and put them into the dish;
then he and his companion sat on the bank and watched the passage of the
thousands till the last of them had rounded a bend of the river and the
waters flowed silently once more.