s putting up fish and chickens
in leaf wrappers, and Malua and two Pikirami youths of his own age were
husking numbers of young drinking-nuts.

Telling his native friends that he would return in an hour or two, or as
soon as he had caught some _feke_. Harvey set off, accompanied by Roka
and Huka, the latter carrying a heavy turtle-spear, about five feet in
length from the tip of its wide arrow-headed point to the end of the
pole of ironwood.

Turning to the eastward, they struck into the cool shade of the narrow
strip of forest which clothed the island from the inner lagoon beach to
the outer or weather side, and Harvey at once began to search among the
small pools on the reef for an octopus, Huka with Roka going on ahead
with his turtle-spear. In the course of a quarter of an hour they were
out of sight of each other.

For some time Harvey, armed with a light wooden fish-spear, carefully
examined the shallow pools as he walked along over the reef, and
after he had progressed about a mile he at last saw one of the hideous
creatures he sought lying on the white sandy bottom of a circular hole
in the reef, its green malevolent eyes looking upward at the intruder.
In an instant he thrust the spear through its horrible marbled head, and
drew it out upon the rocks, where he proceeded to kill it, a task which
took him longer than he anticipated; then carrying it back to the shore,
he threw the still quivering monster upon a prominent rock and set out
again in search of another, intending to follow his native comrades, who
were in hopes of striking a turtle.

As he tramped over the reef, crushing the living, many-coloured coral
under his booted feet, his eyes were arrested by some objects lying
on the bottom of a deep pool. He bent down and looked carefully--five
magnificent orange cowries were clinging closely together upon a large
white and sea-worn slab of dead coral.

An exclamation ot pleasure escaped from him as he saw the great size and
rich colouring of these rare and beautiful shells.

"What a lovely present for Tessa!" he thought; and taking off his shirt
he dived into the clear water and brought them up one by one. Then with
almost boyish delight he placed them beside him on the reef, and looked
at them admiringly.

"Oh you beauties!" he said, passing his hand over their glossy backs;
"how delighted Tessa will be! No one else has ever had the luck to
find five such shells together. I'm a _tagata manuia lava_