hey swam around and around the mountainous pair, darting in and out,
evidently with some plan of drawing off the male. Both the whales
struck out incessantly with their mammoth flukes; their great tails,
crashing upon the sea-surface, lashed it to mountains of foam. Our
boats tossed as in a gale.

Carried away by the pity and terror of the scene, we shouted threats
and curses at the monsters, calling down on them in Marquesan the
wrath of the sea-gods. Frenziedly handling tiller and sails, we
circled the battle, impotent to aid the poor woman-beast and her baby.
The sharks harried them as hounds a fox. Desperately the parents
fought, more than one shark sank wounded to the depths and one,
turning its white belly to the sun, floated dead upon the waves.
Another was flung high in air by a blow of the mother's tail. But it
was an uneven contest. At last we saw the nursling drawn from her
breast, and the mother herself sank, still struggling. She may have
risen, of course, far away, but she seemed disabled.

We did not wait about that bloody spot when the sharks had fallen
upon their prey, for our canoe was low in the water, and with such a
sight to warn us, we did not doubt that the loathly monsters would
attack us.

From such a sight it was a relief to turn to the mountains. Along
the steep trails I roamed far with Vanquished Often and Exploding
Eggs. We played at being alone with nature, foregoing in living all
that the white man had brought. I left the house of the chief naked
save for a loin-cloth of native make, and I wore no shoes or hat.
Vanquished Often and my valet were attired as I, and thus we shouted
"Kaoha!" to the chieftess and started toward adventure.

Seventh Man was dubious about my setting off without some prepared
food, _popoi_ or canned fish or biscuits, and without sleeping-mats.
"You ketchee hungery by an' soon," he protested. "No got Gold Bed in
mountains."

Vanquished Often laughed merrily, and the chief looked like a father
whose child has thrown a stone at the bogie-man. I rubbed his nose
with mine in farewell, and we began our journey, barehanded as Crusoe,
yet more fortunate than he since we were in the best of company and
I had the comforting knowledge that Marquesan youth would not go
hungry or permit me to do so.

Our way led up heights of marvelous beauty, along the edges of deep
defiles that opened below our feet like valleys of Paradise. The
candlenut, the _ama_, with its lilac bl