d it out on the beach its
contents rattled, and inside she found ten tins of salmon. She opened
one by hammering it on the canoe. When a leak was started, she drained
the tin. After that she spent several hours in extracting the salmon,
hammering and squeezing it out a morsel at a time.

Eight days longer she waited for rescue. In the meantime she fastened
the outrigger back on the canoe, using for lashings all the cocoanut
fibre she could find, and also what remained of her ahu. The canoe was
badly cracked, and she could not make it water-tight; but a calabash
made from a cocoanut she stored on board for a bailer. She was hard put
for a paddle. With a piece of tin she sawed off all her hair close to
the scalp. Out of the hair she braided a cord; and by means of the cord
she lashed a three-foot piece of broom handle to a board from the salmon
case.

She gnawed wedges with her teeth and with them wedged the lashing.

On the eighteenth day, at midnight, she launched the canoe through the
surf and started back for Hikueru. She was an old woman. Hardship had
stripped her fat from her till scarcely more than bones and skin and a
few stringy muscles remained. The canoe was large and should have been
paddled by three strong men.

But she did it alone, with a make-shift paddle. Also, the canoe leaked
badly, and one-third of her time was devoted to bailing. By clear
daylight she looked vainly for Hikueru. Astern, Takokota had sunk
beneath the sea rim. The sun blazed down on her nakedness, compelling
her body to surrender its moisture. Two tins of salmon were left, and in
the course of the day she battered holes in them and drained the liquid.
She had no time to waste in extracting the meat. A current was setting
to the westward, she made westing whether she made southing or not.

In the early afternoon, standing upright in the canoe, she sighted
Hikueru. Its wealth of cocoanut palms was gone. Only here and there, at
wide intervals, could she see the ragged remnants of trees. The sight
cheered her. She was nearer than she had thought. The current was
setting her to the westward. She bore up against it and paddled on. The
wedges in the paddle lashing worked loose, and she lost much time, at
frequent intervals, in driving them tight. Then there was the bailing.
One hour in three she had to cease paddling in order to bail. And all
the time she drifted to the westward.

By sunset Hikueru bore southeast from her, three miles awa