Part 1 (2/2)

Captain Jensen, however, assuredlike 50,000 pounds worth of pearls aboard, to say nothing about the value of the shells, of which we had about thirty tons It must be clearly understood that this is Captain Jensen's estiive one The oysters the, and no one on board cared about them Some of the shells contained one pearl, others two, three, and even four One nificent specimen I came across produced no fewer than a dozen fine pearls, but that of course was very exceptional The largest ge cube, more than an inch square It was, however, comparatively worthless Actually the finest specieon's egg, and of exquisite colour and shape Some of the pearls were of a beautiful rose colour, others yellow; but reatest enemy the divers had to fear in those waters was the dreaded octopus, whose presence occasioned far greater panic than the appearance of a mere shark

These loathsome monsters--call them squids, or devil-fish, or what you will--would sometimes come and throw their horrible tentacles over the side of the frail craft fro, and actually fasten on to thethem out into the water At other times octopuses have been known to attack the divers down below, and hold them relentlessly under water until life was extinct One of our own men had a terribly narrow escape from one of these fearful creatures I must explain, however, that occasionally when the divers returned fro, they used to rope all their little skiffs together and let theht the wind rose and rain fell heavily, with the result that next ged Soo and bale them out Whilst they were at work one of theblack object in the sea, which so attracted his curiosity that he dived overboard to find out what it was

He had barely reached the water, however, when an immense octopus rose into view, and at once er, and with great presence of mind promptly turned and scrambled back into the boat

The terrible creature was after him, however, and to the horror of the onlookers it extended its great flexible tentacles, enveloped the entire boat, ed the whole down into the clear depths

The diver's horrified comrades rushed to his assistance, and an attempt was made to kill the octopus with a harpoon, but without success Several of his more resourceful co net ht underneath the octopus, entangling the creature and its still living prey The next step was to drag up both man and octopus into the whale-boat, and this done, the unfortunate Malay was at length seized by his legs, and dragged by sheer force out of the frightful embrace, more dead than alive, as youhi at such a temperature as actually to blister his skin It is ether drowned, as he had been held under water by the tentacles of the octopus for rather more than two minutes But, like all the Malays of our party, this ood purpose on the ed him under the water These repeated stabs caused the creature to keep rolling about on the surface, and the unhappy et an occasional breath of air; otherwise hecreature, with a slimy body, and a hideous cavity of a mouth It is the tentacles of the creature that are so dreaded, on account of the i pohich they possess

After this incident the divers always took a tomahaith them on their expeditions, in order to lop off the tentacles of any octopus that ht try to attack them in the boats And, by theour cruise Iin a swim

We had anchored in about five fatho leisurely away from the vessel at a slow breast stroke, a , with an enormous hairy head and fierce, fantastic h into the air I ht absolutely unmanned me for the moment, and when this extraordinary creature opened his enorave ot back to the shi+p safely, but it was soht

Occasionally too ere troubled with sharks, but the Malays did not appear to be very round shark, which lay ave no indication of his presence The result was that occasionally the divers would sink down to their work quite unknowingly almost by the side of one of these fearful creatures, and in such cases the diver rarely escaped without injury of soard to the ordinary shark, however, our divers actually sought the the Three or four of our divers would go out in a boat and allow the school of sharks Then one man, possessed of more nerve than the rest, would bend over the side and smartly prick the first one he came across with a spear taken out for the purpose The moment he had succeeded in this the other occupants of the boat would co at the top of their voices, at the sahten away the sharks This invariably succeeded, but, a to relate, the shark that had been pricked always came back alone a few minutes later to see what it was that had pricked him Care has to be taken not to inflict a very severe wound, because the moment the other sharks taste the blood of a wounded companion, they will immediately turn upon hi in the direction of the boat, the Malay who has accosted him in this way quietly jumps overboard, armed only with his small knife and a short stick of hard wood, exactly like a butcher's skewer, about five inches in length, and pointed at each end

The man floats stationary on the surface of the sea, and, naturally, the shark makes for hilides out of his ith a few deft strokes of the left hand, whilst with the right he deliberately plants the pointed skewer in an upright position between the open jaws of the expectantThe shark is, of course, unable to close its mouth, and the water just rushes down his throat and chokes hihtly as to prevent the escape of water through thereatest possible coolness and nerve to kill a shark in this way, but the Malays look upon it as a favourite recreation and an exciting sport When the monster is dead its slayer dexterously cli his knife into the shark's head to serve as a support and means of balance, the conqueror is towed back to the shi+p astride his victim by means of a rope hauled by his companions in their boats

Afterpearls, our food and water supply began to give out This induced Captain Jensen to make for the New Guinea main in order to replenish his stores We soon reached a likely spot on the coast, and obtained all that anted froave theht- coloured cloth Indeed, so friendly did our intercourse become that parties of our divers often went ashore and joined the Papuans in their sports and games On one of these occasions I ca reseh It could climb trees like an opossueons, too, which were very plentiful in these parts, were as large as a big fowl The headman, or chief, took quite an interest inout the beauties of the country He even showed me a certain boundary which he advised us not to pass, as the natives beyond were not under his control One day, however, a party of our Malays, accompanied by myself, imprudently ventured into the forbidden country, and soon cae, at which we halted The people here were suspicious of us from the first, and when one of e rose against us, and we had to beat a retreat We were ain, when the friendly chief canant tribes the the shi+p, which was anchored within a mile of the coast, Jensen co fairly swa on board with fruit and vegetables for barter He said he was getting quite nervous about the crowds that swarh they had a perfect right to do so

”I don't like it,” said the captain, ”and shall have to put , when the usual batch of native canoes calethis to them, our friend the chief himself arrived, accoether with the now friendly dignitary whose wrath we had aroused the previous day They were all full of dignity and anticipation Captain Jensen, however, was obdurate, and refused perh for the chiefs They went away in high dudgeon, followed immediately by all the other canoes and their occupants When all had disappeared, a curious stillness came over the shi+p, the sea, and the tropical coast, and a strange sense of ier seemed to oppress all of us We knew that we had offended the natives, and as we could not see a single one of the over their grievance We hed anchor and made for the open sea, only unfortunately there was a perfect calm, and our sails, which were set in readiness for a hasty departure, hung li out anxiously over the side in the direction of the shore, ere amazed to see at least twenty fully-equipped war-canoes, each carrying fro the headland, soht for our shi+p Now my shrewd Dutch partner had anticipated a possible attack, and had accordingly armed all the Malays with toht be made to board the schooner We had also taken off the hatches, and made a sort of fortification with theuns, loaded our little cannon, and prepared toodds In spite of the danger of our position, I could not help being struck with the reat fleet of boats now fast advancing towards us The warriors had all assu decorations, hite stripes painted round their dusky bodies to strike terror into the beholder Their head-dress consisted offrom the hair, which they had ht froh, surure- head The war-canoes were propelled by twelveon either side When the first cans that they were not to advance unless their intentions were peaceful By way of reply, they merely brandished their bows and arrows at us There was notheir mission

It was now quite evident that we should have toto the attack in such nuot on board Our position was rendered still more aard by the fact that all round the shi+p ropes were hanging down to the water, up which our divers used to cli These ropes were attached to a sort of hawser running round the outside bulwarks of the shi+p We had not even time to haul these up, and the ene purposes had they been allowed to get near enough It was therefore very necessary that some decisive step should be taken at once

While ere debating as best to be done, ere suddenly greeted by a shower of arrows froer I fired at the leader, as standing in the prow, and bowled hih his body, and then bored a hole lon in the side of the canoe The a the e done is quite beyond description; and before they could recover froht into their eneral halt in the advance

Again I ns to them not to co consultations were held, but while they were thus hesitating tenround the headland, and their appearance seee

Once more they made for our shi+p, but I was ready for them with the little cannon we had on board; it had been reloaded with grape after the first discharge With a roar the gun belched forth a second deadly hail against the advancing savages, and the effect was to demoralise them completely One of the canoes was shattered to pieces, and nearly all the men in it more or less seriously wounded; whilst the occupants of several other canoes received injuries

Quite a panic now ensued, and the fleet of canoes got inextricably mixed

Several showers of arrows, however, descended on our deck, and some of them penetrated the sails, but no one was injured The natives were too much afraid to advance any farther, and as a wind had now sprung up we deemed it time to make a dash for liberty We therefore quietly slipped our anchor and, heading the shi+p for the open sea, glided swiftly past the eneh sorely bewildered, warriors greeted us with a Parthian flight of arrows as we raced by In another half-hour ell out to sea, and able to breathe freely once more

CHAPTER II

The three black pearls--The fatal --Jensen and his flotilla drift away--Alone on the shi+p--”Oil on the troubled waters”--A substitute for a rudder--Ses attack--I escape froe h the big wave--I leap into the sea--How Bruno helped me ashore--The dreary island--My raft--A horrible discovery