782 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



round hiim, begging him to return, and, though he could not un- 

 derstand why they were so anxious, he returned. 



Three days later, seeing the young fishes again at play, he a 

 second time left the house to go and look at them. Now, since he 

 had taken up his abode in the sea, he had acquired some of the 

 peculiarities of fishes, among others the emission of a phosphores- 

 cent light by night ; and, coming too near the surface of the water, 

 he was seen by some fishermen in a canoe, who immediately 

 speared him, thinking him to be an unusually fine fish. He cried 

 out for help, and his wife's relations hastened to his assistance. 

 They endeavored to drag him down to the bottom of the sea, but, 

 finding that all their efforts were unavailing, and that the fisher- 

 men were still pulling him np, they begged a shark that was 

 swimming by to bite through the fishing line that was fastened 

 to the spear. The shark immediately complied, and the man was 

 once more at liberty. He was taken back to the house, the spear 

 was drawn out of his body, and by means of dressings which 

 were applied the wound soon became healed. 



This narrow escape had much frightened his wife's relations, 

 and as soon as the man had recovered they told him that he could 

 not stay there any longer, lest some other accident should befall 

 him through his imprudence. Therefore they sent him back to 

 the land with his wife, giving him as a parting gift the spear, 

 which they specially charged him to keep carefully concealed. 



When they returned to the shore the two went back to their 

 former abode, and the man carefully hid the spear in the thatch 

 of the roof. The house in which they lived formed one side of a 

 central court, and other families lived in the houses on the three 

 other sides. In one of these houses was the owner of the whole, 

 and some years after the return of the husband and wife from the 

 sea he determined to put new thatch on all the houses. 



After he had got the grass all ready for rethatching, he began 

 taking the thatch off the house in which the man and his fish wife 

 lived, and had hardly taken off three armfuls before he discovered 

 the spear, which the man had forgotten all about. Directly the 

 house-owner saw the spear, he knew it by the marks on it, and 

 said, " This is mine." He said that he had lost it one night when 

 out fishing ; that he had speared a large fish with it, which had 

 broken the line and escaped. " How did you get it ? " he asked 

 the husband. 



The husband pretended not to hear, but the house-owner re- 

 peated the question. Then the husband said he did not know the 

 spear was there, but the house-owner said he did not believe him. 

 He called him a thief, and said he would bring a palaver before 

 the chief, because he had stolen the spear. Then the man was 

 obliged to tell all to clear himself, and the house-owner was satis- 



