THE MANTA, THE GOOD DEVIL I23 



— no more flimsy floats, but a line as thick as a finger con- 

 necting the arrow directly to the bows of the boat — and left 

 again for the island. 



At 4 p.m. we were still in the waters of Medecheri with 

 the boat dancing about as if it had been bitten by a taran- 

 tula. What a scene ! What had happened before this moment 

 was nothing by comparison. The events of the day had been 

 working up to a great finale. The appointment, on this torrid 

 African afternoon at the island of Medecheri and in the wide 

 bay of the Channel of Nocra, of thousands of cefaloni and 

 dozens of mantas was a gargantuan marine banquet, and 

 since we were in the middle of the honeymoon season of the 

 oceanic creatures, it was also a wedding banquet. The 

 mantas and the cefaloni had interrupted their love-making 

 to pounce upon the latest gastronomic surfeit. The males 

 gobbled the plankton to rebuild the muscles in their tails 

 and sides. The females gobbled it to feed the eggs and off- 

 spring in their bellies. But there was plenty for all. The sea 

 is big and the plankton is as thick as soup, covering the sea 

 with a heavy stinging awning. Now we understood the 

 mystery of the cefaloni. They, too, eat plankton, possibly 

 plankton alone. The boat ploughed through the foaming 

 hordes of cefaloni and they passed us with their curious silver 

 heads just under the surface, their mouths wide open, 

 guzzling up the soup. They looked at us with enormous 

 round eyes. The mantas unexpectedly zig-zagged across our 

 course, sending up great waves. Gigi was standing in the 

 bows with the gun while I controlled the boat as well as I 

 could. Suddenly the cefaloni made for an approaching tank. 

 A giant manta, as black as death, was heading straight at us 

 over the waves. It lifted the tips of its wings quickly and 

 rhythmically. Three boats like ours could pass between them. 

 The tips resembled the triangular fins of sharks in pairs. It 



