Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
38 
comrades swing their rods, and add fish after 
fish to the quivering heap below. Time enough 
for them to smoke, they think, when the fish 
are gone—and then, suddenly, with an almost 
noiseless “ flur-r-r ! ” they are gone, and the 
white man laughs ; he knows that there will 
be no more atu to-day. For there, swimming 
swiftly to and fro upon the now quiet surface 
are half a dozen pala , the dreaded foe of the 
bonito for all time. 
The canoes come to a dead stop ; the shoal 
of atu have dived perhaps a hundred fathoms 
deep, and will be seen no more for many an 
hour. And so the natives sit down and smoke 
their pipes, and hurl reproaches and curses at 
the pala for spoiling sport. 
“ Why grumble, Muliao ? ” asks the white 
man of his friend. “ See, already the canoes 
are weighted down with fish. But yet let us 
catch one of these devils before we return to 
the shore.” 
“ Meitake ! Aye, that shall we, though who 
careth to eat of pala when bonito is to his 
hand ? But yet to punish these greedy devils 
for coming here-” and Muliao takes from 
the outrigger a coil of stout three-stranded line, 
