Hino , the Apostate. 
335 
Tati’s men seized a young girl named Lea 
and threw her over. She tried to climb up the 
side of the canoe again, but Tati pressed his 
hand on her head and kept her back. Then 
one of the sharks swam slowly up, and, turning 
over, he took one foot in his jaws and bit it off, 
and then spat it out again. 
“ ’Tis a good omen,” said Matara, and he 
took hold of the girl by her hair and drew her 
back into the canoe, and the three sharks swam 
away and were seen no more. 
“ This,” said Matara, the priest, touching the 
girl with his foot, “ is the gift of the gods to 
us to keep us from death, else had they eaten 
her.” 
And then because of the great hunger that 
made their bellies to lie against their back¬ 
bones, and because they dared not cast away 
the gift of the gods, they struck a wooden 
dagger into the girl’s throat, and cooked and 
ate her, and while they ate the wind came 
from the south and filled the mat sails of the 
canoes, and in the dawn they sailed into the 
lagoon of Vahitahi. So from that day Tati 
made offerings daily to the sharks that swam 
outside in the deep water, by casting them 
