Then all about us I saw the water sprinkled with the white bellies of fish, some quite dead, and others swimming in a feeble, purposeless sort of way with their tails. The next moment there were six big splashes, and I saw six pairs of brown legs disappearing into the water, after which heads and arms bobbed up, and it began to rain fish into the boat. They ran from eight to eighteen inches in length, and from two to six pounds in weight, and so I took some pains to dodge them as they came flying up out of the water. They were something like bass, but they had the heads and tails of mackerel, and they swam like lightning—of course, before they struck the dynamite. I have often watched, in clearer waters, the sharks hunting shoals of them. The Caledonian shark can get a tremendous speed on him. I have seen a twelve-footer carried clean out of the water by the impetus of his rush. But the way these things dodged them just at the moment that they turned over to make their grab was simply marvellous. You would see a shark plunge into the midst of a swarm of them. The long, blue-grey body would turn over, the mouth—the ugliest mouth in all creation—would open, and the tripled-armed jaws would clash together on a mouthful of empty water. Every fish had vanished, and brother shark would give a disgusted wriggle, and go on the prowl again. Escapes of this kind were, of course, due to inherited wisdom, but dynamite was a recent experience, and the fish fell victims to it through sheer curiosity. When the cartridge dropped into the middle of the shoal they naturally scattered in all directions. Then they came back to see what had fallen into the water, and after that came the catastrophe. Those who died were victims to curiosity. Those who escaped would probably be about the most scared fish that ever wagged a fin. The effect of the dynamite on those who did not escape was most extraordinary. In every case the vertebral column was broken just behind the head, and the heart was as cleanly divided as if it had been cut with a razor. When we had our boat about half full we started in pursuit of bigger game. The shock of the explosion had startled the sharks, who, like all bullies, are mostly cowards, and the Kanakas had kept them away by beating the water every now and then with their hands in their usual fashion. So our dripping, laughing crew, sure now of a splendid feed, pulled merrily down the bay to a point on which we landed two of them and the dynamiter. They crept stealthily along the tangled shore till one of the Kanakas stopped and pointed to three little black spots on the surface of a tiny jungle-fringed bay.