"It appears to me to be quite useless to attempt anything in the way of making a selection; the only thing that we can do is to take the oysters as they come, shovel them into the net until it is full, and then signal to those in the boats to draw them up. And, while doing this, we must keep a wary eye for sharks--not that the creatures could hurt us, attired, as we are, in this armour, but there is this danger, that we might be seized and carried so far away before we could free ourselves that it might be impossible to find our way back to the boats. If, therefore, any of them should appear upon the scene, we must use our daggers, and that right quickly." The surrounding water was, however, quite clear of everything of a menacing character at that moment. The two men therefore got to work, spreading the mouths of their nets wide open, and simply shovelling the oysters into them until they were full, when they signalled to those in the boats to haul them up. This process they continued for something over an hour, until the boats were about half-full, and the time had arrived for them to return to the island. The return journey was uneventful, except in so far as it showed them that the boats were loaded quite as deeply as was desirable for the safe negotiation of that part of the passage which lay to windward of the atoll; and when once they were safely inside the lagoon, they proceeded straight to the spot already chosen by them for the purpose, and discharged their cargoes into the shallow basin of rock. This afternoon's haul amounted to some thousands of oysters, but they now saw that the basin was sufficiently capacious to accommodate at least a fortnight's catch, reckoning upon the basis of their afternoon's work.