The pearl lagoon

For some months past, my daily stint at the typewriter has been cheered by an ambitious hope: that this story might prove entertaining to the young--the finest of all audiences....

"In those days there was a famous Catholic school on Mangareva in the Gambier group, and one year, at Christmas time, a brig set sail from Tahiti for the South, with a cargo of...

"Somehow, as I read this letter, I was convinced that what the woman said was true. There are nearly a hundred square miles in Iriatai Lagoon, and though my men did a good deal...

The mate had been listening intently to Pahuri's tale, and at Uncle Harry's words he dropped Rairi with an air of surprise, as if he had forgotten him. The cook had fainted; we...

When Taura's family assembled for a meal, all of their cooked food came from the native oven, under the shed behind the house. Their method of cooking seemed to me--and still se...

While Fatu was paying out the anchor line, I took the glass and leaned over to see what I could make out. The water was about twelve fathoms deep, and far down beneath the whale...

A minute passed--a minute and a quarter--a minute and a half. The canoe lurched to a sudden strain on the taut basket-line. I looked over the side. Far down in the green water I...

"We can always get plenty when the weather is calm," I said, "in fact it only takes a third of our time to catch more fish than the Tara can use. We were speaking of this to-day...

I was becoming infected with my companion's excitement. Ever since we had begun to dive I had heard stories of famous pearls, taken throughout the group in years gone by, and th...

It was an old game to me, but one of which I never wearied. We bent our backs and dug our paddles into the sea. The light canoe flew over the swells at a pace that left a wake o...

While the schooner lay alongside the Papeete wharf (I thought), discharging the load of shell of which my uncle had spoken, Rairi must have made the acquaintance of Schmidt. Our...

Before he had finished I was at the door. "Raita!" I whispered; and when I heard her answering voice, I told her that I planned to escape through the porthole and swim ashore. K...

Maruia woke us with a tray of breakfast, steaming hot from the galley. The sun was high, and glancing through the door, I could see my uncle, bending over some papers at his tab...

Maruia took her place cross-legged on the floor, and a boy placed in her hands a great piano-accordion, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. In the silence which proved the interest of...