DIVER CUTS OFF HIS OWN LEG

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 190, 28 August 1937, Page 17

DIVER CUTS OFF HIS OWN LEG

THE MAN CAME DOWN through the coconut palms, across the sand, and waded into the creaming surf cf the bay, writes Norah Burke, in Chambers 's Journal, Edinburgh. A Papuan, he was dark and. short. The sun ehone off his nearly naked body, giving his skin the oily glister of a fresh-peeled hoxse-chestnut. A scrap of girdle about his loins, a cane armlet, a necklace of dog's teeth, shells, and seeds a Uose-stick made of a eliver of clam shell, and turtle-shell earrings, were his only dress. Through the warm bubbling surf he pushed ahead of Kxm a simple dugout canoe, into which he presently sprang. He set his course for the coral-reefs, which, because of the surf breakixig on them, could seen as a splinter of white in the rieh indigo of the sea. As he sped across the water, the ocean pulsed with a hundred fitful eolours ardund him — turquoise-green, cobalt, and violet, with amethyst, beryl, aquamarine, and purple. Presently he anchored the canoe on the Teef by driving the blade of his polished stone axe into the coral and attaching the boat to it by a grass rope. Then he secured the two daggers- in his girdle: one had been fashioned from the thigh-bone of a cassowary, the other from a croeodile's jaw. At length he dived frogwise into the. water, and disappeared . beneath the surface. The diver had taken a deep Breath ' before leaving tho air, and it was not ' until a miuuto lulcr that his frizzy head broko ili" ulitlcriiig 9ea. Ho 1 sliook liis hair vigyrouslv, and a veil of * «ilvcr drops £e\v out from it. Iiaving xchxained above water on'o

Encounter With Shark CAUGHT BY SHELL-FISH

''ong enough to throw ten or a dozon trepangs into his boat, the Papuan dived again. These slug-like fish would later be sun-dried, smoked, and stored for eating with the wild sago and swcet-p.otato which were his stajf of" life. " Again and again the man dived and Teturned with trepangs. He must have beeu down six or eight times before he saw the little shark. The water around him was a luminous blue-green, in which he could discern, as through a gauze, the shapes of gorgeous eolours of the living coral. Little dazzling fish — underwater Dutterflies — flashed and hovered over the coral, which, like cushions of saxifrage^ flowered in this drowned garden of the isea. He saw the shark 's shadow on the reef boforo he saw the fish. It was only a small shark, but the man held one of his boue daggers ready. The shark swirled once round tho man, and the Papuan, using an old trick, opened his mOuth to let out three or four bubbles. At the sight of theso strangc silver i'rogs, loosed and spceding up at him, tlxc sluu'k sped away. | The man for a moment considered'

xeturning to the surface, but deciderl at once that, as he had not yet been down half the length of time he could manage, and as there were sure to bo a nramber of trepangs Beyond that pale pillow of coral, he would stay tho usual time. Holding himself down with his hands, his whole inind on the shark, ho took thrCe steps forward and trod upon the pale pillow. His bare foot struck something slimy and soft, and instant realisation came to him that this was the opon mouth of a giant clam, and he had touched tho sliell' fish inside. But instant realisation was not enough^ and the fluted rosy lips of the shell clinehed shut as if he had trodden in a bear-trap. ' Excruciating, sickening agony shot up his leg from the crushed flesh and bruised anklebone, but the man writhed under it for only a few seqonds. If hc meant ever to reach the surface alive, he must act quickly. Instantly he had begun to feel that the air in his lungs was stale. Already he was suffering ; the anguish of not being able to draw tho next long cool brcath. Already tho panie of not being able lo broatho frcely was in his heart and lungs. He

had travelled from peace to this supreme terror in the space- of a few seconds. 'With mad fingers he thrust his crocodile dagger in the slit of the shell to prize it open. Useless. The blade snapped in two. There was nothing for it but to cut his foot off. Teeth elenched, he drove the other dagger deeply into the flesh and slashed the blade out, cutting the limb half through. Then, fainting with .horror, he found that he was going to be too weak to sever the bone. Blood swirleif round the ankle in a ruby mist, and the little shark, attraeted, cruised nearer. Across the maix's tortured consciousness fiashed tho knowledge of the shark ;s presencc, and instinctively, dagger in hand, he turned to face tho fish. The shark, lured beyond resistance by the sight and savour of the blood, sx\ ooped like a stoel-like lorpedo at the wound on the leg; rolled to shoxv a blanched' underside and crescent mouth. The man felt a pang of agony in his leg, and at the same moment slashed at the livid glistening belly of the .shark. The dagger went in up to the hilt and was wrenched from his palsied fingers. But the next instant the shark had whirled off, and the man, fainting and failing, found that he was free.. His leg had been severed as by a surgeon's knife. With lungs heaving and Tetching for tlie breath of life, the Papuan broke the surface of the sea, whore he lay a\ 'iilo doing little else but breullie long and deeply of the golden air. Then he tnrncd and swam painfully towards Ms boat.