"Hold, O Lakana!" he checked the speech that rushed to my tongue.
"I know what next you would say. You would say that with my own
eyes I did not see this, and therefore that I do not know what I
have been telling you. But I do know, and I can prove it. My
father's father knew the grandson of the Water Baby's father's
uncle. Also, there, on the rocky point to which I point my finger
now, is where the Water Baby stood and dived. I have dived for
lobsters there myself. It is a great place for lobsters. Also,
and often, have I seen sharks there. And there, on the bottom, as
I should know, for I have seen and counted them, are the thirty-
nine lava-rocks thrown in by the Water Baby as I have described."
"But--" I began.
"Ha!" he baffled me. "Look! While we have talked the fish have
begun again to bite."
He pointed to three of the bamboo poles erect and devil-dancing in
token that fish were hooked and struggling on the lines beneath.
As he bent to his paddle, he muttered, for my benefit:
"Of course I know. The thirty-nine lava rocks are still there.
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