Page:Papuan Fairy Tales.djvu/166

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124
PAPUAN FAIRY TALES

His mother was watching anxiously in the doorway, and seeing her son thus hardly pressed, she ran quickly out and gave him the two big spears she had been guarding. The boar was very near when the lad, seizing Karaganigani, plunged it into the monster's side. Blood gushed out, but still the fierce beast came on. And now was the last chance. The boy, holding Karakatekate firmly, thrust with all his strength, and the boar fell under the stroke, and lay dead upon the ground.

Joy filled the hearts of the woman and her son at the fall of their enemy, and they beat upon the drum and danced for gladness. Then the lad cut up the flesh of the boar, and smoked great portions of it. Moreover, he made a raft, and placed thereon bristles which he had plucked from the dead boar's back. And he said to the bristles, "The waves and the wind will carry you to distant countries. Wheresoever ye see men who bear no marks of mourning ye must not land. But if mourners appear on that shore ye are to land. Go." And he sent the raft forth, and fell to beating the drum once more.

The little raft floated hither and thither as the wind blew upon it and as the waves drew it, and was carried nigh to a shore where children played. One among them spied the raft, and cried to his comrades that they should help him draw it to land. The children ran to do his bidding, but as their hands were stretched out to lay hold of the raft, it floated backwards until it was out of their reach. They