Odyssey From Africa 9b

Odyssey from Africa Chapter 9b (continued) And this pattern was repeated On the following day's journey As the day turned into evening They again found rocky shoreline So once more they hunted shellfish This time needing to dive deeper And the children now competed In the deepness of their diving Lisa filled her lungs and plunging Deeper than her brother Matto Swam toward a rocky reef face Looked for brightly coloured scallops From the reef a frond extended Soft, unfolding, lined with suckers Grabbing Lisa by one ankle Pulled her down to murky darkness Matto, trying to out-do her Deepest dive saw Lisa struggling For an instant glimpsed the terror In her eyes, then had to surface Matto called out to his father That an octopus had Lisa! Han was too far off to save her, Shouted back with dire instructions Matto grimaced at the prospect But without a moment's pausing Turned back to the sea and leaping, Pitched into the foamy water Diving swiftly to the reef-face Matto saw the monstrous mollusc Tentacles wrapped all round Lisa To its ugly beak it pulled her As its bulbous eyes fixed on him Matto swam straight at the creature Sank his teeth between those eyeballs Biting deep into the brainstem Then he bit again, yet deeper Cloudy darkness spread all round them As the octopus, now dying Squirted ink into the water Matto reached and found his sister Wrenched aside the clinging tendrils And the siblings, lungs near bursting Swam up to the shimmering sunlight As they broke the surface, gasping Han was by them in the water Strong arms helped the children shoreward Only Kwona staying land-bound Wearing the Ipiki necklace And with Rosy close beside her Who was anxious and disquieted Seeing Lisa in the water Where the monkey could not follow Now both parents hugged their children Once again they celebrated Rescue from a deadly danger Lisa rested in the sunlight With her mother sitting by her Han and Matto turned however Back toward the breaking sea swells Diving both beneath the surface Down they swam toward the reef-face Saw the octopus which strangely Was contorted in its dying Two sand sharks already circled Round the octopus now drifting Limply in the swirling eddies Han and Matto took a handhold On a tentacle and lifting Both together swimming upward Raised the now distending mollusc Languidly toward the surface