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A. - -THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS - -BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -CONTENTS - - BOOK I - - I The Canoe Builder - II The Revolt of the Old Men - III The Little Ships - IV The Gates of Morning - V Civilization Peeps in - VI The Men of the “Kermadec” - VII The Pearl - VIII The Mind of Sru - IX Cashi - X The High Island - XI The Tragedy - XII They Make South - XIII South - - BOOK II - - I The Maid of Aioma - II War - III The Return to the “Kermadec” - IV The Mind of Kanoa and the Rising Moon - V Night, Death and Passion - VI Morning - VII The Vision - VIII The Cassi Flowers - IX Vengeance - - BOOK III - - I Le Moan Will Know - II The Three Great Waves - III The Second Apparition - IV What Has Happened to the Reef? - V Mainsail Haul - VI Voices of the Sea and Sky - VII Islands at War—the Open Sea - VIII We Shall not See Marua Again - - BOOK IV - - I E Haya - II Aioma Curses the Wind - III He Has Turned His Face from the Sun - IV What Happened to Rantan - V What Happened to Rantan (continued) - VI What Happened to Rantan (continued) - VII The Battle and the Victory - VIII What Happened to Rantan (conclusion) - IX The Green Ship - X Aripa! Aripa! - XI The Green Sickness - XII The Release of Le Moan - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -“The Gates of Morning” - - -BOOK I - - -CHAPTER I—THE CANOE BUILDER - -Dick standing on a ledge of coral cast his eyes to the South. - -Behind him the breakers of the outer sea thundered and the spindrift -scattered on the wind; before him stretched an ocean calm as a lake, -infinite, blue, and flown about by the fishing gulls—the lagoon of -Karolin. - -Clipped by its forty-mile ring of coral this great pond was a sea in -itself, a sea of storm in heavy winds, a lake of azure, in light -airs—and it was his—he who had landed here only yesterday. - -Women, children, youths, all the tribe to be seen busy along the -beach in the blazing sun, fishing with nets, playing their games or -working on the paraka patches, all were his people. His were the -canoes drawn up on the sand and his the empty houses where the war -canoes had once rested on their rollers. - -Then as he cast his eyes from the lagoon to the canoe houses his -brow contracted, and, turning his back to the lagoon he stood facing -the breakers on the outer beach and the northern sea. Away there, -beyond the sea line, invisible, lay Palm Tree, an island beautiful -as a dream, yet swarming with devils. - -Little Tari the son of Le Taioi the net maker, sitting on the coral -close by, looked up at him. Tari knew little of life, but he knew -that all the men of Karolin swept away by war had left the women and -the boys and the children like himself defenceless and without a man -or leader. - -Then, yesterday, from the northern sea in a strange boat and with -Katafa, the girl who had been blown to sea years ago when out -fishing, this strange new figure had come, sent by the gods, so the -women said, to be their chief and ruler. - -The child knew nothing of whom the gods might be nor did he care, -alone now with this wonderful new person, and out of earshot of his -mother, he put the question direct with all the simplicity of -childhood. - -“Taori,” said little Tari, “who are you?” (_é kamina tai_) - -Could Dick have answered, would the child have understood the -strange words of the strange story Dick might have told him? “Tari, -I come of people beyond the world you know. My name is Dick -Lestrange, and when I was smaller than you, Tari, I was left alone -with an old sailor man on that island you call Marua (Palm Tree), -which lies beyond sight fifty miles to the north. There we lived and -there I grew to be a boy and Kearney, that was his name, taught me -to fish and spear fish, and he made for me things to play with, -little ships unlike the canoes of the islands. And then, Tari, one -day long ago came Katafa, the girl who was blown away from here in a -storm. She lived with us till Kearney died and then we two were -alone. She taught me her language, which is the language of Karolin. -She named me Taori; we loved one another and might have lived -forever at Marua had not a great ship come there filled with bad -men, men from the eastern islands of Melanesia. They came to cut the -trees. Then they rose and killed the white men with them and burned -the ship and in our boat we escaped from them, taking with us -everything we loved, even the little ships, and steering for -Karolin, we came, led by the lagoon light in the sky.” - -But he could not tell Tari this, or at least all of it, for the very -name of Dick had passed from his memory, that and the language he -had spoken as a child; Kearney, the sailor who had brought him up, -was all but forgotten, all but lost sight of in the luminous haze -that was his past. - -The past, for men long shipwrecked and alone, becomes blurred and -fogged, for Dick it began only with the coming of Katafa to Marua, -behind and beyond that all was forgotten as though consumed in the -great blaze of tropic light that bathed the island and the sea, the -storms that swept the coconut groves, the mists of the rainy -seasons. Kearney would have been quite forgotten but for the little -ships he had made as playthings for the boy—who was now a man. - -He looked down at the questioning child. “I am Taori, Tari tatu, why -do you ask?” - -“I do not know,” said the child. “I ask as I breathe but no big -folk—madyana—will ever answer the questions of Tari— Ai, the fish!” -His facile mind had already dropped the subject, attracted by the -cries of some children, hauling in a net, and he rose and trotted -away. - -Dick turned his gaze again to the north. The question of the child -had stirred his mind and he saw again the schooner that had put in -to Palm Tree only to be burned by the Melanesian hands, he saw again -Katafa and himself as they made their escape in the old dinghy that -Kearney had taught him to handle as a boy. He saw their landing on -this beach, yesterday, and the women and children swarming round -him, he the man whom they considered sent by the gods to be their -chief and leader. - -Then as he gazed towards the north the memory of the men from whom -he had escaped with the girl stained the beauty of sea and sky. - -There was no immediate fear of the men who had taken possession of -Palm Tree; the men of Palm Tree had no canoes, but they would build -canoes—surely they would build canoes, and as surely they would see -the far mirror blaze of Karolin lagoon in the sky, just as he had -seen it, and they would come. It might be a very long time yet, but -they would come. - -Dick was an all but blook, a kanaka, a savage, and yet the white man -was there. He could think forward, he could think round a subject -and he could imagine. - -That was why he had sent a canoe that morning across to the southern -beach to fetch Aioma, Palia and Tafata, three old men, too old for -war, but expert canoe-builders, that was why when gazing at the -tribe in full congregation, his eyes had brightened to the fact that -nearly a hundred of the youths were ripening to war age, but under -all, lighting and animating his mind, raising daring to eagle -heights, lay his passion for Katafa, his other self more dear to him -than self, threatened, ever so vaguely, yet still threatened. - -War canoes! Did he intend fighting any invaders in the lagoon or as -they drew towards shore, or did he vaguely intend to be the -attacker, destroying the danger at its source before it could -develop? Who knows? - - * * * * * - -A hand fell upon his shoulder and turning, he found himself face to -face with Katafa, a lock of her dark hair escaped from the thread of -elastic vine that bound it, blew right back on the breeze like an -eagle’s feather, and her eyes, luminous and dark instead of meeting -his, were fixed towards the point where he had been gazing—the -due-north sea line. - -“Look!” said Katafa. - -At big intervals and in certain conditions of weather Palm Tree, -though far behind the sea line, became visible from Karolin through -mirage. Last evening they had seen it and now again it was beginning -to live, to bloom, to come to life, a mysterious stain low down in -the southern sky, a dull spot in the sea dazzle, that deepened by -degrees and hardened till as if sketched in by some unseen painter, -the island showed beautiful as a dream, diaphanous, yet vivid. - -With her hand upon his shoulder they stood without speaking, their -minds untutored, knowing nothing of mirage, their eyes fixed on the -place from which they had escaped and which was rising now so -strangely beyond the far sea line as if to gaze at them. - -They saw again the horde of savages on the beach, figures monstrous -as the forms in a nightmare, they felt again the wind that filled -the sail as the dinghy raced for safety and the open sea, and again -they heard the yells of the Melanesians mad with rum stolen from the -schooner they had brought in, and which they had burnt. And there, -there before them lay the scene of the Tragedy, that lovely picture -which showed nothing of the demons that still inhabited it. - -Then as Dick gazed on this loveliness, which was yet a threat and a -warning, his nostrils expanded and his eyes grew dark with hate. -They had threatened him—that was nothing, they had threatened -Katafa, that was everything—and they still threatened her. - -Some day they would come. The vision of Palm Tree seemed to repeat -what instinct told him. They would build canoes and seeing the -lagoon mirror-light in the sky, they would come. They had no women, -those men, and here were women, and instinct half whispered to him -that just as he had been drawn to Katafa, so would these men be -drawn to the women of Karolin. They would scan the horizon in search -of some island whose tribe might be raided of its women and seeing -the lagoon light they would come. - -Ah, if he had known, danger lay not only to the north, but wherever -greed or desire or hatred might roam on that azure sea, not only -amongst savages, but the wolves of civilization. - -To Dick there was no world beyond the world of water that ringed the -two islands; no Europe, no America, no history but the history of -his short life as the life of Katafa, and yet even in that life, -short as it was, he had learned to dread men and he had envisaged -the foundation of all history—man’s instinct for war, rapine and -destruction. - -Then gradually the vision of Palm Tree began to fade and pass, -suddenly it vanished like a light blown out and as they turned from -the sea to the lagoon, Katafa pointed across the lagoon water to a -canoe approaching from the southern beach. - -It was the canoe Dick has sent for the canoe builders and, leaving -the coral, they came down to the white sand of the inner beach to -meet it. - - -CHAPTER II—THE REVOLT OF THE OLD MEN - -Two women were in it, and as they drove it ashore beaching it with -the outrigger a-tilt, Dick, followed by Katafa, approached, and -resting his hand on the mast stays attached to the outrigger -gratings, he turned to the women, who, springing out, stood, paddles -in hand, looking from him to Katafa. - -“And the builders?” asked he, “where are they?” - -The shorter woman clucked her tongue and turned her face away -towards the lagoon, the taller one looked Dick straight in the face. - -“They will not come,” said she. “They say Uta Matu alone was their -king and he is dead, also they say they are too old. ‘A mataya -ayana’—they are feeble and near past the fishing, even in the quiet -water.” - -The shorter woman choked as if over a laugh, then she turned -straight to Dick. - -“They will not come, Taori, all else is talk.” - -She was right. The express order had gone to them to cross over and -they refused; they would not acknowledge the newcomer as their -chief, all else was talk. - -Several villagers, seeing the canoe beaching, had run up and were -listening, more were coming along. Already the subject was under -whispered discussion amongst the group by the canoe, whilst Dick, -his foot resting on the slightly tilted outrigger, stood, his eyes -fixed on the sennit binding of the outrigger pole as if studying it -profoundly. - -The blaze of anger that had come into his eyes on hearing the news -had passed; anger had given place to thought. - -This was no ordinary business. Dick had never heard the word -“revolt,” nor the word “authority,” but he could think quite well -without them. The only men who could direct the building of the big -war canoes refused to work, and from the tone and looks of the women -who brought the message, he saw quite clearly that if something were -not done to bring the canoe-builders to heel, his power to make the -natives do things would be gone. - -Dick never wasted much time in thought. He turned from the canoe, -raced up to the house where the little ships were carefully stored -and came racing back with a fish spear. - -Then, calling to the women, he helped to run the canoe out, sprang -on board and helped to raise the mat sail to the wind coming in from -the break. - -“I will soon return,” he cried to Katafa, his voice borne across the -sparkling water on a slant of the wind; then the women crouched down -to ballast the canoe, and with the steering paddle in his hand he -steered. - -The canoe that had brought Katafa drifting to Palm Tree years ago -had been the first South Sea island craft that the boy had seen. The -fascination of it had remained with him. This canoe was bigger, -broader of beam and the long skate-shaped piece of wood that formed -the outrigger was connected with it not by outrigger poles but by a -bridge. - -Dick, as he steered, took in every little detail, the rattans of the -grating, the way the mast stays were fixed to the grating and how -the mast itself was stepped, the outrigger and the curve of its -ends, the mat sail and the way it was fastened to the yard. - -Though he had never steered a canoe before, the sea-craft inborn in -him carried him through, and the women crouching and watching and -noting every detail saw nothing indicative of indecision. - -Now there are two ways in which one may upset a canoe of this sort -by bad handling, one is to let the outrigger leave the water and -tilt too high in the air, the other is to let the outrigger dip too -deep in the water. - -Dick seemed to know, and as they crossed the big lift of sea coming -in with the flood from the break, he avoided both dangers. - -The beach where the remnants of the southern tribe lived, was -exactly opposite to the beach of the northern tribe, and as both -beaches were close to the break in the reef, the distance from one -to the other was little over a mile. Then as they drew close, Dick -could see more distinctly the few remaining huts under the shelter -of a grove of Jack-fruit trees; beyond the Jack-fruit stood pandanus -palms bending lagoonward, and three tall coconut palms sharp against -the white up-flaring horizon. - -As the canoe beached, Dick saw the rebels. They were seated on the -sand close to the most easterly of the huts, seated in the shadow of -the Jack-fruit leaves; three old men seated, two with their knees up -and one tailor fashion, whilst close to them by the edge of a little -pool lay a girl. - -As Dick drew near followed by the taller of the boat women, the -girl, who had been gazing into the waters of the pool, looked up. - -She was Le Moan, granddaughter of Le Juan, the witch woman of -Karolin now dead and gone to meet judgment for the destruction she -had caused. Le Moan was only fourteen. She had heard of the coming -of the new ruler to Karolin and of his bringing with him Katafa, the -girl long thought to be dead. She had heard the order given to her -grandfather Aioma that morning to come at once to the northern beach -as the new chief required canoes to be built, and she had heard the -old man’s refusal. Le Moan had wondered what this new chief might be -like. The monstrous great figure of Uta Matu, last king of Karolin, -had come up in memory at the word “chief,” and now, as the canoe was -hauled up and the women cried out “He comes,” she saw Dick. - -Dick with the sun on his face and on his red-gold hair, Dick naked -and honey-coloured, lithe as a panther and straight as a stabbing -spear. Dick with his eyes fixed on the three old men of Karolin who -had turned their heads to gaze on Dick. - -Le Moan drew in her breath, then she seemed to cease breathing as -the vision approached, passed her without a word and stood facing -Aioma, the eldest and the greatest of the canoe-builders. - -Le Moan was only fourteen, yet she was tall almost as Katafa, she -was not a true Polynesian; though her mother had been a native of -Karolin, her father, a sailor from a Spanish ship destroyed years -ago by Uta Matu, had given the girl European characteristics so -strong that she stood apart from the other islanders as a pine might -stand amongst palm trees. - -She was beautiful, with a dark beauty just beginning to unfold from -the bud and she was strange as the sea depths themselves. Sometimes -seated alone beneath the towering Jack-fruits her head would poise -as though she were listening, as though some voice were calling -through the sound of the surf on the reef, some voice whose words -she could not quite catch; and sometimes she would sit above the -reef pools gazing deep down into the water, the crystal water where -coralline growths bloomed and fish swam, but where she seemed to see -more things than fish. - -The sharp mixture of two utterly alien races sometimes produces -strange results—it was almost at times as if Le Moan were confused -by voices or visions from lands of ancestry worlds apart. - -She would go with Aioma fishing, and with her on board, Aioma never -dreaded losing sight of land, for Le Moan was a pathfinder. - -Blindfold her on the coral and she would yet find her way on foot, -take her beyond the sea-line and she would return like a homing -pigeon. Like the pigeon she had the compass in her brain. - -This was the only gift she had received from her mother, La -Jennabon, who had received it from seafaring ancestors of the remote -past. - -Crouching by the well she saw now Dick standing before Aioma and she -heard his voice. - -“You are Aioma?” said Dick, who had singled the chief of the three -out by instinct. - -The three old men rose to their feet. The sight of the newcomer -helped, but it was the singling out of Aioma with such success by -one who had never seen him that produced the effect. Surely here was -a chief. - -“I am Aioma,” replied the other. “What want you with me?” - -“That which the woman had already told you,” replied Dick, who hated -waste of words or repeating himself. - -“They told me of the new chief who had come to the northern beach—_e -uma kaio tau_, and of how he had ordered canoes to be built,” said -Aioma, “and I said, ‘I am too old, and Uta is dead, and I know no -chief but Uta; also in the last war on that Island in the north all -the men of Karolin fell and they have never returned, they nor their -canoes.’ So what is the use of building more canoes when there are -no men to fill them?” - -“The men are growing,” said Dick. - -“Ay, they are growing,” grumbled Aioma, “but it will be many moons -before they are ready to take the paddle and the spear—and even so, -where is the enemy? The sea is clear.” - -“Aioma,” said Dick, “I have come from there,” pointing to the north; -“the sea is not clear.” - -“You have come from Marua (Palm Tree)?” - -“I have come from Marua, where one day Katafa came, drifted from -here in her canoe; there we lived till a little while ago when men -landed, killing and breaking and burning—burning even the big canoe -they had come in. Then Katafa and I set sail for Karolin, for -Karolin called me to rule her people.” - -“And the men who landed to kill and burn?” asked Aioma. - -“They are still on Marua; they have no canoes but they will build -them, and surely they will come.” - -Neither of Aioma’s companions said a word whilst Aioma stood looking -at the ground as if consulting it, then his eyes rose to Dick’s -face. Age and war had made Aioma wise, he knew men and he knew Truth -when he saw her. - -“I will do your bidding, Taori,” said he quite simply, then he -turned to the others, spoke some words to them, giving directions -what to do till his return, and led the way to the canoe. - -Le Moan, still crouching by the well, said nothing. Her eyes were -fixed on Dick, this creature so new, so different from any one she -had ever seen. Perhaps the race spirit was telling her that here was -a being of her father’s race miraculously come to Karolin, perhaps -she was held simply by the grace and youth of the newcomer—who -knows? - -Dick, as he turned, noticed her fully for the first time and as -their eyes met, he paused, held by her gaze and the strangeness of -her appearance, so different from that of the other natives. For a -moment his mind seemed trapped, then as his eyes fell he passed on -and taking the steering paddle pushed off, the wind from the -reef-break filling the sail of the canoe. - -Le Moan, rising and shading her eyes, stood watching as the sail -grew less across the sparkling water, watching as the canoe rose and -fell on the swell setting in from the break, watching as it reached -the far white line of the northern beach where Katafa was waiting -for the return of her lover. - - -CHAPTER III—THE LITTLE SHIPS - -The primitive canoe of the Pacific is a dugout—the trunk of a tree -hollowed and shaped into the form of a boat, so narrow in proportion -to its length as to be absolutely unstable but for the outrigger. - -The outrigger, a long skate-shaped piece of wood fixed to -port—always to port—by poles on a central bridge, is an apology to -the sea for want of beam, and the sea accepts it—on conditions. But -for the outrigger, no canoe of any size would dare the sea, but for -it the islands would have been sealed as between themselves, war -made impossible, and the drift of people between island and island -and between island and continent. - -Far away in the remote past some man once stood, the father of this -daring invention; little dreaming of the vast consequences of the -work to which he had put his hand. - -Dick at the steering paddle saw a figure on the northern beach as -they drew near. It was Katafa, waiting for him, the wind blowing her -girdle of dracæna leaves and her hand sheltering her eyes against -the sun. Standing just as Le Moan was standing on the southern beach -sheltering her eyes and watching the canoe that carried the first -man who had ever made her turn her head. - -Some children were playing near Katafa and a fishing canoe was -putting out near by, but he saw only Katafa. - -“Katafa,” said Aioma, who was crouched by the after outrigger pole. -“It is she sure enough, and they said she was dead and that her -ghost had returned bringing you with her, Taori, but the dead do not -return. Katafa, she was the girl under the taboo of Taminan, the -girl no man or woman might touch, and then one day she went fishing -beyond the reef and a storm took her and she was drowned, so they -said.” - -“She was not drowned,” replied Dick. “The wind blew her to Marua -where I was—I and another whose face I have near forgotten, Kearney, -he was called, and he made canoes but not like these, then one day -he went among the trees and did not return. Then the god Nan came to -the island and after him the men of Karolin who fought together so -that all were killed, and then came the bad men as I have told you -and would have killed us but we left Marua in the night.... Look, -there is the canoe we came in.” He pointed to the dinghy hauled up -on the beach. - -“O he! Taori!” It was Katafa’s voice hailing them from the shore, -glad, sweet, clear as a bell, yet far-carrying as the voice of a -gull. - -As Dick sprang out on the sands he seized her in his arms; parted -only a few hours, it seemed to them that they had been weeks apart. - -In the old days, even before he was born, his mother Emmeline had -never been at ease when separated from his father even by the -breadth of the lagoon, the demon that hints of mischance seemed -always at her ear. - -Dick seemed to have inherited with his power of love for Katafa, -something of the dread of mischance for the beloved. - -He embraced her, heedless of onlookers, though the only eyes to see -were the eyes of the children and of Aioma who had eyes for nothing -but the dinghy. - -As soon as his foot touched sand, the canoe-builder made for it -running like a boy, clapped his hand on the gunnel and then ran it -over the planking. - -The boats of the Spanish ship of long ago had been clinker-built and -had been destroyed in the fight, but he had seen bits of them washed -ashore on the southern beach. The dinghy was carvel-built and -entire, a perfect specimen of eastern boat-building over which the -canoe designer brooded forgetful of Dick and Katafa, the beach he -stood on and the sun that lit it. - -The idea of a boat built of planking and not hollowed out of a tree -trunk had been presented to him by the charred and shattered -fragments of the Spanish boats, but how to get planking and how to -bend it to the form he desired was beyond his imagination and beyond -his means. He saw vaguely that these boats of the papalagi were made -somewhat after the fashion of a man, with a backbone and ribs and a -covering for the ribs, he saw that by this means enough beam could -be obtained to enable the builder to dispense with the outrigger—but -then speed, where was there sign of speed in this thing squat and -ugly? - -In the early ages of the world in which Aioma still dwelt, ugliness -had only two expressions, the lines that indicated want of speed and -the lines that indicated want of strength. - -Dick, though brown as the canoe-builder and almost to be mistaken -for a true islander, was perhaps a million years younger than Aioma, -just as the dinghy was a million years younger than the fishing -canoe that had just brought him across the lagoon. In Dick, Aioma -saw the lines that indicated speed and strength, nothing more—he was -blind to the nobility of type expressed by that daring face, to the -far sight of the eyes and the breadth of the brow; in the dinghy -Aioma saw want of speed—he was blind to the nobility of type that -made this bud the sister of a battleship, made it a vertebrate as -against the dugout which has neither keel nor ribs. - -Then Aioma, standing in the sun, a plain canoe-builder and workman -in the sight of God and a critic as every true workman is, began to -deride the dinghy, at first with chuckles deep down in his throat, -then with a sound like the clacking of a hen, then with laughter -long and loud and words of derision. - -“Which end is which of this pig fish?” inquired Aioma of heaven and -Dick, “and he who made her, how many more did he make like her?” - -Dick, who had always connected the dinghy with Kearney, and who had -a sort of faith that Kearney had made her just as he had made the -little model ships, winced at the laughter of the old man. Perhaps -it was the white man in him revolting at the derision of a savage -over the works of the white man. However that may be, he turned and -ran up the beach to the house of Uta Matu which he and Katafa had -made their own. There in the shadow, on a hastily constructed shelf -stood the little model ships he had so carefully salved from Palm -Tree: the frigate, the schooner, the full-rigged ship and the whale -man, the last thread connecting him with civilization; toys of the -long ago, but no longer toys—fetiches from a world whose very -language he had lost, a world of sun and tall trees where like a -ghost in the sun dazzle moved a memory that was once a man—Kearney. - -He took the schooner from its rest and coming out with it, ran to a -great pool in the coral, calling Aioma to come and see what he who -made the dinghy had also made. - -The pool thirty feet long by twenty broad was ruffled by the breeze -from the sea, it was clear as crystal, coral floored—and a trapped -school of tiny fish no larger than needles, passed like a silver -cloud here and there. Dick on his knees launched the schooner and -Aioma standing bent with a hand on each knee watched her as she -floated on an even keel. Then on the merry west wind with helm -properly set and main boom guyed out she went sailing down the pool -to the east where Katafa had run to receive her. - -Aioma watched, then Dick running to the other end showed him how she -could sail almost against the wind. Dick knew every stick and string -of her, how to hoist and lower main and fore and how to set the head -sails,—had you placed him on a real schooner, he could have worked -her from his knowledge of the model, and Aioma watched vastly -intrigued; then, taking a hand, he got on his knees and the great -sun saw the builders of the future fleet of Karolin playing like -children, whilst the little schooner on its imitation sea sailed -from port to port, bowing to the ripples of the pool as the lost -_Raratonga_, of which it was the model, had bowed to the swell of -the great Pacific. - - -CHAPTER IV—THE GATES OF MORNING - -The break on the reef of Karolin faced due east. Like a harbour -mouth it stood, the only entrance to the lagoon, and through it at -ebb and flood the sea raced dancing round the coral piers, pouring -in and out swift as a river in spate. - -When the sun rose he looked straight through the break, and the -river of gold from him came level across the dancing waves of the -outer sea, rose at the break, as a river rises to flood the coral -piers and palms, passed through and spread on the quiet waters of -the lagoon. - -_Mayay amyana_—(the way—or the gates—of morning). Ages ago the name -had been given to the break and the people who gave it were not -speaking in the language of poetry, but of truth, for the one great -thing that entered these gates was not the moon, now shrivelled, now -full, now absent; nor the tides that altered in time and size; but -the morning, eternal, changeless and triumphant. - -This great sea gate was more to the people of Karolin than a way of -ingress and outgoing; it had a significance deep, almost religious, -and based on the experiences of a thousand years, for it was the way -to an outer world of which they knew little or nothing, and through -it came not only the tides of the sea and the first light of the -sun, but also whatever they knew or had known of the world beyond. - -The Spanish ship had come in, strange beyond belief, and canoes from -the Paumotus had brought war through it—trouble came through the -gates of morning no less than joy, and all the dead who had died at -sea had passed through them never to return. - -To Le Moan just as to Aioma and the others, the sea gate of Karolin -was a way and a mystery, a road, yet almost a temple. - -But through the gates of morning came other things than ships and -men. - -Sometimes on a dead calm night and generally at full of moon Karolin -lagoon would wake to the sound of thunder, thunder shaking the coral -and rolling back in echoes from the far reef, not the thunder of -nature, but the thunder of big guns as though fleets were at war on -the outer sea. - -Then if you came out on the beach you would see the shells bursting -in the lagoon, columns of spray rising ghostlike and dissolving in -the moonlight whilst the gulls, absolutely indifferent and roosting, -stirred never a feather, and the pirate crabs, white as ivory, stood -like carved things or went on their business undisturbed. - -Natives waking from their sleep, if they woke at all, would turn on -the other side and close their eyes again. It was only the _Matura_. - -Whip rays twenty feet broad and four feet thick, a school of them at -play, flinging themselves ten feet in the air and falling back in a -litter of foam and with a concussion striking the lagoon floor and -the reef; circling, pursuing one another in their monstrous play, -they would keep the echoes rolling beneath the stars, till, as if at -a given signal, silence would fall and the great fleet put out to -sea again bound for where no man could know. - - * * * * * - -Awakened from sleep one night, Dick came out on the beach with -Katafa. Used to the _Matura_ from childhood, she knew and told him, -and standing there beside her he had to believe that all this -thunder and disturbance was caused by fish. - -It was his first real initiation into the wonders of Karolin and the -possibilities of the lagoon water. Then, as time went on, in the -intervals of the tree-felling, a business in which nearly all the -women and boys took part, he would put out by himself to explore the -depths and shallows of this great lake that was yet a sea in itself. - -On the mind of Dick, almost unstained by the touch of civilization, -yet vigorous and developed owing to his civilized ancestry, the -world of Karolin exercised a fascination impossible to describe. - -Sight, that bird of the soul, could roam here unchecked through the -vast distances of sky or rest on a coral branch in the emerald -shallows of sea, pursue the frigate mackerel in its rush or the -frigate bird in its flight. Out on the lagoon he would crouch -sometimes with the paddle across his knees, drifting, idle, without -connected thought, environment pressing in upon him till his mind -became part of the brilliancy of sea and sky, of the current drift -and the wind that blew. - -All to the west of a line drawn from mid-reef to mid-reef lay oyster -beds, acres in extent and separated by great streaks of hard sand -where the fish cast black shadows as they swam, and the crabs -scuttered away from the drifting shadow of the canoe; near the -northern beach, in ten-fathom water lay the Spanish ship of long -ago, coral crusted, with the sea fans waving in the green and the -mullet flitting in the shadow of her stern, a thing almost formless, -yet with a trace of man’s handiwork despite all the work of the -coral builders, and still as death in a world where everything was -adrift and moving, from the fish sharks that lurked in her shadows -to the fucus blown as if by some submarine wind. But the strangest -thing in this world of water was the circular current which the -outflowing and incoming tides established in its centre, a lazy -drift of not more than two knots which was yet sufficient to trap -any floating thing and keep it prisoner till a storm broke the -spell. - -One day Dick ventured so far out that he lost sight of land. Sure of -his sense of direction this did not trouble him; he kept on allured -by clumps and masses of fucus torn loose by the last storm, and -drifting with the current, weed alive with sea creatures, tiny -crabs, ribbon fish and starry sea-growths brilliant with colour. - -Then he put back. But an hour’s paddling did not raise the reef; the -current was just sufficient to turn the nose of the canoe and he was -moving in that fatal circle in which all blind things and things -without sense of direction move. - -It was noon and the position of the sun gave him no help; sunset or -starlight would have put him all right but he had not to wait for -these. Then away off beyond a great patch of floating kelp and on -his port bow he suddenly saw a dark spot in the sea dazzle. It was a -canoe. - -Le Moan, as fearless as himself and with a far greater knowledge of -these waters, had been fishing along the bank that ran like a spar -from the southern beach straight out, shoaling the lagoon water to -four fathoms and at some places three. The Karaka bank it was -called, and in great storms the lagoon waves broke on it and it -showed like a pillow of snow. In ordinary weather nothing marked it -but a slight change of colour in the water indicating want of depth. - -Away beyond the spur of the Karaka bank, Le Moan saw a canoe adrift -and put towards it, guessing from its position and the fact that the -paddle was not at work that it was in the grip of the central -current. - -As she drew near she saw that the canoe man was Taori. She hailed -him and he told her that he had lost direction, then, telling him to -follow, she put her canoe about and struck the water with the -paddle. Though from the elevation of a canoe the horizon showed -nothing of the girding reef, her instinct for direction told her -exactly how they lay with regard to all the reef points. The -marvellous compass in her brain that never failed, and could have -steered a ship on the high seas as well as a canoe in Karolin -lagoon, told her that the village on the north beach lay over there, -and over there her home on the south beach, that the matamata trees -lay in such a position and the great palm clump just there. - -But as she steered she made not for the north beach where Dick had -launched forth and where he lived, but for the south beach where her -own home was situated. She said no word but steered, and presently -Dick following her saw across the narrowing lagoon the far off -Jack-fruit trees showing across the water. He knew them and that -this was the south beach and anxious to get back to Katafa, he would -have turned and made for the northern village where trees were also -vaguely, visible, but he felt tired, the paddle was heavy in his -hands—he wanted food and he was being led. - -Just as the circular current of the lagoon had been sufficient to -steer the canoe into a circular course, so was the leading of Le -Moan sufficient to bring him to the south beach. A canoe was lying -on the south beach and as Dick drew nearer he saw Palia and Tafuta, -the two old men companions of Aioma and fellow craftsmen in the art -of canoe building. - -They were standing by the canoe, in which a woman was seated, and -behind them stood the last habitable houses of the village, and -behind the houses three coconut trees, hard against the dazzling -pale blue of a sky that swept up to burning cobalt. Not a soul was -to be seen on all that beach but the two old men. - -Then came Le Moan’s voice as she hailed them. “O he, Palia, where -are the people, and what are you doing with that canoe?” - -And Palia’s voice answering. - -“The word came after you put out this morning calling us to the -northern beach for the building. We go. The rest have gone already -in the big canoe that brought the word.” - -Dick at once knew. Aioma yesterday had declared the work far enough -advanced to call in all hands including Palia and Tafuta, and the -remaining people of the southern tribe. - -“Then go,” came Le Moan’s voice as her canoe stranded on the -shelving sand, “but leave me those things and a knife.” She went to -the canoe and took out some matting, a basket made of coconut sennit -and a knife; as Dick brought his canoe ashore Palia and the others -were putting off. - -“You will follow us?” cried Palia as the paddles struck the water. - -“Some time,” replied Le Moan. She turned and began to build a fire -to cook the fish she had caught and a breadfruit. Dick, seated on -the sand with his knees up and his eyes following the far-off canoe, -scarcely noticed her. She was one of the island girls, and though -different from the others, of no account to him. An ordinary man -would have been struck by her beauty, by her grace, and the fact -that she was different from the others, but Katafa had blinded him -to other women; it was as though she had put a charm round him, a -ring rendering him inviolate to all female approach. - -Le Moan, building the fire and preparing the fish and putting the -breadfruit to bake, never glanced at him. He was there. The being -who had in some extraordinary way suddenly become part of her life -was there. This was no ordinary passion of a girl for a man, but -something far more recondite and rare; perhaps something half -evolved from the yearning of the civilization hidden in her for the -civilization in him, perhaps the recognition of race, and that he -and she were apart from the island people, those animals man and -woman shaped, but destitute of the something that moved like a flame -in her mind, lighting nothing—till now. - -He was hers just as the sun was hers. - -In this first dawn of a love that was to consume her being, she -would have died rather than tell him by glance or word the something -that filled her mind. - -The smoke of the little cooking fire went up like the smoke of an -altar. - -Who knows but perhaps woman cooking for man was the first priest, -the camp fire the first altar, man the first god, his food—the first -burnt offering. - -An hour later Dick fed, and rested, was pushing his canoe into the -water helped by his worshipper. - -Then she got into her canoe and accompanied him till the northern -beach showed clear before them, the village, and to right of the -village the great clump of matamatas, less by three than on the day -she had sighted them last. - -Here they parted company with the wave of a paddle, Le Moan -returning to the desolation of the southern beach, Dick not knowing -and not caring whither she went. - - -CHAPTER V—CIVILIZATION PEEPS IN - -Without looking back, she turned the nose of her canoe straight for -the southern beach. To left of her as she paddled lay the sea gate -where the tide was flooding round the coral and the breeze blowing -the gulls like snowflakes against the blue; to right the limitless -expanse of the lagoon; ahead the desolate beach, the ruined village -and the wild tangle of pandanus trees, their limbs wide-spreading as -the limbs of an elm, their fronds tossing like ill-kempt hair. - -She hauled the light canoe above tide mark, then, turning to the -right along the sands, she passed the trees and climbed the coral, -standing for a moment facing the south and the empty sea. Then, -turning, she gazed across the lagoon to where the far-away northern -beach showed its trees above the water dazzle. - -It was near full flood and the lagoon was brimming, the outer sea -coming in great sheets of smoky blue, whirls of amethyst and streaks -of cobalt between the piers of the break. Le Moan could hear the -suck of the water through the gates as distinct from the sound of -the breakers on the coral, beyond the sound of the breakers the -voices of the gulls, beyond the gulls the silence reaching to the -white trade clouds on the rim of the purple sea. - -She was alone, but for the matter of that, she had always been -alone, Aioma and the two old men and the women and children who -formed the last remnant of the southern tribe had never been her -companions; she had fished with them and helped in the cooking and -mat-making, talked with them, lived with them, yet in a way, dwelt -apart. - -It was the race difference, perhaps, or some bent of soul owing to -the fusion of races in her that made her a being quite alone, -relying on no one but herself—a creature apart, almost a spirit. She -had the power to lose herself utterly when gazing down into clear -water as on the day when Dick first saw her gazing into the pond by -the trees. Great distances held her in the same way should she give -herself over to them, and that strange flair for direction which she -shared with the gulls was less perhaps instinctive than psychic, for -the mind of Le Moan, eternally in touch with the wind, the sea, the -sun and the stars, was clairvoyant to the coming of storm and the -sea changes that brought the great tiger sharks into the lagoon, -altered the course of the mullet or drove the palu far from the -fishing banks to northward of the reef. - -Having stood for a while gazing to the north, she came back towards -the deserted houses and began to prepare herself some food; after -that there were lines to be mended and oap to be cleared from the -paraka patch and then came sunset and then the stars, and sleep -deeper than the great depths beyond the palu bank. - -Had Le Moan looked back across her past, she would have seen a -succession of days coloured like the day just dead, brilliancy -stretching away into years and opalled by rainy seasons and storms, -nights when dreams were unhaunted by human form till to-night, when, -towards dawn, a ghostly canoe man showed in the mirror of sleep -paddling towards her across a shimmering lagoon. - -Then as the dream broke up and the vision vanished, Le Moan awoke -beneath the last of the stars, awoke suddenly with fear clutching at -her heart and with eyes wide but still half-blinded with sleep. - -She sat up. The dawn was breaking and the fishing gulls were putting -out to sea; she could hear their voices through the sound of the -breakers on the reef. Nothing more, yet she listened, listened with -her eyes fixed on the great fan of light showing in the eastern sky -against which the gulls showed like withered leaves tossed on the -wind. - -Nothing. The sea breeze stirred the leaves of the breadfruit and the -branches of the pandamus palms and then fell flat, died out and -changed to the first stirring of a land breeze, the highest flying -gulls took colour and the ghostly lagoon took form. - -The girl rising to her feet swept the lagoon water with her eyes. -Nothing. Then, turning, she passed between the trees to the coral of -the outer beach and there, out on the ghostly sea and touched by the -light of dawn, she saw a ship. - -Years after the destruction of the Spanish ship, which had happened -before her birth, a whale man had put into the lagoon, cut wood, -taken on water, been attacked by Uta Matu, the chief of Karolin, and -escaped to the outer sea by a miracle. - -Uta would have sent her to the bottom of the lagoon after the -Spaniard, for in the depth of his ignorant but instinctive heart lay -the knowledge that the black man’s burden is the white man and that -civilization to the savage means death. - -Le Moan could still see as in a glass darkly the fight and the -escape of the whale man, and here again was a ship, different in -shape from the one of long ago, but arousing in her mind, from -association, an instinct of antagonism and dread. - -The ship, which had been standing off and on all night, was a -schooner, and now as the great sun heaved himself higher and golden -ripples broke the sea line, Le Moan watched her take fire, sail -after sail catching the light till on the newborn blue of the sea a -golden ship lay heaving to the swell, flown round by golden gulls, -whose voices came chanting against the breeze like the voices of -ghostly sailormen hauling in chorus. - -Then as she altered her helm and the wind shivered out of her -canvas, a boat was dropped, it ran up a sail and Le Moan, her eyes -shaded against the risen sun, saw the boat heading for the break. -She ran back amongst the trees and stood for a moment, her hand -pressed against her forehead, her mind in confusion, with one idea -only fixed and steadfast—Taori. - -Here was danger, recollection backed instinct, the powerful instinct -of a mind that could tell the north from the south without star or -compass, the coming changes of weather, the movement of the fish -shoals—the instinct that had awakened her with fear clutching at her -heart. - -Here was danger to Taori, and now as she stood her hand clasped on -her forehead, came the recollection, not only of Uta Matu’s fight -against the whale man, but of Taori’s words to Aioma about the bad -men on Marua and the necessity of building the war canoes and of how -the young men of Karolin would soon be ripe for war. - -But the canoes were not built and the warriors were not ready, and -here, suddenly from out of nowhere, had come this great canoe with -sails spreading to the sky. Uta Matu and his warriors and fleet were -vanished and Taori was unprepared. Then came the thought that the -boat making for the break was like the pilot fish that scouts ahead -of the tiger shark, it would come into the lagoon and if it found -food worth devouring, the tiger shark would follow. - -The village on the northern beach was invisible from the break, -owing to the trees and the crafty way Uta Matu had set it amongst -the trees. She remembered that. - -Then her heart suddenly took flame. She would save Taori. - -She left the trees and, taking the sand of the inner beach, she -began running towards the break. She would attract the boat to her. - -You have seen a bird attracting a man away from its nest, heedless -of its own fate, thinking only of the thing it loved; just so Le -Moan, facing the unknown, which was more terrible than the terrible, -sought now to save the being she loved with the love that casts out -fear. - -She had not run a hundred yards when the boat entered the lagoon, -heeling to the breeze and carried by the first of the flood, she -flung up her arms to it, then she stood watching as it changed its -course making straight towards her. - -It was an ordinary ship’s quarter boat, painted white, fitted with a -mast and lug sail, and Le Moan as she stood watching paralysed and -waiting for her fate, saw that she held four men, three kanakas, -whose naked shoulders showed above the gunnel, and a huge man, black -bearded and wearing a broad-brimmed white straw hat beneath which -his face showed dark and terrible as the face of the King of -Terrors. - -He wore a shirt open at the throat and his shirt sleeves were rolled -up showing arms white yet covered with black hair. As the boat -grounded and the kanakas sprang out Le Moan scarcely saw them; her -eyes were fixed on the great man now standing on the beach, Colin -Peterson, no less, one of the last of the sandalwood traders, master -and owner of the _Kermadec_—Black Peterson, terrible to look at, -swift to strike when roused, yet a man with kindness in his heart -and straightness in his soul. - -Poor Le Moan, had she only known! - -Peterson, sweeping his eyes over the empty and ruined houses and the -desolate beach, fixed them on the girl, spoke to her in a tongue she -did not understand and then called out: - -“Sru!” - -A kanaka stepped forward. He was a Paumotuan, a yellow man, and half -Malanesian, fierce of face, frizzy headed and wearing a necklace of -little shells. After a word with Peterson, he turned to Le Moan and -spoke to her and she understood. The language of Karolin was the -language of the Paumotas; those far-off islands in the distant days -had raided and fought with Karolin, in days still further removed -the first inhabitants of Karolin had drifted from the Paumotas but -neither Le Moan nor Sru knew aught of this nor of the common -ancestry which gave them power of speech. - -“I am here alone,” said Le Moan answering Sru. “My people are gone—a -storm took them all. There is no one here.” As she spoke her eyes -left Sru and wandered northward to the far trace of the northern -beach, the dread at her heart was lest Taori might, by some -ill-chance, put out fishing, show himself and be lost, but nothing -appeared, nothing but the far-distant trees above the sun blaze on -the water. - -She knew that the schooner was too far off and too much sheltered by -the southern reef for the people on the north beach to see her, that -Taori would be busy with the canoe building, yet the dread at her -heart drove her to repeat the words automatically like a parrot. -“There is no one here but me—my people are gone; a storm took them—I -am here alone.” As she spoke, she watched Peterson with side -glances. She had never seen a bearded man before, and this man with -the black curling hair reaching almost to his eyes seemed a monster. - -Whilst she was speaking, the other kanakas taking two large water -breakers from the boat began to fill them at the well, the well into -which she had been looking on the day on which she had first seen -Taori. - -Colin Peterson stood looking at them, he had half turned from Le -Moan and seemed to have forgotten her existence; then, shading his -eyes, he looked across and about the lagoon, but he was thinking -neither of the kanakas nor the lagoon. He was cursing Le Moan. - -He had no use for this girl. He had come ashore for water at this -uncharted island thinking maybe to find natives, never dreaming that -he would be faced by a problem like this. It was impossible to leave -the forlorn creature to her fate, yet what was he to do with her on -board of the _Kermadec_? Had it been a man or a boy the matter would -have been simple enough, but a girl? If he took her off he would -have to find her a home somewhere among the kanakas on one of the -northern islands. He was bound for Amao but he reckoned that place -was of no use—the kanakas were a bad lot. - -As he stood like this thinking and staring about her, Le Moan still -watched him, this terrific man who seemed searching with his eyes -for Taori. - -Would he believe her story—would he kill her? Old tales of the -terrible _papalagi_ chased through her mind like bats in the dusk -that had fallen upon her powers of thought—she did not know. She -only knew that she did not care whether he killed her or not as long -as he believed her story and departed without hurting Taori. - -Then, suddenly, the last breaker of water in the boat, Peterson -turned on Sru and shouted to him to fetch her on board. Perplexity -in Peterson generally expressed itself in blasphemy, and when Big -Feller Mass’r Peterson began to talk like that, Sru never waited for -the toe of the boot that was sure to follow. - -He seized Le Moan by the arm and pushed her to the boat; for a -moment she resisted, then she gave up, tumbled in and squatting -forward of the mast saw as one sees in a dream the straining -shoulders and tense arms of the kanakas, as, bending and clutching -the port and starboard gunnels, they ran the boat out; she saw them -tumble on board, felt the grating of the sand and then the -balloon-like lift of the waterborne keel; she saw the sail above her -take the wind and bulge hard against the blue of the sky; she saw -the flying gulls and the wheeling lagoon and the trees of the -southern beach vanishing to starboard as the boat headed for the -break, but always and above everything she saw the massive hand of -Peterson as he sat in the stern sheets with the tiller in the crook -of his elbow and his eyes fixed towards her and beyond. - - * * * * * - -Ai, the sea! What tragedies has it not been partner in? The sea of -storms, the blue laughing sea, the sea that now, lovely in the light -of morning was flooding gently with the first of the flood through -the gates of Karolin, lifting the boat to the outer swell as it -passed the coral piers where the gulls cried above the foam of the -breakers and the breakers answered to the crying gulls. - -If Peterson had killed Le Moan on the beach, she would have met her -death without flinching. Seated now watching Karolin drop astern, -her eyes never wavered nor softened—even her fear of Peterson had -vanished. It was as though she had died on passing the gates of the -great atoll and entered a land where personality was not, only -perception. A land of pictures that had no relationship to herself -or anything she had ever known. She saw as they came alongside the -white painted side of the _Kermadec_ with the ladder cast down, the -rail, and above the rail the great white sail spaces all a-shiver in -the wind. The faces of men looking down at the boat, the face of -Rantan the mate, and Carlin, a beachcomber picked up at Soma and -working his passage north. - -Then she was on the deck, which seemed to her broad and white as a -beach, and the extraordinary newness of this strange place took on a -cutting edge which pierced the deadness that had fallen upon -her—this place so vast to her mind that it seemed land of a sort. A -moment before, in the boat, the sea had been around her, but here -the sea was nothing, this place was everything. Taori, Karolin, the -reef, the ocean itself, all for a moment vanished, consumed by the -_Kermadec_ as by a flame. - -And not a soul took notice of her after the first few words of -Peterson to the Mate. They were busy getting in the boat and now as -the rumbling and threshing of the canvas above died out and the -sails filled hard against the blue came the voices of gulls, gulls -from the reef and deep-sea gulls flitting in the wake of the -_Kermadec_ that was now under way. - -Le Moan, feeling herself unnoticed, and moving cautiously, came to -the weather rail. She saw the reef and the distant trees of Karolin -and the following gulls now flying north and south as if giving up -the chase. Then the reef line passed from sight beneath the sea -dazzle and the voice of the reef and the crying of the gulls died -far off, whilst the treetops vainly fought with the ever-growing -distance, now clinging to the sight, now washed utterly away. - - -CHAPTER VI—THE MEN OF THE _KERMADEC_ - -Now on board that ship there were three men set there by -circumstance as pawns in a game of which Taori was king, Katafa -queen, and Le Moan perhaps the hand of the player, and these men -were Rantan the mate, Carlin the beachcomber, and Sru, bo’sun and -chief of the kanakas. - -Rantan, a narrow slip of a man, hard bitten and brown as a hickory -nut, was a mystery. Perfect in the art of handling a schooner, he -knew next to nothing of navigation. Peterson had picked him up as an -extra hand and, the mate dying of fever, Rantan had taken his place, -making up in general efficiency for his want of higher knowledge. He -had spent all his life amongst the islands and natives, he could -talk to Sru in his own tongue like a brother born, could pick up the -dialect of any island in a week, but had little to say in English. A -silent man who never drank, never smoked and never cursed. - -Peterson disliked him for no apparent reason whatsoever; he could -have got rid of him, but he didn’t. Sobriety is a jewel in the -Pacific, especially when it is worn by schooner mates. - -Carlin had come on board the ship just before she sailed from Soma. -He was a big red-headed man useless for anything but beachcombing, -he wanted to get up to “them Northern islands” and Peterson out of -the heart kindness that had made him take Le Moan on board, took -him. He made him work, yet gave him a bunk aft, thus constituting -him in a way one of the ship’s officers. - -Carlin was one of the unfortunates born with a thirst, but in his -case it only broke out on land, on board ship he had no wish for -liquor but the beach felled him as if with a pole-ax. - -Sru, the last of the three men, stood over six feet, stark naked -except for a gee-string. He was a man from the beginning of the -world. He could cast a spear and find his mark at fifty yards, his -nose was flattened, his cheek-bones broad and his face, especially -when his eyes were accommodated for distance, wore an expression of -ferocity that yet had nothing evil in it. Le Moan had no fear of -him. Indeed at the end of her second day on the schooner, she had no -fear of anyone on board. Instinct told her that whatever these men -might have done to Taori and the tribe, they would not hurt her. -Fortunately she never recognized how utterly useless had been her -sacrifice, never recognized the fact that Colin Peterson, so far -from hurting Dick, would have been his friend—otherwise she might -have cast herself overboard, for her sorrow was heavy on her and -wanted no extra weight. - -Peterson had given her over to Sru to look after and Sru had made -her a shake-down in the long boat. She fed with the kanaka crew, who -took their meals on deck, and became part of their family and tribe, -but she would not go into the foc’sle, nor would she go into the -cabin; those holes in the deck leading down below were, for her, -mysterious and terrific; she had peeped down the saloon hatchway and -seen the steps going down as into a well and the polish of the -handrail and a light below shining on a mat. It was light reflected -from the saloon, yet none the less mysterious for that and the whole -thing struck her with the enchantment that quite commonplace things -sometimes possess for little children, but it was an enchantment -tinged with the shadow of dread. - -She had no fear of the men on board yet she had a dread of the -saloon companionway, of the main boom, till it explained itself to -her, of the windlass with its iron teeth. The men, in spite of their -clothes and strange ways, shook down as human beings, but the wheel -that steered the schooner and the binnacle into which the steersman -gazed as he stood moving the spokes, forever moving the spokes of -the mysterious wheel, those things were mysterious and their mystery -was tinged with the shadow of dread. They were part of the unknown -that surrounded her: to the savage the thing unknown is a thing to -be feared. - -One day when Sru was at the wheel and the deck was empty, she -ventured to peep into the binnacle and saw beneath the glittering -glass like a star-fish in a rock pool the compass cord trembling -like a living thing. Had not the deck been empty so that she dared -to speak to Sru on this matter and had not he been in a mood to -answer her, the whole life of Le Moan would have been altered and -never again might she have seen Taori. - -“What is it,” asked she, glancing across her shoulder at the -steersman, “and why do you look at it so?” - -“This,” said Sru, indicating the wheel for which he had no word in -the native, “moves the steering paddle (_e caya madyara_) and into -that I look to find my way.” - -Now when Karolin had sunk beneath the sea rim the conviction had -come to Le Moan that never would she see Karolin again; her instinct -told her where it lay and, given a canoe, she could have found it -even at this great distance, but her knowledge of where it lay was -no comfort to her—she felt that the great hand that had seized her -would never let her go and that a door had closed forever between -this new world and the old where Taori dwelt safe owing to the -closing of the door. - -She glanced again at the binnacle and then speaking like a person in -reverie she said: “Without that I could find my way though the sea -were dark and no stars shone, as I have found my way often in the -fishing canoes when the land was so far it could not be seen.” - -Sru knew what she meant; at Soma in the Paumotus from where he had -come the directional instinct, shared more or less by all savages, -was especially marked in some of the children, and the deep-sea -canoes in those waters where the currents run in an unaccountable -manner and where the trade winds are not, depended on the instinct -of the steersman. - -He bade her close her eyes and turn and turn. “Where now lies the -land we have left?” asked Sru. Without opening her eyes and not -knowing east from west or north from south, she pointed aft almost -dead south. - -Sru laughed. She was right, the mysterious compass in her brain that -worked without error or deviation would have pointed to Karolin, -though a thousand miles away; then as he spun the wheel having let -the _Kermadec_ a point or two off her course, Le Moan went forward -and he forgot her, but he did not forget what she had told him. It -remained in his tenacious mind like a pebble in molasses, hidden, -but there till three days later when towards evening, the kanakas -were eating their supper on deck, Sru was brought face to face and -for the first time in his life with a great idea, an idea that -included tobacco not by the stick, but in cases, rum in casks, -women, barlow knives, chalk pipes and patent leather boots, also -canned salmon and seidlitz powders. - -Sru, an old pearler, had been in the last of the pearling at Soma -before the banks gave out. He knew the value of pearls. - - -CHAPTER VII—THE PEARL - -They were seated on the main deck near the galley, their coffee mugs -beside them and their plates on their knees and the _Kermadec_ on a -steady seven-knot clip was heeled slightly to starboard almost rigid -as a board, save for the sound of the sea as she dipped to the -swell. - -For days she had run so with the port rail raised against the white -fringe of trade clouds on the far horizon, a steady list from a -steady breeze warm and winged with the silver fins of flying fish, a -tepid sea-scented wind such as the north can never know, less a wind -than a revelation such as men try to express when they speak of the -breath of the tropics. - -The cook had served out the food, and as they ate he talked; he was -a big man with the voice of a child and he was talking of his native -village apropos of nothing and to nobody in particular, which is a -way kanakas have. - -Of the world around them, save for Soma and the southern islands and -the island in the north which a few of them knew, Sru, Peroii and -the rest of them were as ignorant as Le Moan. - -As they talked, the rosy light of sunset falling on them and -reflected by the fore canvas, Sru, who was seated by Peroii, saw the -wind lift Le Moan’s dark hair exposing the pearl charm she wore -behind the left ear—the double pearl, lustrous and beautiful, tied -in the hair so cunningly and betrayed by the wind. - -Le Jennabon had given it to her daughter as a protection against -drowning and mischance. More than that it was a love amulet, making -sure for the girl a happy married life with a man who would not -misuse her. Love amulet or not Le Jennabon had given to her daughter -a talisman of extraordinary power. Exposed by the wind for a moment, -it had spoken to Sru. It said clearly as tongue could speak, -“Karolin is a pearl lagoon.” Then as Le Moan raised her hand and -tucked the hair back behind her ear, Sru, who had paused in his -eating, went on with his food, his dark eyes fixed beyond Peroii, -beyond the vision of deck and mast and standing rigging, beyond all -things visible, upon wealth: cases of tobacco and rum in many -bottles, girls, clay pipes, a gun, and boxes of Swedish matches to -strike at pleasure. Karolin lagoon held all these things, the pearl -behind Le Moan’s ear told him that for a certainty, but Karolin was -far astern and he would never see it again, that also was a -certainty and before it the heart of Sru became filled with -bitterness. A few minutes ago he had been happy and free of care, -now his soul was dark as the sea becomes dark with a squall suddenly -rising and blowing up out of a clear sky. He had discovered a pearl -lagoon—too late. Leaving the others to finish their meal, he rose up -and dropped below into the foc’sle, there curled up in his bunk in -the gloom he lay to consider this matter. - -It was useless to speak of it to Peterson, he would never put the -ship back; even if he did he, Sru, would profit little by the -matter. He would maybe get a few sticks of tobacco for telling of -it, or a knife. Peterson, though kind-hearted enough to rescue Le -Moan, was a hard man where bargaining with natives was concerned. -Sru had an intimate knowledge of white men, or at least white -traders and their ways, and Peterson was a white man to the core. - -Then as he lay facing this fact, the idea of Rantan came before him. - -Rantan who could talk to him in his own tongue like a brother, who -was half a native as far as language and ideas went, and yet was a -white man. - -Though Rantan had no power to put the ship back, it came into Sru’s -mind that somehow or in some way this man, clever as all the -papalagi were, might be able to do something in the matter. Eased by -this idea he turned out of the bunk and came on deck. - -The sunset was just vanishing from the sky where in the pansy dusk -the constellations were sketching themselves above the vague violet -of the sea. Then, suddenly, like the closing of a door, the west -went dark and the stars blazed out and bloomed in full sight. The -wind, moist, and warm, blew steadily, and Sru, standing in the -draught from the head sails, looked about him, forward at the -bowsprit rising and falling against the sea stars and aft where the -white decks showed, the man at the wheel clearly visible and someone -leaning on the weather rail, Carlin to judge by his bulk. - -Rantan was nowhere to be seen. - -Close to Sru and hunched against some rope coiled by the windlass he -saw a figure. It was Le Moan. She was seated with her knees up and -her hands round her knees, and she seemed asleep—but she was not -asleep, for as Sru’s eyes fell on her, her face lifted and he saw -the glint of her eyes in the starlight. Those mournful eyes that -ever since her departure from Karolin seemed like the eyes of a -person in trance, of a dreamer who was yet conscious of some great -and real disaster. - -Sru instantly forgot Rantan. It seemed that somewhere deep in his -shadowy mind something had linked Le Moan with the pearl lagoon and -any chance of success in finding it again, raiding it, and turning -milk-white chatoyant pearls into sticks of tobacco, bottles of rum, -clay pipes and beads to buy love with. - -She had given him the indication of what was there, but it seemed to -him that she could do more than that. - -He crumpled up and sat down beside her on the deck and spoke soft -words, asking her what ailed her that she looked so sorrowful. -“For,” said Sru, “the storm that took your people has without doubt -taken many more in the island and will not give them back, not -though men weep forever—it is so, and it is so, and ever will be so, -and to eat the heart out for that which has been, is to feed -foolishly, for,” said Sru, “the coral waxes, the palm grows, but man -departs.” He was repeating the old Island proverb and for a moment -he had forgotten Karolin, pearls, gin bottles and the glory of -seidlitz powders in effervescence like the foam on the reef; he had -forgotten all little things and his words and voice broke up the -depths of Le Moan and the cause of her grief came forth. Otherwise -and soon she might have died of it. Conscious that Karolin was so -far in the past that it was safe to speak, she told Sru that no -storm had overtaken her people, that she had lied to Peterson so -that he might not discover and perhaps kill the being she loved; and -there, sitting in the showering starlight, she did that which she -had never done before even for her own inspection, opened her heart, -told, as a sleeper might tell in sleep, of her love for Taori and of -his beauty and strength and swiftness and of everything except that -which she did not know—the fact that Taori had a lover already, -Katafa. - -She spoke and Sru listened, absorbing her words and her story as a -kanaka will absorb any sort of tale he can understand. Then this -amazing savage who had spoken so poetically about the waxing of the -coral and the passing of man, this sympathizer who had spoken so -softly in addressing grief, leaning on his elbow began to shake with -laughter. - -He knew that big feller Mas’r Peterson would not have hurt a hair of -Taori’s head, that he did not want to take Le Moan off the beach and -had only done so because he imagined her unable to fend for herself. -He saw that Le Moan, trying to protect her lover against imaginary -perils had allowed herself to be sacrificed and snatched away from -everything she loved and cared for, that she had prepared for -herself the trap into which she had fallen—and all this to the mind -of Sru seemed a huge joke, almost as good as the joke of the drunken -man he had once seen, who, trying to cut wood with his foot on a log -had cut off his foot with the axe he was wielding. - -Sru giggled like a girl being tickled, then he burst out in snorts -like a buffalo in a temper, choked as though he had swallowed a -fish-bone and then began to explain. - -Began to explain and failed to hit the mark simply because Le Moan -could not understand why big feller Mas’r Peterson had taken her -away from Karolin. He did not want to take her away yet he had taken -her away. Le Moan could not understand that in the least. - -Le Moan could not understand pity, she had never come across it in -others and she had never felt it for herself. Had she been able to -pity herself, she would have flung herself on the deck weeping and -wailing when the _Kermadec_ turned her stern to the south and -dropped Karolin beyond the horizon. She had sacrificed herself for -the sake of the being who dominated her existence, she had dared the -most terrible of all things, the unknown, yet she could not in the -least understand why Peterson should do what he did not want to do -for the sake of a being, a stranger whom he had never seen before. - -To tell the truth Sru did not quite comprehend it either, he knew it -was so and he left it at that. It was one of the strange and -unaccountable things that white men were always doing. What -intrigued him was the fact that Le Moan had fooled herself in -fancying Peterson a dangerous man capable of injuring her lover and -that Peterson had fooled himself in believing her story. - -So he talked till Le Moan at last understood the fact that, whatever -Peterson’s object in taking her away may have been, he would not -have injured Taori, that if she had said nothing he would have gone -off after having filled the water breakers at the well, and as he -talked and as she listened dumb before the great truth that she had -sacrificed everything for nothing, slowly up from the subconscious -mind of Sru and urged by his talk, came an idea. - -“You will go back,” said Sru. “Listen, it is I, Sru, who am -talking—we will go back, you and I, and what tells me is that which -lies behind thy left ear.” - -Le Moan put her hand up to the amulet hidden beneath her hair. - -“We will go back,” went on Sru, “you and I and another man, and -perhaps more, all good men who will not hurt Taori—but Pete’son, -no—no,” he murmured as if communing with some dark spirit. “He would -swallow all. He alone knows the way across the sea, so that setting -the steering paddle this way or that he can go straight as the -frigate bird to Soma or to Nalauka or to what island or land he -chooses, he alone of the men on board this ship. But thou art wise -as he. Wise as the frigate bird that leaves the land far from sight -yet can return. You will guide us to Karolin. Can your eyes still -see that beach and where it lies?” - -Le Moan threw out her arms. - -“Though I were blind as the sand worm, I could find it,” said Le -Moan, “through night and storm—but when?” - -“No man can hurry the rising of the day,” said Sru, “but soon it -will come and soon your eyes shall fall upon Taori—that which lies -behind your left ear has told me, and it has told me more. Answer so -that I may know if it speak the truth. It has told me that thick in -that lagoon lie the shells of the _iyama_ (oyster) from whence it -came—is that true talk?” - -“Thick and far they lie,” said Le Moan, “from the _kaaka_ far as one -can paddle from the coming in to the middle of the tide.” - -“So,” said Sru, “it spoke the truth. When we make our return you -will go to meet Taori and we to find the _iyama_ for the sake of the -stones they hold, brethren of that which lies ... there.” - -He touched her hair behind her left ear and rose gliding off aft, -whilst Le Moan, whose life had suddenly come back to her, sat gazing -through night and beyond the stars at a sunlit beach where spear in -hand and lovely as the morning stood Taori. - -Taori who at that moment tired out with the labour of canoe-building -was lying asleep with his arm across the warm body of Katafa. - - -CHAPTER VIII—THE MIND OF SRU - -Now the mind of Sru had sat down to talk with Le Moan, having in it -no plan—nothing but a desire for pearls and what pearls would bring, -and the knowledge sure and instinctive that Karolin was a pearl -lagoon. It had risen up armed with a plan. - -This plan had come to him from his close contact and talk with Le -Moan. Brooding alone with nothing for his mind to cling to, it is -doubtful if Sru could have evolved a plan; the presence of the girl, -her connection with Karolin, her story, her wish to get back, the -fact that she was a pathfinder and the fact that Peterson, even if -he took the _Kermadec_ back, would take all the profit of the -business for himself—all these thoughts and considerations came -together in Sru’s mind and held together like a cluster of bees, -owing to the presence of the girl who was the core and centre of -everything. He would speak of the matter to Rantan. Sru understood -that Karolin was not on the charts, those mysterious pieces of paper -that enabled Peterson to find his way about, he understood that -Rantan had little knowledge of navigation, he only knew that were -they to steer south for as many days as they had steered north and -then hand the steering over to Le Moan, she would bring them to the -place desired. - -Give her the wheel right away and she would steer them back, but she -could not stand at the wheel for days and days; no, it would be -enough to steer south by the compass and then when close on the -latitude hand the wheel to her. The instinct that led the birds over -unmarked sea spaces and the palu from hundreds of miles away to the -self-same breeding grounds, that would be sufficient. - -Going aft he hung about for a while close to the fellow at the -wheel, but there was no sign of Rantan and Peterson coming on deck. -Sru went forward again and dropped below to the foc’sle. It was in -the morning watch that he found his opportunity, only Rantan and the -steersman were aft and Sru coming along, stood with the mate by the -rail. - -The dawn was full on the sea. - -They spoke for a minute on the prospect of the wind holding, and -then Sru, with a glance at the steersman to make sure he was out of -hearing, came to his subject. - -“That land we have left,” said Sru, “is Karolin—the girl has told me -the name, but much more as well. That lagoon is a pearl lagoon. This -is a private matter between us. I tell you because I could not tell -any one else and because I think we may profit by it.” - -“A pearl lagoon,” said Rantan. “Is she speaking the truth?” - -“The truth. She wears behind her ear two pearls in one, so,” said -Sru, joining his closed fists in the dawn light, “they are tied in -her hair and the wind lifting her hair I saw them; then I spoke and -she told me. Now listen, Ra’tan, we know of this matter, you and I, -we two alone will get those pearls—Pete’son, no. He would swallow -them all and give us the shells to eat, but how we are to go has not -been shown to me, it is for you to see to that matter.” - -All this he said in the native and Rantan, listening, tapped out the -ashes from his pipe against his heel, and then, pipe in hand, leaned -against the rail, his eyes fixed on the deck. - -In the increasing light he could see the deck planking clearly even -to the dowels. Plunged fathoms deep in thought he said nothing for a -while, then raising his eyes he spoke. - -“What you say is true, but Pete’son is the wisest of us. How can we -find that island again without him? As you know, my life has been -spent mostly among the islands—shore along and between island and -island as they lie in the Paumotas ten to a space as broad as your -palm. I can handle this ship or any ship like this or any canoe, as -you know, but to look at the sun at noon as Pete’son looks, and to -say ‘I am here, or here,’ that art has not been given me. I have not -lived my life on the deep sea, but only in shallow waters. Then -again Pete’son is not the full owner of this ship, there is another -man who owns a part and without talking to him he cannot break a -voyage, he cannot say, I will go here or here without the other man -saying yes.” - -“That is the more reason,” said Sru, “that we must go without him.” - -“And without him we cannot find our way,” replied Rantan. - -Then Sru told of Le Moan’s power of direction finding. Rantan -understood at once, he had seen the thing often amongst the natives -of Soma and other islands and the fact came suddenly on his mind -like the blow of a hammer riveting things together. - -But he said nothing to show exactly what was in his mind, he heard -Sru out, and told him to go forward and not speak of the matter to -any one. “For,” said Rantan, “there may be something in what you -say. I do not know yet, but I will think the matter over.” - -Left alone he stood, his eyes on the sun blaze creeping upon the -eastern horizon. He was a quick thinker. The thing was possible, and -if Karolin lagoon was a true pearl lagoon the thing was a fortune. - -By taking the _Kermadec_ there with the kanaka crew for divers, -eight months or a year’s work would give the profit of twenty -voyages. Well he knew that if Colin Peterson were the chief of that -expedition, there would be little profit for any one but Peterson -and his partner. Peterson would have to be eliminated if there was -any work to be done in this business. - -Sru had not said a word about Taori or Le Moan’s untruth as to -Karolin being uninhabited. - -It would have tangled the story for one thing, and for another might -not Ra’tan say to himself. “If this girl has lied on one matter, may -she not be lying about the pearls?” Sru knew instinctively that she -spoke the truth, and he left it at that, and Rantan watching now the -glory of the rising sun, stood, his plan crystallizing into full -shape, his eyes gazing not on the sunlit sea, but on Karolin, a -desolate atoll, uninhabited, with no eyes to watch what might be -done there but the eyes of the seagulls. - - -CHAPTER IX—CASHI - -Le Moan had never known pity. She had lived amongst the pitiless, -and if any seed of the divine flower lay in her heart it had never -grown nor come to blossom. She had seen her tribe raided and -destroyed and the remnants chased to sea by the northern tribe under -Uta Matu, she had seen battle and murder and sudden death, storm and -destruction; she had seen swordfish at war and the madness and -blood-lust of fish, bow-head whales destroyed by orcas and tiger -sharks taking men—all these things had left her unmoved by pity as -they would have left Rantan. Yet between these two pitiless ones lay -a distance greater than that between star and star. - -Le Moan had sacrificed herself for the sake of Taori; had faced what -was more terrible than death—the unknown, for the sake of the man -who had inspired her with passion; and had found what was more -terrible than death—separation. - -To return and find Taori she would, if necessary, have destroyed the -_Kermadec_ and her crew without a second thought, just as to save -him she would have destroyed herself. Rantan could not have -understood this, even if it had been carefully explained to him with -diagrams exhibiting the savage soul of Le Moan, all dark, save where -at a point it blazed into flame. - -All that day working out his black plan he reviewed his instruments, -Sru, Carlin, the crew, the ship, and last and least the kanaka girl -who would act as a compass and a navigator. A creature of no account -save the instinct she shared with the fish and the birds, so he -fancied. - -The _Kermadec_ had loaded some turtle shell at Soma and at Levua she -was to pick up a cargo of sandalwood. San Francisco was the next -port of call, but to Rantan’s mind it did not seem probable that she -would ever reach San Francisco. It all depended on Carlin. Rantan -could not do the business alone even with the help of Sru; Carlin -was a beachcomber and to leave him with a full whiskey bottle would -have been fatal for the whiskey bottle, but he was a white man; he -would have been fired off any ship but the _Kermadec_, but he was a -white man. Rantan felt the necessity of having a white man with him -on the desperate venture which he had planned, and taking Carlin -aside that night he began to sound him. - -“We’re due at Levua to-morrow,” said Rantan. “Ever been to Levua?” - -“Don’t know it,” replied the other, “don’t want to neither; by all -accounts, listening to the old man, there’s nothing there but one -dam’ sandalwood trader and the kanakas he uses for cutting the wood. -I want to beach at Tahiti, that’s where I’m nosing for when I get to -’Frisco; there’s boats in plenty running down from ’Frisco to -Tahiti.” - -“Maybe,” said Rantan, “but seems to me there’s not much doing at -Tahiti. Hasn’t it ever hit you that there’s money to be made in the -islands and better work to be done than bumming about on the beach? -I don’t mean hard work, handling cargo or running a ship—I mean -money to be picked up, easy money and plenty of it.” - -The big red man laughed and spat over the rail. - -“Not much,” said he, “not by the likes of me or you; clam shells is -all there’s to be picked up by the likes of me and you when the -other chaps have eaten the chowder.” - -“How’d you like ten thousand dollars in your fist?” asked Rantan, -“twenty—thirty—there’s no knowing what it might come to, and all for -no work at all but just watching kanakas diving for pearls.” - -Carlin glanced sideways at his companion. - -“What are you getting at?” asked he. - -“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Rantan, “I know of a pearl island and -it’s not far from here. It’s a sealed lagoon, never been worked, and -there’s enough there to make a dozen men rich, but to get there I’d -want a ship, but I haven’t got one nor the money to charter one; I’m -like you, see?” - -“What are you getting at?” asked Carlin again, a new tone in his -voice. - -“I’m just saying I haven’t a ship,” replied the other, “but I know -where to get one if I could find a chap to help me in the taking of -her.” - -Carlin leaned further over the rail and spat again into the sea. -With terrible instinct he had taken up the full meaning of the -other. - -“And how about the kanakas?” asked he, “kanakas are dam’ fools, but -get them into a court of law and they’re bilge pumps for turning up -the evidence. I’ve seen it,” he finished, wiping his mouth with the -back of his hand. “A sinking job it was, and the chap that did it -got ten years, on kanaka evidence.” - -Rantan laughed. “Leave the kanakas to me,” said he, “I’m putting it -to you—if I’ve the sand to do the job, would you help?” - -“I’m not saying I wouldn’t,” said Carlin, “but what about the -navigating? You aren’t much good on that job ... or are you? I’m -thinking maybe you’ve been holding it up your sleeve.” - -“I’m good enough to get there,” replied Rantan. “Well, think it -over, we’ve time in our hands and no need to hurry. But remember -there’s no knowing the money in the business, and if it comes to -doing it, don’t you worry about risks; I’m not a man to take more -than ordinary risks and I’ll fix everything.” - -Then he turned away and walked aft leaving Carlin leaning on the -rail. - -Whatever Carlin’s start in life may have been, he was now beach-worn -like one of the old cans you find tossing about the reef flung away -by the kanakas—label gone, and nothing to indicate its past -contents. The best men in the world would wilt on the beach, and -that’s the truth; the beach, that is to say sun and little to do—the -sun kills or demoralizes more men than whiskey; to be born to the -sun, you must be born in the sun, like Katafa, like Dick, like Le -Moan; you must never have worn clothes. - -Sometimes a white man is sun proof inside and out, but rarely. -Carlin was sun proof on the outside, his skin stood the pelting of -the terrible invisible rays; he throve on it; but internally he had -gone to pieces. - -He had one ambition, whiskey—or rum, or gin, or even samshu, but -whiskey for choice. - -There was whiskey on the _Kermadec_, but not for Carlin. Peterson, -as sober a man as Rantan, kept it, just as he kept the Viterli -rifles in the arms rack, for use in an emergency. It was under lock -and key, but Carlin had smelt it out. - -Its presence on board was like the presence of an evil genius, -invisible, but there and exercising its power; it kept reminding him -of Rantan’s words at supper that night, and when he turned in and -even in his sleep its work went on; he saw in his dreams the vessel -heading for the unknown pearl island towards the golden light of -fortune and unlimited whiskey, he was on her deck with Rantan in -command and Peterson was not there. - -The dream said nothing about Peterson, totally ignored him, and -Peterson, on deck at that moment, had no idea that the beachcomber -was dreaming of the _Kermadec_ off her course and without her -skipper. - -Next day in the morning watch, Sru was at the wheel and Rantan, a -pipe in his mouth, stood by the weather rail, the sun had just risen -shattering the night and spreading gold across the breezed up blue -of the swell. - -The sunrise came to the _Kermadec_ like the sudden clap of a hot -hand: Sru felt it on his back and Rantan on his cheek. From away to -windward came the cry of a gull, a gull passed overhead with domed -wings circled as if inspecting the schooner and drifted off on the -wind. Almost at the same moment, came the cry of the kanaka lookout. -“Land!” - -Rantan walked forward. Right ahead, rosy above the brimming sea, lay -the cloud scarf of Levua. - -Still a great way off, facing the blazing east, the island, clear of -any trace of morning bank, seemed to float between the blue of sea -and sky, remote, more lovely than any dream. - -When Rantan turned aft again he found Le Moan standing by Sru at the -wheel. Sru was explaining to her how the wheel worked the “steering -paddle” in the stern. The _Kermadec_ was close hauled, every sail -drawing. Sru was explaining this matter and showing how the least -bit closer to the wind would set the sails shivering and take the -way off the ship. Le Moan understood. Sea craft was born in her, and -used now to the vast sail spaces of the schooner, she felt no -fear—the _Kermadec_ was only a canoe after all, of a larger build -and different make. - -He let her hold the spokes for a moment, governing the wheel with a -guiding hand, then at the risk of the schooner being taken aback, he -stood aside and the girl had the helm. - -The _Kermadec_ for a moment showed no sign that the wheel had -changed hands, then, suddenly, a little warning flutter passed -through the canvas from the luff of the mainsail, passed and ceased -and the sail became hard again. Le Moan had understood, understood -instinctively, that ceaseless pressure against the lee bow which -tends to push a vessel’s head up into the wind. - -For a moment Taori, Karolin, the very presence of Sru were -forgotten, the words that Sru had spoken to her only a little while -before, “You will soon see Taori, little one, but first you must -learn to use the steering paddle.” Everything was forgotten in the -first new grip of the power that was in her to hold all those great -sail spaces filling, to play such a great game with the wind and the -sea. - -Aioma had taught her to steer her fishing canoe, but so long ago -that she could not remember the first time she had the paddle to -herself; but this was different, different as the kiss of a lover -from the kiss of a friend—something that reached her soul; it was -different as the sight of Taori from the sight of other men, great, -thrilling, lifting her above herself, creative. - -Utterly ignorant of the mechanism that moved the rudder as a man is -ignorant of the mechanism that moves his arm, after the first few -minutes of the great new experience she could not do wrong. She knew -nothing of the compass, she only knew that she was to keep the ship -close hauled as Sru had been keeping her, so close that a fraction -nearer the wind would spill the sails. Sru watched her and Rantan, -forgetting his pipe, stood with his eyes fixed on her. Both men -recognized that the ship was safe for the moment. One might have -thought them admiring the picture that she made against the blue sky -and the glory of morning, but the interest in their eyes was neither -the interest of the roused æsthetic sense, nor of love, nor of -passion, nor of seamanship. - -As they stood, suddenly, and as though Tragedy had staged the scene -for some viewless audience, the head and shoulders of Peterson -appeared at the saloon hatch opening. - -Rantan, his face mottled with white, stared at Peterson, Sru drawing -the back of his hand across his nose as if wiping it, stood on one -foot, then on the other, confused, looking like a dog that has been -misbehaving itself. Le Moan saw nothing. - -Without losing its alertness on the touch of the wheel her mind had -gone off for a momentary flight. She saw herself steering the -_Kermadec_ towards Karolin, she saw in imagination the distant reef, -the gulls and the thrilling blue of the great lagoon beyond the reef -opening. - -Peterson, without coming further on deck, watched her for a moment -without comprehending anything but the fact that the girl had been -allowed to take the wheel. Then as Sru took the spokes from her and -pushed her forward, the captain of the _Kermadec_ turned on Rantan, -but the abuse on his lips was half shrivelled by the face of the -mate. - -“Don’t you never do a thing like that again,” said Peterson. “Dam’ -tomfoolery.” He snorted and went forward, kicked a kanaka out of his -way and then stood, his eyes fixed on the distant vision of Levua -opal tinted in the blue, blue north. - - -CHAPTER X—THE HIGH ISLAND - -They came in on a dying wind, the outlying reefs creaming to the -swell and the great high island opening its cañons and mountain -glades as they drew towards it pursued by the chanting gulls. - -Le Moan, who had never seen a high island or only the vision of Palm -Tree uplifted by mirage, stood with her eyes fixed on the multitude -of the trees. Palms, breadfruit, tree ferns, aoas, sandalwood -groves, trees mounting towards the skies, reaching ever upwards, -changing in form and misted by the smoke of torrents. - -Here there was no freedom, the great spaces of the sea had vanished, -Levua like an ogre had seized her mind and made it a prisoner. - -For the first time in her life something came to her heart, terrible -as her grief for the loss of Taori, yet even more far searching and -taking its bitterness from the remote past as well as the present. -It was the homesickness of the atoll-bred islander encompassed by -the new world of the high island; of the caged gull taken from the -freedom of the wind and the sea. - -At Karolin you could see the sun from his rising to his setting, and -the stars from sea line to sea line; the reef rose nowhere to more -than twice the height of a man, the sea was a glittering plain of -freedom and a sound and a scent. - -Worse even than the monstrous height of Levua, its strange cañons -and gloomy woods, was the scent of the foliage, cossi and vanilla -and sandalwood, unknown flowers, unknown plants, all mixed with the -smell of earth and breathing from the glasshouse atmosphere of the -groves. - -An extraordinary thing was the way in which the forms and perfumes -of Levua permeated the _Kermadec_ itself, so that, turning her eyes -away from the land, the deck of the schooner, the rails, masts and -spars, all seemed hostile to her as the land itself. Sru alone gave -her comfort as she watched him superintending the fellows busy with -the anchor—Sru, who had promised that she would return. - -The anchor fell in twelve-fathom water and as the rumble-tumble of -the anchor chain came back in echoes from the moist-throated woods, -a boat put out from the beach. It was Sanders the white trader, the -man who lived here alone year in, year out, taking toll of the -sandalwood trees, paying the natives for their labour in trade -goods; cut off from the world, without books, without friends, and -with no interest beyond the zone of sea encircling the island, -except the interest of his steadily accumulating money in the hands -of his agents—the Bank of California. - -The face of the white man showed thin and expressionless as a wedge -of ice as he came over the rail like a ghost and slipped down to the -cabin with Peterson to talk business. - -Rantan and Carlin leaned over the side and watched the kanakas in -the boat pulling forward to talk to the schooner crew congregated at -the rail by the foc’sle head. - -The beach lay only a cable length or two away, empty except for a -couple of fishing canoes drawn up beyond tide mark; no house was to -be seen, the village lying back among the trees, and no sound came -from all that incredible wealth of verdure—nothing, but the far -voice of a torrent, raving yet slumbrous and mixed with the hush of -the surf on the reefs and beach. - -“Notice that chap,” said Carlin, “didn’t look to right or left of -him, same’s if he’d been doped. Reckon he’s full of money too if -he’s the only trader here—notice his white ducks and his dandy hat -and the mug under it? I know the sort. Drink turns to vinegar in a -chap like that and that’s the sort that makes money in the islands.” - -“Or the fellows that aren’t afraid to put their hands on the stuff -when they see it,” replied Rantan. “Well, what about that pearl -island I was speaking of?” - -“And that hooker you were going to take to get there,” cut in -Carlin. “Put me on her deck and I’m with you.” - -“You’re on it,” replied Rantan. - -Carlin laughed. He had known Rantan’s meaning all along and this -strange game of evasion between the two had nothing to do with the -_Kermadec_, but with something neither dared to discuss one with the -other: Peterson, and what was to be done with Peterson. - -“You’re on it,” continued Rantan, “and now what do you say?” - -“I’m with you,” replied Carlin, “but I don’t see how you’re to do -it. I’ll have no hand in doing it.” - -“Leave that to me,” said the other, “you’ve only to help work the -ship when I’ve taken her.” - -“You say Sanders is the only white man here,” said Carlin. - -“So Peterson tells me,” replied Rantan. - -“Well, one white man is enough to turn on us,” said Carlin. - -“He won’t turn on us,” replied Rantan grimly, and Carlin glancing at -him sideways wondered for a moment if he hadn’t the devil in tow -with Rantan. But Carlin was of the type that will take profit and -not care so long as its own hands are clean. I wonder how many of us -would eat meat if we had to do the killing ourselves or make money -from poisonous industries if we had ourselves to face the poison. -What Rantan chose to do was nothing to Carlin so long as he himself -had not to do it or to plan it, but he was cautious. - -“How about that chap Sru?” he asked. “He’s boss of the crew and the -only thinking one of them—suppose....” - -“Nothing,” replied the other. “He’s with me.” - -Fell a silence filled with the voice of the far torrent and the -murmur of the sea, a hush-a-bye sound through which vaguely came the -murmur of voices through the skylight of the saloon where Peterson -and the trader were discussing prices and freights, each absorbed by -the one sole idea, profit at the expense of the other. - - -CHAPTER XI—THE TRAGEDY - -The Pacific has many industries but none more appealing to the -imagination than the old sandalwood trade, a perfumed business that -died when copra found its own, before the novelist and the soap -boiler came to work the sea of romance, before the B. P. boats -churned its swell or Honolulu learned to talk the language of San -Francisco. - -In those days Levua showed above the billowing green of the -breadfruit, the seaward nodding palms, and the tossing fronds of the -dracænas, a belt, visible from the sea, where the sandalwood trees -grew and flourished. Trees like the myrtle, many branched and not -more than a foot thick in the trunk, with a white deliciously -perfumed wood deepening to yellow at the root. - -Sanders, the trader of Levua who exported this timber, paid for it -in trade goods, so many sticks of tobacco at five cents a stick, so -many coloured beads or pieces of hoop iron wherewith to make knives, -for a tree. He paid this price to Tahuku the chief of the tribe and -he paid nothing for the work of tree felling, barking, and cutting -the wood into billets. Tahuku arranged all that. He was the -capitalist of Levua, though his only capital was his own ferocity -and cunning, the trees rightfully belonged to all. The billets -already cut and stored in go-downs were rafted across the lagoon in -fragrant heaps to the _Kermadec_ and shot on board from hand to -hand, piled on deck and then stowed in the hold, a slow business -watched by Le Moan with uncomprehending eyes. She knew nothing of -trade. She only knew what Sru had promised her, that soon, very -soon, the ship would turn and go south to find Karolin once again. -She believed him because he spoke the truth and she had an instinct -for the truth keen as her instinct for direction, so she waited and -watched whilst the cargo came leisurely and day by day and week by -week, the cargo bound for nowhere, never to be sold, never to be -turned into incense, beads, fancy boxes and cabinets; the cargo only -submitted to by the powers that had taken command of the _Kermadec_ -and her captain, because until the cargo was on board, the ship -would not take on her water and her sea-going stores in the shape of -bananas and taro. - -Down through the paths where the great tree ferns grew on either -side and the artu and Jack-fruit trees cast their shadows, came the -men of Levua, naked, like polished mahogany, and bearing the white -perfumed billets of sandalwood; as they rafted them across the -diamond-clear emerald-green water to where the _Kermadec_ stood in -the sapphire blue of twelve fathoms their songs came and went on the -wind, the singers unconscious that all the business of that beach -was as futile as the labour of ants or the movement of shadows, made -useless by the power of the pearl Le Moan carried behind her left -ear. - -The night before sailing, the water and fruit were brought on board -and Peterson went ashore to have supper with Sanders taking Rantan -with him. Carlin remained behind to look after the ship. - -It was a lovely evening, the light of sunset rose-gold on the foam -of the reefs and gilding the heights of Levua, the trees and the -bursting torrent whose far-off voice filled the air with a mist of -sound. Carlin, leaning on the rail, watched the boat row ashore, Sru -at the stern oar, Peterson steering. He watched Peterson and the -mate walk up the beach and disappear amongst the trees; they had -evidently given orders that the boat was to wait for them on the -beach, for, instead of returning, Sru and his men squatted on the -sands, lit their pipes and fell to playing su-ken, tossing pebbles -and bits of coral in the air and catching them on the backs of their -hands. - -Carlin lit his pipe. What he was watching was more interesting than -any stage play, for he knew that the hour had struck, that the water -and stores were on board and the ship due to raise her anchor at -sunrise. - -He stood with his eyes fixed on the beach. The trader’s house and -store lay only a few hundred yards back among the trees and the -native village quarter of a mile beyond and close to the beginning -of the sandalwood groves; would any trouble in the trader’s house be -heard by the people of the village? He put this question to himself -in a general way and the answer came “No.” Not unless shots were -fired; but then without shooting—how—how—how? - -How what? - -He did not enter into details with himself. He stood watching the -men on the beach and then he saw Sru as if suddenly tired of the -game they were playing, rise up, stretch himself and stroll towards -the boat. Near the boat a fishing canoe was beached and Sru having -contemplated the boat for a minute or so turned his attention to the -canoe. He examined the outrigger, pressed his foot on it and then -bending over the interior picked out something—it was a fish spear -with a single barb. Carlin remembered that Rantan on landing had -looked into the canoe, as though from curiosity or as if to make -sure there was something in it. Who could tell? - -The fish spear seemed to interest Sru. He poised it as if for a -throw, examined the barb and then, spear in hand, came back to the -fellows who were still playing their game and sat down. Carlin saw -him exhibiting the spear to them, poised it, talking, telling no -doubt old stories of fish he had killed on the reef at Soma; then, -as if tired, he threw the thing on the sand beside him and lay back -whilst the others continued their endless game. - -Then came dark and the steadily increasing shower of starlight till -the coal sack showed in the Milky Way like a hole punched in marble -and the beach like a beach in ghost-land, the figures on it clearly -defined and especially now the figure of Sru, who had suddenly risen -as though alarmed and was standing spear in hand. - -Then at a run he made for the trees and vanished. - - * * * * * - -Carlin turned away from the rail and spat. The palms of his hands -were sweating and something went knock, knock, knock, in his ears -with every beat of his heart. The kanakas on board were down in the -foc’sle from which a thin island voice rose singing an endless song, -the deck was clear only for the figure of Le Moan—and Carlin, half -crazy with excitement, not daring to look towards the beach, walking -like a drunken man up and down began to shout and talk to the girl. - -“Hi, you kanaka girl,” cried Carlin, “something up on the beach—Lord -God! she can’t talk, why can’t you talk, hey? Whacha staring at me dumb -for? Rouse the chaps forward, we’ll be wantin’ the anchor up” ... He -went to the foc’sle head and kicked—calling to the hands below to -tumble up, tumble up, and to hell with their singing for there was -something going on on the beach. Ruining everything, himself included, -if they had been a white crew; then making a dash down to the saloon -he beat and smashed at the store cupboard where he knew the whiskey was -kept, beat with his naked fists till the panels gave and he tore them -out, and breaking the neck of a whiskey bottle, drank with bleeding -lips till a quarter of the bottle was gone. - -Then he sat at the table still clutching the bottle by the neck but -himself again. The nerve crisis had passed suddenly as it had come. - -Yes, there was something going on upon the beach that night when, as -Le Moan and the crew crowding to the port rail watched, the figure -of Rantan suddenly broke from the trees and came running across the -sands towards the boat followed by Sru. - -She heard the voice of Sru shouting to the boat kanakas: “Tahuku has -slain the white man, the trader and Pete’son have been slain.” She -saw the boat rushed out into the starlit water and as it came along -towards the ship, she saw some of the crew rush to the windlass and -begin heaving the anchor chain short whilst others fought to get the -gaskets off the jib and raise the mainsail. Already alarmed by -Carlin the words of Sru completed the business. Tahuku was out for -killing and as they laboured and shouted, Carlin hearing the uproar -on deck, put the whiskey bottle upstanding in a bunk and came -tumbling up the ladder and almost into the arms of Rantan who came -tumbling over the rail. - - -CHAPTER XII—THEY MAKE SOUTH - -Then from the shore you might have seen the _Kermadec_ like a -frightened bird unfolding her wings as the boat came on board and -the anchor came home, mainsail, foresail and jib filling to the -steady wind coming like an accomplice out of the west, the forefoot -cutting a ripple in the starlit waters of the lagoon and the stern -swinging slowly towards Levua, where two white men lay dead in the -trader’s house and where in the village by the sandal grove Tahuku -and his men lay asleep, unconscious of what civilization had done in -their name. - -Rantan, steering, brought the ship through the broad passage in the -reefs where the starlight lit the spray of the breaking swell, the -vessel lifting to the heave of the sea caught a stronger flow of -wind and with the main boom swung to port headed due south. - -Rantan handed the wheel to Sru and turned to a bundle lying in the -port scuppers. It was Carlin sound asleep and snoring; the mate -touched the beachcomber with his foot and then turning, went below. - -He saw the locker smashed open and the whiskey bottle in the bunk, -he opened a porthole and flung the bottle out and then turning to -the locker, searched it. There were two more bottles in the locker -and having sent them after the first, he closed the port and sat -down at the table under the swinging lamp. - -_Kermadec_, cargo, crew and ship’s money were his; the crew knew -nothing except that Tahuku had killed Pete’son and the white trader; -there was no man to speak except Sru, who dared not speak, and -Carlin who knew nothing definite. In time and at a proper season it -was possible that these might be rendered dumb and out of count, and -this would be the story of the _Kermadec_. - - * * * * * - -Without her captain, murdered by the natives of Levua, and navigated -by her mate, who knew little or nothing of navigation, she had -attempted to make back to Soma; had missed Soma and found a big -lagoon island, Karolin, which was not on the charts. There Sru, the -bo’sun, and Carolin, a white man, had died of fish poisoning, and -there she had lain for a year—doing what...? - -“And what were you doing all that time, Mr. Rantan?” The question -was being put to him before an imaginary Admiralty court, and the -answer “Pearling” could not be given. - -It was only now, with everything done and the ship his, that the -final moves in the game were asking to be solved; up to this the -first moves had claimed all his mental energy. - -The _Kermadec_ could be lost on some civilized coast quite easily, -everything would be quite easy but the accounting for that infernal -year—and it would take a year at least to make good in a pearl -lagoon. - -No, the _Kermadec_ must never come within touch of civilization -again, once he was sure of the pearl ground being worth working; the -vessel must go; with the longboat he might get at last back to Soma -or some of the Paumotuan islands—might. - -The fact of his ignorance of navigation that had helped his story so -far, hit him now on the other side, the fact so useful before a -Board of Trade enquiry would help him little with the winds and -tides and to the winds and tides he had committed himself in the -long run. - -He came on deck. The crew, all but the watch, had crowded down into -the foc’sle where all danger over and well at sea, they had turned -in. Sru was still at the wheel and Le Moan, who had been talking to -him, vanished forward as the mate appeared in the starlight and -stood watching for a moment the far-off loom of the land. - -Carlin still slept. He had rolled over on his back and was lying, -mouth open and one hand stretched out on the deck planking, his -snores mixed with the sound of the bow wash and the creaking of the -gaff jaws and cordage. - -Rantan looked into the binnacle, then with a glance at Carlin he -turned to Sru. - -The Paumotuan did not speak, he did not seem to see the mate or -recognize his presence on deck, the whites of his eyeballs showed in -the starlight; and as he steered, true as a hair to the course, his -lips kept working as he muttered to himself. - -He looked like a man scared, and steering, alone, out of some -imminent danger, that appearance of being isolated was the strangest -thing. It made Rantan feel for a moment as though he were not there, -as though the _Kermadec_ were a ship deserted by all but the -steersman. - -Sru was scared. Steering true as an automaton, his mind was far away -in the land of vacancy and pursued by white feller Mas’r Pete’son. -It had come on him like a stroke when Le Moan, approaching him, had -asked where the bearded man was who had gone ashore and not -returned. He had no fear of Le Moan or her question, but out of it -Peterson had come, the white man whom he had always feared yet whom -he had dared to kill. The appalling power that had strengthened his -arm and mind, the power of the vision of tobacco unlimited, Swedish -matches, knives, gin and seidlitz powders, was no longer with -him—Peterson was on his back, worse than any black dog, and now he -steered, his head began to toss from side to side and like a man -exalted by drink he began to sing and chatter, whilst Rantan, who -knew the Paumotuan mind and that in another minute the wheel would -be dropped and the steersman loose and running amok, drew close. - -Then suddenly, and with all the force of his body behind the blow, -he struck and Sru fell like a poleaxed ox whilst the mate snapping -at the spokes of the wheel steadied the vessel and stood, his eye on -the binnacle cord holding the ship on her course. - -Sru lay where he fell, just as Carlin lay where drink had struck him -down; the fellows forward saw nothing, or if they did they made no -movement, and the schooner, heeling deeper to the steadying breeze -held on full south, whilst behind her the wake ran luminous with the -gold of phosphorus and the silver of starlight. - -Presently Sru sat up, then he rose to his feet. He remembered -nothing, nothing of his terror or of the blow that had felled him; -it seemed to him he must have fallen asleep at the wheel and that -Rantan had relieved him. - - -CHAPTER XIII—SOUTH - -The stars faded, the east grew crimson and the sun arose to show -Levua gone; a sky without cloud, a sea without trace of sail or -gull. - -Le Moan, crouching in the bow with the risen sun hot on her left -shoulder, saw the long levels of the marching swell as they came and -passed, the Kermadec bowing to them; saw the distant southern sea -line and beyond it the road to Karolin. - -With her eyes shut and as the needle of the compass finds the north -magnetic pole, she could have pointed to where Karolin lay; and as -she gazed across the fields of the breeze-blown swell no trace of -cloud troubled her mind, all was bright ahead. Sru had made it clear -to her that no hurt would come to Taori, and with Peterson, had gone -any last lingering doubt that may have been in her mind. She trusted -Sru and she trusted Rantan, who had spoken kindly to her, Carlin, -and the kanaka crew; of Peterson, the man who had terrified her -first and the only trustable man on that ship, she had always had -her doubts, begotten by that first impression, by his beard, his -gruff voice and what Sru had said about Peterson and how he would -“swallow all”—that is to say the pearls of Karolin; those mysterious -pearls that the white men treasured and of which the charm hidden -behind her ear had spoken to Sru. - -She had always worn it as a protection and she had not the least -doubt that it had spoken to Sru, just as a person might speak, and -told him of those other pearls which she had often seen and played -with when oysters were cast to rot on the beach for the sake of -their shells. She had not the least doubt that to the talisman -behind her ear was due this happy return and the elimination of -Peterson. Was she wrong? - -As she crouched, the back draught from the head sails fanning her -hair, the ship and her crew, the sea and its waves, all vanished, -dissolved matter from which grew as by some process of -recrystallization the beach of Karolin. The long south beach where -the sand was whispering in the wind, the hot south beach where the -sun-stricken palms lifted their fronds to the brassy sky of noon and -the tender skies of dawn and evening, the beach above which the -stars stood at night all turning with the turning dome of sky. - -She saw a canoe paddling ashore and the canoe man now on the beach, -his eyes crinkled against the sun—eyes coloured like the sea when -the grey of the squall mixes with its blue. The sun was on his -red-gold hair and he trod the sands lightly, not as the kanaka walks -and moves; one might have fancied little wings upon his feet. - -His naked body against the blazing lagoon showed like a flame of -gold against a flame of blue. It was Taori. Taori as she had seen -him first, on that day when he had come to bid Aioma to the canoe -building. - -It was as if Fate on that day had suddenly stripped away a veil -showing her the one thing to be desired, the only thing that would -ever matter to her in this life or the next. - -As she leaned, the breeze in her hair and her mind like a bird -fleeting far ahead into the distance, flying fish like silver -shaftless arrow-heads passed and flittered into the blue water, and -now a turtle floating asleep and disturbed by the warble of the bow -wash and the creak of the onrushing schooner, sank quietly fathoms -deep leaving only a few bubbles on the swell. - -Carlin had come on deck. Rantan had said not a word about the broken -open cupboard or the whiskey; the ship was cleared of drink and that -was enough for him; when he came on deck a few minutes after the -other, he found the beachcomber leaning on the after rail. - -A shark was hanging in the wake of the schooner. A deep-sea ship -does not sail alone. She gives company and shelter to all sorts of -fish from the remora that hangs on for a whole voyage, to the bonito -that follows her maybe for a week. In front of the shark, moving and -glittering like spoon bait, a pilot fish showed in flashes of blue -and gold. - -Carlin turned from contemplation of these things to find Rantan at -his side. - -On going below for a wash after his night on deck, Carlin had found -the other at breakfast. Neither man had spoken of the events of the -night before, nor did they now. - -“Following us steady, isn’t he?” said Carlin, turning again to -contemplate the monster in the wake—“don’t seem to be swimming -either and he’s going all of eight knots. What’s he after, following -us like that?” - -“Haven’t you ever seen a shark before?” asked Rantan. - -“Yes, and I’ve never seen good of them following a ship,” replied -Carlin, “and I’m not set on seeing them, ’specially now.” - -“Why now?” asked the mate. - -But Carlin shied from the subject that was in both their minds. - -“Oh, I don’t know,” said he, “I was thinking of the traverse in -front of us.... Say, now we’re set and sailing for it, are you sure -of hitting that island?” - -“Sure,” said the mate. - -“Then you’re better at the navigating job than you pretended to be,” -said Carlin. “What I like about you is the way you keep things hid.” - -“I’ve kept nothing hid,” replied the other. “I’m crazy bad on the -navigation, but I’ve got a navigator on board that’ll take us there -same as a bullet to a target.” - -“Sru?” - -“Sru nothing—the kanaka girl, she’s a Marayara. Ever heard of them? -You get them among the kanakas; every kanaka has a pretty good sense -of direction, but a Marayara, take him away from his island and -he’ll home back like a pigeon if he has a canoe and can paddle long -enough. That island we took the girl from is the pearl island. Born -and bred there she was, and it’s her centre of everything. Sru got -it all out of her and about the pearls and fixed up with her to take -us back. Don’t know what he’s promised her, I reckon a few beads is -all she wants and all she’ll get, but that’s how it lies: we’ve only -got to push along due south by the compass and she’ll correct us, -leeway or set of current or any tomfool tricks of the needle don’t -matter to her. She never bothers about the compass, she sees where -she wants to go straight before her nose, same’s when land’s in -sight you see it and steer for it.” - -“Can she steer?” asked Carlin, who had not been on deck the day Sru -set her at the wheel. - -Rantan turned to where the girl was standing in the bow, called her -aft and gave the wheel over to her. When she had felt the ship, -standing with her head slightly uptilted, she altered the course a -few points; the _Kermadec_ had been off her path by that amount -owing to leeway or set of current. - -From that moment the ship was in the hands of Le Moan, tireless as -only a being can be who exists always in the open air. She lived at -the wheel with intervals for sleep and rest, always finding on her -return the ship off her course, still heading south, but no longer -on that exact and miraculous line drawn by instinct between herself -and Karolin. - -Error in the form of leeway or the influence of swell or the set of -current could never push the vessel to east or west of that line, -for the line moved with the ship, and as the journey shortened, like -a steadily shortening string tied to a ball in centrifugal motion, -it would bring the _Kermadec_ at last to Karolin, no matter how far -she was swung out of her course—blown fifty, a hundred, two hundred -miles to east or west it would not matter, her head would turn to -Karolin. The only flaw in that curious navigational instrument, the -mind of Le Moan, was its blindness to distance from Karolin, the -pull being the same for any distance, and had the island risen -suddenly before them on some dark night, she would have piled the -craft upon it unless warned by the sound of the reef. - - * * * * * - -Rantan kept the log going, he had a rough idea of the distance -between Karolin and Levua, but he did not try to explain the log to -Le Moan. If he had done so, his labour would have been wasted. Le -Moan had no idea of time as we conceive it, cut up into hours, -minutes and seconds. Time for her was a thing, not an abstract idea; -a thing ever present yet shifting in appearance—energy. - -The recognition of Time is simply the recognition of the rhythm of -energy by energy itself. Le Moan recognized the rhythm in the tides, -in the sunrises and sunsets, in the going and coming of the fish -shoals, in slumber and waking life, but of those figments of man’s -intellect, hours, minutes, years, she had no idea. Always in touch -with reality, she had come in vague touch with the truth that there -is no past, no future—nothing ever but rhythmic alternations of the -present. - -But, though unable to grasp the division of the real day into -empirical fractions, the compass, that triumph of man’s intellect, -presented no difficulties to her. When Rantan explained its pointing -to her she understood, the needle pointed away from Karolin. - -The fleur-de-lys on the card, which seemed to her vaguely like the -head of a fish spear, pointed away from Karolin, that is away from -the south. - -The compass card moved, she did not know that the compass card was -absolutely steady, that this appearance of movement was a delusion -caused by the altered course of the ship, that the ship pivoted on -the card not the card on the ship. - -If she let the ship off her course to the east, the card moved and -her sense of direction told her at once that the fleur-de-lys was -still pointing away from Karolin. She spoke on this matter to Sru. -Sru, who had made the two voyages on ships and who was yet a capable -steersman, had quite taken for granted his first captain’s -explanation to him of the compass; there was a god in it that held -it just so and if Sru let the card wobble from the course set down, -the god would most likely come out of the binnacle and kick Sru into -the middle of next week. He was a Yankee skipper and he had made an -excellent steersman of Sru. - -Le Moan understood; she believed in gods, from Naniwa the -shark-toothed one to Nan the benign: believed in them, just as white -men believe in their Gods—with reservations; but this was different -from anything she had hitherto conceived of a deity. He must be very -small to be contained in the binnacle, very small and set of purpose -always pointing with the spear head away from Karolin. Why? - -Rantan had pointed down to the spear head and away north and told -her it always pointed there, always away from the direction of -Karolin. Why? - -She had not asked him why the card moved, or seemed to move, Sru -having already told her. - -The feeling came to her that the little imprisoned something was -against going to Karolin, but no one seemed to mind it, yet they -were always consulting it, Rantan when he took the wheel and Sru and -Maru, who was also a good steersman. - -Every day at noon Rantan would appear on deck and take an -observation of the sun with Peterson’s sextant, whilst Carlin, if he -were on deck, would cuff himself on the thigh and turn and lean over -the rail to laugh unobserved. - -Rantan was only fooling—keeping up appearances, so that the crew -might fancy him as good as Peterson in finding his way on the sea. -Sru had never told the others that they depended entirely on Le -Moan, the fact that she was a way-finder was known to them, but it -is as well for the after guard to keep up appearances. Rantan might -as well have been looking at the sun through a beer bottle for all -he knew of the matter, but the crew could not tell that. So, as a -navigator, he held a place in their minds above the girl. - -At night when the binnacle lamp was lit and she happened to be at -the wheel, her eyes would wander to the trembling card. She would -put the ship a bit off its course just to see it move, noticing that -it always moved in the same manner in a reverse direction to the -alteration in course. If the head of the schooner turned to -starboard, the card would rotate to port and vice versa. She studied -its doings as one studies the doings of a strange animal, but she -never caught it altering its mind or its action. - -At night it always seemed to her that the thing in the binnacle, -whether god or devil, was inimical to her, or at all events warning -her not to take the ship back to Karolin; by day it did not matter. - -So under the stars and over the phosphorescent sea the _Kermadec_ -headed south, ever south, the blazing dawns leaping over the port -rail and the gigantic sunsets dying with the blood of Titans the -skies to starboard, till one morning Le Moan, handing the wheel to -Rantan, pointed ahead and then walked forward. Her work was done. -Far ahead, paling the sky, shone the lagoon blaze of Karolin. - - -BOOK II - - -CHAPTER I—THE MAID OF AIOMA - -Le Moan had left Karolin as a gull leaves the reef, unnoticed. - -Not a soul had seen her go and it was not for some days that Aioma, -busy with the tree felling, recollected her existence, and the fact -that she had not followed him to the northern beach; then he sent a -woman across and she had returned with news that there was no trace -of the girl though her canoe was beached, also that there was no -trace of food having been recently cooked, and that the girl must -have been gone some days as there were no recent sand traces. The -wind even when it is only moderately strong blurs and obliterates -sand traces, and the woman judged that no one had been about on the -southern beach for some days. She had found tracks, however, for -which she could not account. The marks left by the boots of -Peterson, also the footsteps of the kanakas who had carried the -water casks disturbed her mind; they had nearly vanished, but it -seemed to her that many people had been there, a statement that left -Aioma cold. - -Aioma had no time for fancies. If the girl were alive, she would -come across in her canoe, if death had come to her in any of the -forms in which death walked the reef, there was no use in troubling. -The call to the canoe building, resented at first, had given him new -youth, the spirit of the sea sang in him and the perfume of the -new-felled trees brought Uta Matu walking on the beach, and his -warriors. - -Aioma, like Le Moan, had no use for the past or the future, the -burning present was everything. - -Things that had been were to Aioma things floating alongside at a -greater or less distance, not astern. It was not the memory of Uta -Matu that walked the beach, but Uta Matu himself, untouchable, -because of distance, and only able to talk as he had talked in life, -but still there. Aioma had not to turn his head to look backwards at -him as we have to turn our heads to see our dead, he had only to -glance sideways, as it were. The things of yesterday, the day before -yesterday and the day before that, were beside Aioma at greater or -less distances, not behind him—all like surf riders on the same wave -with him and carried forward by the same flowing, yet ever -separating one from the other though keeping in line. - -In the language of Karolin there was no word indicating our idea of -the past except the word akuma (distance) which might mean the -distance between a canoe and a canoe or between a happening of -to-day and of yesterday, and to the woman who judged that Le Moan -had not trod the beach for some days, “days” meant measures of -distance, not of time. Le Moan had been travelling, moving away from -the beach, not returning, whilst so many sunrises had occurred and -so many sunsets. She had been away a long distance, not a long time. - -The speed of a man running a mile on Karolin had nothing to do with -the time occupied, it was a measure of his strength; the race was a -struggle between the man and the mile, and of the runners the -swiftest to a Karalonite was not the quickest but the strongest and -most agile; this profound truth was revealed to their instinctive -sight undimmed by the _muscæ volitantes_ which we call minutes, -seconds and hours, also the truth that when the race was over it was -not extinct but merely removed to a distance—just as a canoe -drifting from a canoe is not extinct though untouchable and out of -hail, and fading at last from sight through distance. - -A dead man on Karolin was a man who had drifted away; he was there, -but at a distance, he might even return through the distance in a -stronger way than memory sight could reveal him! Many had. Uta Matu -himself had been seen in this way by several since he had drifted -away—he had come back once to tell Nalia the wife of Oti where the -sacred paddle was hid, the paddle which acted as the steer oar of -the biggest war canoe. He had forgotten that the war canoe had been -destroyed. Still he had returned. Though with a Melanesian strain in -them, unlike the Melanesians the men of Karolin had no belief that -the souls of ancestors become reincarnated in fish or birds, nor did -they believe in the influence of _Mana_, that mysterious spiritual -something believed in so widely by Polynesians and Melanesians -alike. - -Memory, to the Karolinite, was a sort of sight which enabled the -living to look not over the past but the present, and see the people -and things that floated, not behind in a far-off past, but to right -and left in a far-off present. - -Just as the surf rider sees his companions near and far, all borne -on the same wave, though some might be beyond reach of voice, and -some almost invisible through distance, the return of a spirit was -an actual moving of a distant one towards the seer, as though a surf -rider were to strike out and swim to a far-off fellow at right -angles to the flow of the wave. - -So Aioma, as he worked, saw Uta Matu and his warriors and the old -canoe-builders, not as dead and gone figures, but as realities -though beyond touch and hail of voice and sight of the eye of flesh. - - * * * * * - -Since the war, years ago, between the northern and southern tribes, -a large proportion of the children born on the island had been boys, -whilst most of the women had developed manly attributes in -accordance with that natural law which rules in the remotest island -as well as in the highest and broadest civilization. - -Aioma had no need of helpers, leaving out the boys, some dozen or -so, who could wield an ax as well as a man; but Aioma though his -heart and soul were in his work was no mere canoe-builder. He had in -him the making of a statesman. He would not let Dick work at the -building or do any work at all except fishing and fish spearing. - -“You are the chief (Ompalu),” said Aioma as he sat of an evening -before the house of Uta Matu, now the house of Dick. “You are young -and do not know all the ways of things, but I love you as a son; I -do not know what is in you that is above us, but the sea I love is -in your eyes. The sea, our father, sent you, but you have still to -learn the ways of the land, where the chief does no work.” Then he -would grunt to himself and rock as he sat, and then his voice rising -to a whine, “Could the people raise their heads to one who labours -with them, or would they bow their heads so that he might put his -foot on their necks?” Then casting his eyes down he would talk to -himself, the words so run together as to be indistinguishable; but -always, Katafa noticed, his eyes would return again and again to the -little ships in the shadow of the house, the model ships made by -Kearney long ago—the vestiges of a civilization of which Dick and -Aioma and Katafa knew nothing, or only that the ships, the big ships -of which these were the likenesses, were dangerous and the men in -them evil and to be avoided or destroyed if possible. - -The _Portsey_ of long ago that had fired a cannon shot and destroyed -Katafa’s canoe, the schooner that had brought the Melanesians to -Palm Tree, the Spanish ship that had been sunk in Karolin lagoon and -the whaler that had come after her, all these had burnt into the -minds of Dick, Aioma and Katafa the fact that something of which -they did not know the name (but which was civilization), was out -there beyond the sea line, something that, octopus-like, would at -times thrust out a feeler in the form of a ship, an ayat destructive -and, if possible, to be destroyed. - -_Ayat_ was the name given by Karolin to the great burgomaster gulls -that were to the small gulls what schooners are to canoes, and so -anything in the form of a ship was an _ayat_, that is to say, a -thing carrying with it all the propensities of a robber and a -murderer; for the great gulls would rob the lesser gulls of their -food and devour their chicks and fight and darken the sunshine of -the reef with their wings. - -The comparison was not a compliment to the Pacific traders or their -ships or the civilization that had sent them forth to prey on the -world, but it was horribly apposite. - -And yet the little _ayats_ in the shadow of the house had for Aioma -an attraction beyond words. They were as fascinating as sin. This -old child after a hard day’s work would sometimes dream of them in -his sleep; dream that he was helping to sail them on the big rock -pool, as he sometimes did in reality. The frigate, the full-rigged -ship, the schooner and the whale man, all had cruised in the rock -pool which seemed constructed by nature as a model testing tank; -indeed the first great public act of Dick as ruler of the -Karolinites had been a full review of this navy on the day after he -had fetched Aioma from the southern beach. Aioma, fascinated by the -sight of the schooner which Dick had shown him on his landing, had -insisted on seeing the others launched and the whole population had -stood round ten deep with the little children between the women’s -legs, all with their eyes fixed on the pretty sight. The strangest -sight—for Kearney the illiterate and ignorant had managed to -symbolize the two foundations of civilization, war and trade; and -here in little yet in essence lay the ships of Nelson and the ships -of Villeneuve: the great wool ships, the _Northumberland_ that had -brought Dick’s parents to Palm Tree, the whalers of Martha’s -Vineyard and the sandalwood schooners, those first carriers of the -disease of the white man. - -To Aioma the schooner was the most fascinating. He knew the whaler -with her try works and her heavy davits and her squat build; he had -seen her before in the whaler whose brutal crew had landed and been -driven off. He knew the ship, he had seen its likeness in the -Spanish ship of long ago; the frigate intrigued him, but the -schooner took his heart—it was not only that he understood her rig -and way of sailing better than the rig and way of sailing of the -others, it was more than that. Aioma was an instinctive ship lover, -and to the lover of ships, the schooner has most appeal, for the -schooner is of all things that float the most graceful and the most -beautiful; and in contrast to her canvas, the canvas of your square -rigged ship becomes dishcloths hung out to dry. - -He brooded on this thing over which Kearney had expended his most -loving care, and in which nothing was wanting. He understood the -topping lifts that supported the main boom, the foresail, the use of -the standing rigging. Kearney, through his work, was talking to him -and just as Kearney had explained this and that to Dick, so Dick was -explaining it to Aioma. Truly a man can speak though dead, even as -Kearney was speaking now. - -The method of reefing a sail was unknown to Aioma; a canoe sail was -never reefed, reduction of canvas was made by tying the head of the -sail up to spill the wind. Fore canvas was unknown to Aioma, but he -understood. - -The subconscious mathematician in him that made him able to build -great canoes capable of standing heavy weather and carrying forty or -fifty men apiece, understood all about the practice of the business, -though he had never heard of centres of rotation, absolute or -relative velocities, of impelling powers, or the laws of the -collision of bodies; of inertia or pressures of resistance or -squares of velocity or series of inclinations. - -Squatting on his hams before the little model of the _Rarotanga_, he -knew nothing of these things and yet he knew that the schooner was -good, that she would sail close to the wind with little leeway when -the wind was on the beam, that the rudder was better than the -steering paddle, that the sail area though great would not capsize -her, that she was miles ahead of anything he had ever made in the -form of a ship. That the maker of the _ayat_ was a genius beside -whom he was a duffer, unknowing that Kearney was absolutely without -inventive genius, and that the schooner was the work of a million -men extending over three thousand years. - -Katafa sitting beside Dick would watch Aioma as he brooded and -played with the thing. It had no fascination for her. The little -ships had always repelled her if anything. They were the only -dividing point between her and Dick—she could not feel his pleasure -or interest in them, and from this fact possibly arose a vague -foreboding that perhaps some day in some way the little ships might -separate them. When a woman loves, she can become jealous of a man’s -pipe, of his tennis racket, of his best friend, of anything that she -can’t share and which occupies his attention at times more than she -does. - -But the essence of jealousy is concentration, and Katafa’s green eye -was cast not so much on the whole fleet as on the little schooner. -This was Dick’s favourite, as it was Aioma’s. - - * * * * * - -One night, long after the vanishing of Le Moan, so long that every -one had nearly forgotten her, Aioma had a delightful dream. - -He dreamt that he was only an inch high and standing on the -schooner’s deck. Dick reduced to the same stature was with him, and -half a dozen others, and the schooner was in the rock pool that had -spread to the size of Karolin lagoon. Oh, the joy of that business! -They were hauling up the mainsail and up it went to the pull of the -halyards just as he had often hauled it with the pull of his finger -and thumb on the tiny halyards of the model; but this was a real -great sail and men had to pull hard to raise it and there it was -set. Then the foresail went up and the jib was cast loose and Aioma, -mad with joy, was at the tiller, the tiller that he had often moved -with his finger and thumb. - -Then pressed by the wind she began to heel over and the -outrigger—she had taken on an outrigger—went into the air; he could -see the outrigger gratings with drinking-nuts and bundles of food -tied to it after the fashion of sea-going canoes, and he shouted to -his companions to climb on to it and bring it down. Then he awoke, -sweating but dazzled by the first part of the dream. - -Two days later a boy came running and shouting to him as he was at -work; and turning, Aioma saw the fulfilment of his vision. Borne by -the flooding tide with all sails drawing and a bone in her teeth, -the little schooner swelled to a thousand times her size, was gaily -entering the lagoon. It was the _Kermadec_. - - -CHAPTER II—WAR - -Rantan was at the wheel, and Le Moan forward, with swelling heart, -stood watching as they passed the break, the Gates of Morning, -through which the tide was flooding like a mill-race. She saw the -southern beach still deserted and the northern beach where the trees -sheltered the village from sight. Not a sign of life was to be seen -in all that vast prospect of locked lagoon and far-running reefs -till from the distant trees a form appeared—Aioma. - -After him came others till the beach close to the trees was thronged -by a crowd even in movement like a colony of ants disturbed and -showing now against the background of the trees the glint of spears. -Le Moan’s heart sank under a sudden premonition of evil. She turned -and glanced to where Rantan at the wheel was staring ahead and -Carlin close by him was shading his eyes. - -Rantan had not expected this. He had fancied Karolin deserted. Sru -had said nothing of what Le Moan had told him about Taori and he -said nothing now as he stood with eyes wrinkled against the sun -blaze from the lagoon. Taori, he had gathered to be some kanaka boy, -a love of Le Moan’s who, so far from giving trouble, would welcome -her back—but that crowd, its movements and the flash of the thready -spears! He made vague answers to the questions flung at him by the -mate, then at the order to let go the anchor he ran forward whilst -Carlin dived below, returning with two of the Vetirli rifles and -ammunition. Then as the anchor fell and the _Kermadec_ swung to her -moorings on the flood, nose to the break, Rantan, leaving the wheel -and standing with compressed lips, his hand on the after rail and -his eyes on the crowd, suddenly broke silence and turned to Carlin. - -“We don’t want any fighting,” said he. “We’ve got to palaver them. -It’s a jolt. Peterson said the place was empty, and I reckon he lied -or else he didn’t keep his eyes skinned, but whether or no we’ve got -to swallow it. Worst is we’ve no trade to speak of, nothing but -sandalwood. No matter—we don’t want nothing but to be left alone. -Order out the boat and we’ll row off to them, and keep those guns -hid.” - -He went below for Peterson’s revolver which Carlin had forgotten, -and when he returned, the boat was down with four kanakas for crew -and Carlin in the stern sheets; he followed and took his place by -the beachcomber and the boat pushed off. - -He had made a great blunder, absolutely forgotten the existence of -Le Moan and her use as an ambassador, but the mind of Rantan was -working against odds. - -He had never consciously worried about Peterson. The dead Peterson -was done with out of count, and yet away in the back of his mind -Peterson existed, not as a form, not even as a shadow, but as the -vaguest, vaguest hint of possible trouble, some day. Steering, or -smoking below, or enjoying in prospect the profits to be got out of -the venture, Rantan would be conscious of a something that was -marring his view of things; something that, seizing it with his -mind, would prove to be nothing more than just a feeling that -trouble might come some day owing to Peterson. - -On sailing into the lagoon, the wind across that great blue pearl -garden had swept his mind clear of all trace of worry. Here was -success at last, wealth for the taking and no one to watch the taker -or interfere with his doings. No one but the gulls. A child on that -beach would have shattered the desolation and destroyed the feeling -of security and detachment from the world. - -Then the trees had given up their people and to Rantan it was almost -as though Peterson himself had reappeared. - -He had reckoned to get rid of the crew of the _Kermadec_ in his own -given time after he had worked them for his profit, to get rid of -Carlin, of his own name, of everything and anything that could -associate him with this venture, and here were hundreds of witnesses -where he had expected to find none but the gull that cannot talk. - -Truly it was a jolt! As the boat drew on for the shore, the crowd on -the beach moved and spread and contracted and then became still, the -spears all in one clump. - -There were at least thirty of the boys of Karolin able to hurl a -spear with the precision of a man, and when Aioma had sighted the -schooner and given the alarm, Dick, who had been on the outer beach, -had called them together. Taiepa, the son of Aioma, had distributed -the spears and Aioma himself in a few rapid words had fired the -hearts of the tribe. - -The strangers must not be allowed to land. For a moment, but only a -moment, he took the command of things from Dick’s hands. “They came -before,” said Aioma, “when I was a young man, and the great Uta -knowing them to be men full of evil would not allow them to land but -drove them off, and yet again they came in a canoe bigger than the -first (the Spanish ship), and they landed and fought with Uta and he -killed them and burnt their great canoe—and yet again they have come -and yet again we must fight. We are few, but Taori in himself is -many.” - -“They shall not land,” said Dick, “even if I face them alone.” - -That was the temper of Karolin and it voiced itself as the boat drew -closer to the beach in a cry that rang across the water, harsh and -sudden, making the kanaka rowers pause and turn their heads. - -“They mean fighting,” said Carlin, bending towards one of the rifles -lying on the bottom boards. - -“Leave that gun alone,” said Rantan. He ordered the rowers to pull a -bit closer, rising up and standing in the stern sheets and waving -his hand to the beach crowd as though intimating that he wished to -speak to them. - -The only answer was a spear flung by Taiepa that came like a flash -of light and fell into the water true of aim but short by a few -yards. The rowers stopped again and backed water. Whilst Carlin -picked up the floating spear as a trophy and put it with the rifles, -Rantan sat down. Then he ordered them to pull ahead altering the -helm so that the bow turned away from the shore and to the west. - -As they moved along the beach the distant crowd followed, but the -mate did not heed it; he was busy taking notes of the lie of the -land, and the position of the trees. The trees, though deep enough -to hide the village from the break, were nowhere dense enough to -give efficient cover; the reef just here was very broad but very -low. A man would be a target—the head and shoulders of him at -least—even if he were on the outer coral. - -Rantan having obtained all the information he required on these -matters altered the course of the boat and made back for the ship. - -“Aren’t you going to have one single shot at them?” asked the -disgusted Carlin. - -“You wait a while,” replied the other. - -When they reached the _Kermadec_ he ordered the men to remain in the -boat, and going on board dropped down below with his companion. He -went to the locker where the ammunition was stored and counted the -boxes. There were two thousand rounds. - -“I reckon that will do,” said Rantan. “You said you were a good -shot. Well, you’ve got a chance to prove your words. I’m going to -shoot up this lagoon.” - -“From the ship?” - -“Ship, no, the boat’s good enough; they have no cover worth anything -and only a few old fishing canoes that aren’t good enough to attack -us in.” - -“Well, I’m not saying you’re wrong,” said Carlin, “but seems to me -it will be more than a one-day job.” - -“We aren’t hustled for time,” replied the other, “not if it took -weeks.” - -They came on deck, each carrying a box of ammunition. the spear -salved by Carlin had been brought on board by him and stood against -the rail. Neither man noticed it, nor did they notice Le Moan -crouched in the doorway of the galley and seeming to take shelter -from the sun. - -Carlin who had ordered a water breaker to be filled, lowered it -himself into the boat, then getting in followed by the mate the boat -pushed off, Sru rowing stern oar and Rantan at the yoke lines. - -It was close on midday and the great sun directly overhead poured -his light on the lagoon; beyond the crowd and the trees on the -northern beach the coral ran like a white road for miles and miles, -to be lost in a smoky shimmer, and from the reef came the near and -far voice of the breakers on the outer beach. - -The crew left on board, some six in number, had dropped into the -foc’sle to smoke and talk. Le Moan could hear their voices as she -rose and stood at the rail, her eyes fixed on the boat and her mind -divided between the desire to cast herself into the water and swim -to the reef and the instinct which told her to stay and watch and -wait. - -She knew what a rifle was. She had seen Peterson practising with one -of the Viterlis at a floating bottle. There were rifles in the boat, -but it was not the rifles that filled her mind with a foreboding -amounting to terror, it was Rantan’s face as he returned and as he -left again. And she could do nothing. - -Carlin, before lowering the water breaker had handed an ax into the -boat. Why? She could not tell, nor why the water breaker had been -taken. It was all part of something that she could not understand, -something that was yet evil and threatening to Taori. - -She could not make his figure out amongst the crowd, it was too far, -and yet he was surely there. - -She watched. - -The boat drew on towards the beach. Then at the distance of a couple -of hundred yards the oarsmen ceased rowing and she floated idly and -scarcely drifting—for it was slack water, the flood having ceased. -One might have thought the men on board of her were fishing or just -lazing in the sun—anything but the truth. - -Then Le Moan saw a tiny puff of smoke from the boat’s side, a figure -amongst the crowd on the beach sprang into the air and fell, and on -the still air came the far-off crack of a rifle. - -Carlin had got his man. He was an indifferent shot but he could -scarcely have missed as he fired into the brown of the crowd. -Rantan, no better a shot, fired immediately after and by some -miracle nobody was hit. - -Then as Le Moan watched, she saw the crowd break to pieces and -vanish amongst the trees, leaving only two figures on the beach, one -lying on the sands and one standing erect and seeming to threaten -the boat with upflung arm. It was Taori. Her sight as though it had -gained telescopic power told her at once that it was Taori. - -She saw him bend and catch up the fallen figure in his arms and as -he turned to the trees with it, the boat fired again, but missed -him. Another shot rang out before he reached the trees, but he -vanished unscathed, and quiet fell on the beach and lagoon, broken -only by the clamour of gulls disturbed by the firing. - -Le Moan changed her place, the ebb was beginning to run and the -schooner to swing with it. She came forward and took her position -near the foc’sle head, her eyes still fixed on the boat and beach. -From the foc’sle came the sound of an occasional snore from the -kanakas who had turned in and were sleeping like dogs. - -Four fishing canoes lay on the sands near the trees, and now as she -watched, she saw the boat under way again pulling in to the beach. -The rowers tumbled out and the boat pushed off a few yards with only -the two white men in her whilst the landing party made for the -canoes and began to smash them up. - -Sru—she could tell him by his size—wielded the ax, two others helped -in the business with great lumps of loose coral, whilst the fourth -stood watch. - -It took time, for they did their work thoroughly, breaking the -outriggers, breaking the outrigger poles, breaking the canoe bodies, -working with the delight that children take in sheer destruction. - -The god Destruction was abroad on Karolin beach and lagoon. Though -without a temple or a place in mythology of all the gods, he is the -most powerful, the most agile and quick of eye, and the swiftest to -come when called. - -Le Moan watching, saw the four men on the beach stand contemplating -their work before returning to the boat. - -Then she saw one of them throw up his hands and fall as if felled by -an ax. The others turned to run and the foremost of them tripped as -a man trips on a kink in a carpet and fell; of the two others one -pitched and turned a complete somersault as though some unseen -jiu-jitsu player had dealt with him, and the fourth crumpled like a -suddenly closed concertina. - -Le Moan’s heart sprang alive in her. She knew. The terrible arrows -of Karolin poisoned with argora that kills with the swiftness and -more than certainty of a bullet had, fired from the trees, done -their work. - -The spear was the favourite weapon of Karolin, not the bow. The bow -was used only on occasions and at long distances. When they came -down to resist the landing of Rantan, they had come armed with -spears; driven to the shelter of the trees, Aioma, the artful one, -had remembered the bows stowed in one of the canoe houses. It was -years since the arrows had been poisoned, but the poison of argora -never dies, nor does it weaken with time. - -In four swings of a pendulum the arrows had done their work, and -four upstanding men lay stretched on the beach, motionless, for this -terrible poison striking at the nerve centres kills in two beats of -the pulse. - -Rantan and Carlin, close enough to see the flight of the arrows, put -wildly out, tugging at the heavy oars and rowing for their lives; a -few hundred yards off shore they paused, rested on their oars and -took counsel. - -It was a bad business. - -Armed with rifles and with easy range they had only managed to bag -one of the enemy, whereas...! - -“Hell,” said Carlin. - -The sweat was running down his broad face. Rantan, brooding, said -nothing for a moment. Then suddenly he broke silence. - -“We’ve dished their canoes, they can’t come out and attack us; we’ve -got the range over them, those arrows are no use at any distance; -they live mostly on fish, those chaps, and they can’t come out and -fish, having no canoes, and we aren’t hurried for time.” He seemed -talking to himself, adding up accounts, whilst Carlin, who had -picked up one of the rifles, sat with it across his knees, his face -turned shoreward where on the beach lay the four dead men, and save -for the gulls not a sign of life. The boat on the ebb tide was -drifting slowly back in the direction of the schooner. - -“We’ve just got to row up along,” went on Rantan, “and get level -with the trees. Those trees don’t give much shelter across the reef. -Their houses wouldn’t stop a bullet from a popgun. Take your oar, -when we’ve got our position we can anchor and take things quiet.” - -Carlin, putting his gun down, took his oar and they began pulling -the heavy boat against the current till they got opposite the -village and the trees. - -Then within rifle shot, but beyond the reach of arrow flight, they -dropped the anchor and the boat swung to the current and broadside -to the shore. - -Rantan was right—the trees though dense enough in patches were not a -sufficient cover for a crowd of people, and the houses were death -traps. From where they lay they could see the little houses clear -marked against the sky beyond and the house of Uta Matu with the -post beside it on top of which was the head of Nan, god of the -coconut trees, Nan the benign watching over his people, the puraka -beds and the pandanus palms. - -Of old there had been two gods of Karolin, Nan the benign and Naniwa -the ferocious. - -Le Moan’s mother had been Le Jennabon, daughter of Le Juan, -priestess of Naniwa the shark-toothed god. On the death of Le Juan, -Naniwa had seemed to depart, for Karolin. Had he? Do the gods ever -die whilst there is a human heart to give them sanctuary? - -Nan the benign, grinning on his post—he was carved from a -coconut—was set in such a way that his face was turned to the east, -that is to say towards the gates of morning. He was placed in that -way according to ritual. Chance had anchored the schooner in his -line of vision. Hand helpless, as are most benign things, poor old -Nan could do nothing to protect the people he no doubt loved. He -could keep the weazle-teazle worms away from the puraka plants and -he could help a bit in bringing up rain, and it was considered that -he could even protect the canoes from the cobra worms that devour -planking; but against the wickedness of man and Viterli rifles he -was useless. - -And yet to-day as he gazed across at the schooner, his grin was in -no way diminished, and as the wind stirred the cane post he waggled -his head jauntily, perhaps because on the deck of the schooner he -saw the granddaughter of the priestess of the shark-toothed god and -said to himself with a thrill and a shudder: “Naniwa has returned.” - -In the old days when a man revenged himself for some wrong, or, -going mad, dashed out the brains of another with a club, he was -supposed to be possessed by Naniwa, for just as Nan was the minister -of agriculture, the shark-toothed one was the minister of justice. -He was in a way the law executing criminals and also making -criminals for execution, just as the law does with us. - -Anyhow and at all events and bad as he may have been, he was the -sworn enemy of foreigners; he had inspired Uta Matu to attack the -whaler and he had inspired Le Juan in calling for the attack on the -Spanish ship of long ago and to-day perhaps he had inspired Aioma in -resisting the landing of these newcomers. The battle was still in -the balance, but there on the deck of the anchored schooner stood -the granddaughter of his priestess darkly brooding, helpless for the -moment, but watching and waiting to strike. - -No wonder that Nan grinned and waggled his head at her with a -click-clocking noise, for the coconut had worked a bit loose on its -stick. - - * * * * * - -Rantan took his seat on the bottom boards in the stern, resting his -rifle comfortably on the gunnel; Carlin, going forward, did the -same. The wind which had risen and which was moving Nan on his post, -stirred the foliage, and between the boles and over the bushes of -mammee apple the shifting shadows danced and the shafts of light -showered, but sign of human being there was none. - -The crafty Aioma, through the mouth of Dick, had ordered all the -children and young people into the mammee apple and the women into -the houses whilst he and Dick had taken shelter behind trees, two -vast trees that stood like giants amidst the coconuts and pandanas -palms, brothers of the trees growing further along the reef that -were being used for canoe building. - -Aioma knew from old experience what white men could do with guns, -but he did not know that a house wall capable of stopping an arrow -was incapable of stopping a rifle bullet. - -Rantan seeing nothing else to fire at aimed at one of the houses, -fired, and as the smoke cleared saw, literally, the house burst -open. - -The women poured out through the broken canes, made as if to run -along the reef to the west and were suddenly headed back by a figure -armed with a canoe paddle. It was Dick. He drove them into the -mammee apple, where they took cover with the others, then running to -the second house of refuge, whilst the bullets whizzed around him, -he bade the women in it lie down, calling to the other hidden women -to do the same, and then taking shelter himself. - -But the blunder of Aioma was fatal. The men in the boat knew now for -certain that the mammee apple thickets were packed, that there were -no pot holes or crevasses of any account on the seaward side of the -reef, that they had the population of Karolin corralled. - -Resting his rifle carefully on the gunnel, Rantan led off. He -couldn’t well miss, and the deafening explosion of the rifle was -followed by a shriek and a movement in the distant bushes where some -unfortunate had been hit, and, striving to rise, had been pulled -down by his or her companions. - -Carlin laughed and fired and evidently missed, to judge by the -silence that followed the shot. - -Rantan had some trouble with a cartridge. His face had quite changed -within the last few minutes and since the corralling of the natives -was assured. It was like a mask and the upper lip projected as -though suddenly swollen by some injury. He flung the defective -cartridge away, loaded with another and fired. - -The shot was followed by the cry of a woman and the wailing of a -child. One could guess that the child had been hit, not the woman it -belonged to, for the wailing kept on and on, a sound shocking in -that solitude where nothing was to be seen but the empty beach, the -line of mammee apple and the glimpse of empty sea beyond and through -the trees. - -Carlin, more brutal but less terrible than Rantan, laughed. He was -about to fire when a form suddenly moving and breaking from the -trees took his eye and stayed his hand. - -It was Dick. In his left hand he held a bow and in his right a sheaf -of arrows. Aioma had directed that before taking cover the bows and -arrows should be laid by the westermost of the two big trees that he -and Dick had chosen for shelter. Dick had only to stretch out his -arm to seize the weapons and armed with them he came, leaving -shelter behind him, right into the open and on to the sands. - -At the cry of the first victim, he had started and shivered all over -like a dog; at the voice of the child thought left him, or only the -thought that there, amongst the bushes with the children and the -women, was Katafa; seizing a bow and a handful of the arrows, he -left the tree and came out on to the beach and right down to the -waterside. - -There were seven arrows. He cast them on the sand, picked up one and -fixed it with the notch in the bow-string; as he did so Carlin, -altering his aim from the bushes to this new target, fired. The sand -spurted a yard to the right of the bowman, who, drawing the arrow -till the barb nearly touched the bow shaft, loosed it. - -It fell true in line but yards short, and as it flicked the water, -Rantan’s bullet came plung into the sand and only three inches from -Dick’s right foot. - -Dick laughed. Like Rantan’s, his face was transfigured. - -He had come with no instinct but to draw the fire away from the -bushes to himself. Now, in a moment, he had forgotten everything but -the boat and the men in the boat and the burning hatred that, could -it have been loosed, would have destroyed them like a thunderbolt. - -Bending and picking up another arrow he loosed it, increasing the -elevation. This time it did not fall short, it went over the boat, -zipping down and into the water from the blue several yards away in -the lagoon side. - -“Hell,” said Carlin. - -He dropped the rifle in his hands and seized on the anchor rope, -dragging up the anchor, whilst Rantan, firing hurriedly and without -effect, seized an oar. - -Poisoned arrows even when shot wildly and at random are not things -to be played with, and as they rowed, the fear of death in their -hearts, came another arrow—wide but only a yard to starboard; then -came another short and astern. - -“We’re out of range,” said Carlin. They let the boat drift a moment. -Another arrow came, but well astern. - -Then with a yell as if the silent devil in the soul of him had -spoken at last, Rantan sprang to his feet and shook his fist at the -figure on the beach. - -Then they dropped the anchor and took up the rifles. The boat was -out of arrow range, but the bushes were still a clear target for the -rifles. - -Like artists who know their limitations, the two gunmen turned their -attention from the single figure on the beach to the greater target, -and Dick, who on seeing the boat draw off beyond range, stood -without shooting any more, victorious for the moment but waiting. - -He saw the anchor cast over, he saw the boatmen taking up their -positions again, he saw the thready tubes of the guns and knew that -the firing was about to recommence, then, bending, he seized an -arrow and clasping it with the bow in his left hand, rushed into the -water. Swimming with his right arm, he headed straight for the boat. - -Dick in the water was a fish. To get close to the boat, and, -treading water or even floating, loose the arrow at short range, was -his object. He was no longer a man nor a human being, but implacable -enmity, reasonless energy directed by hate. - -Rantan and Carlin had fired before they saw what was coming, a head, -an arm half submerged and a bow skittering along the water. Carlin’s -jaws snapped together, he tried to extract the cartridge case from -his gun, fumbled and failed. - -Rantan, less rattled and quicker with his fingers, extracted and -reloaded, aimed and fired and missed. - -“Fire, you damned fool,” he said to the other, but the game was -lost—Carlin was at the anchor rope, the memory of the four dead men -on the beach slain by the poisoned arrows of Karolin had him in its -grip as it had the other, who with one last glance at the coming -terror dropped his gun and seized an oar. - -They were beaten, put to flight—if only for the moment. - - -CHAPTER III—THE RETURN TO THE _KERMADEC_ - -As they rowed making for the schooner with the light of the -westering sun in their eyes, they could see the head of the swimmer -as he made back for the shore, and away on the beach near the trees -they could see the great gulls congregated around the forms of the -four dead men, a boiling of wings above the reef line and against -the evening blue of the sky. - -Predatory gulls when feeding on a carcase do not sit and gorge, they -are always in motion more or less, especially when they are in great -numbers as now. Far at sea and maybe from a hundred miles away -guests were still arriving for the banquet spread by death—late -comers whose voices went before them sharp on the evening wind, or -came up against it weak, remote and filled with suggestions of -hunger and melancholy. - -“God’s truth,” said the beachcomber, spitting as he rowed. - -They were coming on towards the ship and it was the first word -spoken. - -They had defeat behind them, and even if it were only momentary -defeat, ahead of them lay explanations. How would the remainder of -the crew take the killing of Sru and his companions? There was also -the fact that they had lost four divers. - -The _Kermadec_ was close to them now but not a soul showed on her -deck, not even Le Moan, who on sighting the returning boat had -slipped into the galley where she sat crouched in a corner by the -copper with eyes closed as if asleep. - -She had told the fellows below that she would warn them on the -return of the boat. She had forgotten her promise, her mind was far -away, travelling, circling in a nebulous world like a bird lost in a -fog, questing for a point to rest on. She knew well that though the -boat was returning, this was not the end of things. To-morrow it -would all begin again, the destroyed canoes, the implacable firing -from the boat; the face of Rantan as he pushed off all told her -this. Crouching, with closed eyes, she heard the oars, the slight -grinding of the boat as it came alongside and the thud of bare feet -as Carlin came over the side on to the deck. No voices. - -The beachcomber had taken in the situation at a glance, the crew -were down below, smoking or sleeping, leaving the schooner to look -after herself. It was just as well—down there they would have heard -nothing of the distant firing, seen nothing of the killing. He knew -kanakas, knew as well as though he had been told that as soon as he -and Rantan had pushed off, the crew had taken charge of the foc’sle. - -Leaving Rantan to tie up, he went below to the cabin for some food, -where, a moment later, the mate joined him. - -In a few minutes, their hunger satisfied, they began to speak and -almost at once they were wrangling. - -“Shooting up the lagoon—well, you’ve shot it up and much good it has -done us,” said Carlin. “I’m not against killing, but seems to me the -killing has been most on their side. What’s the use of talking? It -will take a year at this game to do any good and how are you to -manage it from the boat?” - -“To-morrow,” said Rantan, “I’ll move the ship up, anchor her off -that village and then we’ll see. Chaps won’t come swimming out to -attack a ship, and we can pot them from the deck till they put their -hands up. We’ve no time to wipe them all off, but I reckon a few -days of the business will break them up and once a kanaka is broken, -he’s broken.” - -Carlin without replying got into his bunk and stretching at full -length, lit his pipe; as he flung the Swedish match box to Rantan, a -sound from the deck above like the snap of a broken stick, made him -raise his eyes towards the skylight. Rantan, the box in his hand -paused for a moment, then the sound not being repeated, he lit his -pipe. - -Throwing the box back to the other he came on deck. - -The deck was still empty, but the spear that had been leaning -against the rail was gone. Rantan did not notice this, he came -forward passing the galley without looking in and stopped at the -foc’sle hatch to listen. - -One of the strange things about sea-going kanakas is their instinct -to get together in any old hole or corner out of sight of the deck, -the sea, the land and the sky, and in an atmosphere that would choke -a European, frowst. - -The fellows below were just waking up after a catnap and the fume of -Blue Bird, the old tobacco of the old Pacific days sold at two cents -a stick, was rising from the hatch mixed with the sound of voices -engaged in talk; they had heard nothing of the firing, if they had -they would not have bothered; they had no idea of the fate of Sru -and his companions, if they had they would not have much cared. Time -was, for these men, the moment; unspeculative as birds they took -life with a terrible light-heartedness scarcely human in its -acceptance of all things: blows or bananas, the righteousness or the -rascality of the white man. - -Rantan rapped on the hatch and called on them to tumble up. Then -when he had them all on deck, the sunset on their faces and fear of -what he might say to them for leaving the schooner to take charge of -herself in their hearts, he began to talk to them as only he knew -how. - -Not a word of abuse. The natives of this island were bad men who had -treacherously killed Sru and his companions who had landed to talk -with them. In return, he, Rantan, had killed many of them and -destroyed their canoes. To-morrow he intended to bring the ship -further up towards the village, and with the speak-sticks kill more -of them. Meanwhile the crew could go below and enjoy themselves as -they liked, leaving one on deck to keep watch on the weather. There -was no danger from the beach as all the canoes had been destroyed. -Then he dismissed them and went aft. - - -CHAPTER IV—THE MIND OF KANOA AND THE RISING MOON - -The crew, numbering now only six, and deprived of the leadership of -Sru, watched Rantan go aft and disappear down the saloon hatch, then -they fell to discussing the fate of Sru and his companions. The lost -men were from Soma, of the remainder two were from Nanuti in the -Gilberts, the rest were Paumotuans hailing from Vana Vana and -Haraikai. The loss of the others did not affect them much, nor did -they speculate as to the possibility of their own destruction at the -hands of the natives of Karolin; they had little imagination and big -belief in Rantan, and, having talked for a while and chosen a man to -keep watch, they dived below. Then dark came and the stars. - -Kanoa was the man chosen, a pure Polynesian from Vana Vana, not more -than eighteen, slim and straight as a dart, and with lustrous eyes -that shone now in the dusk as he turned them on Le Moan, the only -living creature on deck beside himself. - -He had been watching Le Moan for days, for weeks, with an -ever-increasing interest. She had repelled him at first despite her -beauty, and owing to her strange ways. He had never seen a girl like -her at Vana Vana nor at Tuta Kotu, and to his simple mind, she was -something more than a girl, maybe something less, a creature that -loved to brood alone and live alone, perchance spirit; who could -tell, for it was well known at Vana Vana that spirits of men and -women were sometimes met with at sea on desolate reefs and atolls, -ghosts of drowned people who would even light fires to attract ships -and canoes and be taken off just as Le Moan had been taken off by -Pete’son, and who always brought disaster to the ship or canoe -foolish enough to rescue them. - -Sru had kicked him for speaking like this in the foc’sle. After -Pete’son had been left behind at Levua, supposedly killed by Tahuku -and his followers, Kanoa, leaning on his side in his bunk and pipe -in mouth had said: “It is the girl or she that looks like a girl but -is maybe the spirit of some woman lost at sea. She was alone on that -island and Pete’son brought her on board and now, look—what has -become of Pete’son?” Upon which Sru had pulled him out of his bunk -and kicked him. All the same Kanoa’s mind did not leave hold of the -idea. He was convinced that there was more to come in the way of -disaster, and now, look, Sru gone and three men with him! - -But Kanoa was only eighteen and Le Moan for all her dark beauty and -brooding ways and mysterious habits was, at all events, fashioned in -the form of a girl, and once in a roll of the ship Le Moan slipping -on the spray-wet deck would have fallen, only for Kanoa who caught -her, almost naked as she was, in his arms, and she was delicious. - -Ghost or not there began to grow in him a desire for her that was -held in check only by his fear of her. A strange condition of mind -brought about by the conflict of two passions. - -To-night close to her on the deserted deck, the warm air bringing -her perfume to him and her body outlined against the starlit lagoon, -he was only prevented from seizing her in his arms by the thought of -Sru and his companions dead on the reef over there; dead as -Pete’son, dead as he—Kanoa—might be to-morrow, and through the wiles -of this girl so like a spirit, this spirit so like a girl. - -He felt like a man swimming against the warm current that sweeps -round the shoulder of Haraikai, swimming bravely and seeming to make -good way, yet all the time being swept steadily out to sea to drown -and die. - -Suddenly—and just as he was about to fling out his hands, seize her -and capture her in a burning embrace, mouth to mouth, breast to -breast, and arms locked round her body—suddenly the initiative was -taken from him and Le Moan, gliding up to him, placed a hand upon -his shoulder. - -Next moment she had pressed him down to the deck and he was -squatting opposite to her, almost knee to knee, love for the moment -forgotten. - -Forgotten even though, leaning forward and placing her hand on his -shoulder, she brought her face almost in touch with his. - -“Kanoa,” said Le Moan, in a voice just audible to him above the -rumble of the reef, “Sru and the men who were with him have been -slain by Rantan, and the big red man, not by the men of Karolin. -To-morrow you will die, I heard him say so to the big man, you and -Timau and Tahuku and Poni and Nauta and Tirai.” She told this lie -with steady eyes fixed upon him, eyes that saw nothing but Taori, -the man whose life she was trying to save. No wonder that love -dropped out of the heart of Kanoa and that the sweat showed on his -face in the starlight. It was the first time that she had spoken to -him more than a word or two, and what she said in that swift clear -whisper passed through him like a sword. He believed her. His fear -of her was the basis of his belief. He was listening to the voice of -a spirit, not the voice of a girl. - -He who a moment ago had been filled with passionate desire, felt now -that he was sitting knee to knee with Death. - -Such was the conviction carried by her words and voice that he would -have risen up and run away and hidden, only that he could not move. - -“Unless,” said Le Moan, “we strike them to-night, to-morrow we will -all be killed.” - -Kanoa’s teeth began to chatter. His frightened mind flew back to -Vana Vana and the happy days of his youth. He wished that he had -never embarked on this voyage that had led him to so many strange -passes. Strike them! It was easy to say that, but who would dare to -strike Ra’tan? - -He was seated facing aft and he could see the vague glow of the -saloon skylight golden in the silver of the star-shine. Down below -there in the lamplight Ra’tan and the red bearded one were no doubt -talking and making their plans. Strike them! That was easily said. - -Then, all at once, he stopped shivering and his teeth came together -with a click. The light from the saloon had gone out. - -He touched Le Moan and told her and she turned her head to the long -sweep of the deck, empty, and deserted by the vanished light. It was -as though the power of the after guard had suffered eclipse. Rantan -and the other would be soon asleep, if they were not asleep now, -helpless and at the mercy of the man who would be brave enough to -strike. - -Le Moan turned again and seizing Kanoa by the shoulder whispered -close to his ear. - -“Go,” said she; “tell the others what I have said, bring them up, -softly, Mayana, softly so that they may not hear, they need lift no -hand in the business. I will strike; go!” - -He rose up and passed towards the foc’sle hatch whilst Le Moan, -going into the galley, fetched something she had hidden there—the -head of the spear which she had broken off from the shaft, the spear -Carlin had brought on board as a trophy, and the snap of which he -had heard as he lay in his bunk whilst Rantan had been lighting his -pipe. - -She sat down on the deck with the deadly thing on her knee, poisoned -with argora. A scratch from it would be sufficient to destroy life -almost instantaneously, and as she sat brooding and waiting, her -eyes saw neither the deck nor the starlight, but the vision of a -sunlit beach and a form, Taori. Taori for whom she would have -destroyed the world. - -The sea spoke on the great reef loud to windward, low to leeward; -you could hear within the long rumble and roar of the nearby -breakers the diminuendo of the rollers that smoked beneath the -stars, ringing with a forty-mile mist the placid ocean of the -lagoon. - -The moon was rising. She could see the gleam of its light on the -binnacle where the Godling lived that had always pointed away from -Karolin, on the port rail and on the brass-work of the skylight. -Then, roused by a sound soft as the sifting of leaves on a lawn, she -turned and behind her the deck was crowded. - -The crew had come on deck led by Kanoa, and the stern of the -schooner swinging towards the break with the tide, the level light -of the moon was on their faces. - - -CHAPTER V—NIGHT, DEATH AND PASSION - -She made them sit down and they sat in a ring on the deck, she -taking her place in the middle. - -Then she talked to them respecting what she had already told to -Kanoa, telling them also that the men of Karolin were not enemies -but friends, that Rantan and the red-bearded man though fair-spoken -were indeed devils in disguise, that they had killed many of the men -of Karolin, killed Sru and his companions and intended on the morrow -to kill Kanoa and the rest. And they sat listening to her as -children listen to the tales about ogres—believing, bewildered, -terrified, not knowing what to do. - -These men were not cowards; under circumstances known and understood -they were brave, weather could not frighten them nor war against -kindred races, but the white man was a different thing and Rantan -they feared even more than Carlin. - -They would not move a hand in this matter of striking at them. It -would be better to take the boat and land on the reef and trust to -the men of Karolin if they were trustworthy as Le Moan had reported. - -Poni, the biggest and strongest of them, said this and the others -nodded their heads in approval, and Le Moan laughed; she knew them -and told them so, told them that as she had saved them by -overhearing Rantan’s plans, she would save them now, that they had -nothing to do but wait and watch and prepare their minds for -friendship with her people when she had finished what she intended -to do. - -Then she rose up. - -As she stood with the moonlight full on her, a voice broke the -silence of the night. It came from the saloon hatchway, a voice -sudden, chattering, complaining and ceasing all at once as if cut -off by a closed door. They knew what it was, the voice of a man -talking in his sleep. Carlin on his back and seized by nightmare had -cried out, half awakened, turned and fallen asleep again. - -The group seated on the deck, after a momentary movement, resumed -their positions. There is something so distinctive in the voice of a -sleep-talker that the sound, after the first momentary flutter -caused by it, brought assurance. Then, prepared at any moment to -make a dash for the boat, they sat, the palms of their hands flat on -the deck and their eyes following Le Moan, now gliding towards the -hatch, the spear head in her left hand, her right hand touching the -port rail as she went. - -At the hatch she paused to listen. She could hear the reef, and on -its sonorous murmur like a tiny silver thread of sound the trickle -of the tide on the planking of the schooner, and from the dark pit -of the stairway leading to the saloon another sound, the breathing -of men asleep. - -She had never been below. That stairway, even in daylight, had -always filled her with fear, the fear of the unknown, the dread of a -trap, the claustrophobia of one always used to open spaces. - -Lit by the day it frightened her, in its black darkness it appalled -her; yet she had to go down, for the life of Taori lay at the bottom -of that pit to be saved by her hands and hers alone. - -Kanoa, amongst the others, sat watching. The mind of Kanoa so filled -with fear when she told him that his death was imminent, the mind of -Kanoa that had lusted for her, the mind of this child of eighteen to -whom light and laughter had been life and thought, a thing of the -moment, was no longer the same mind. - -The great heroism he was watching, this attempt to save him and the -others, had awakened in him something perhaps of the past, ancestors -who had fought, done great deeds and suffered—who knows—but there -came to him an elation such as he had felt in the movements of the -dance and at the sound of music. Rising and evading Poni who -clutched at his leg to hold him back, he came to the rail, stood for -a moment as Le Moan vanished from sight and then swift-footed but -silent as a shadow, glided to the saloon hatch and stood listening. - -Holding the polished banister rail, and moving cautiously, step by -step, Le Moan descended, the spear head in her left hand. As she -came, a waft from the cabin rose to meet her in the darkness—an -odour of humanity and stale tobacco smoke, bunk-bedding and bilge. - -It met her like an evil ghost, it grappled with her and tried to -drive her back; used as she was to the fresh sea air, able to scent -rain on the wind and change of weather, this odour checked her for a -moment, repelled her, held her and then lost its power; her will had -conquered it. She reached the foot of the stairs and before her now -lay the open doorway of the cabin, a pale oblong beyond which lay a -picture. - -The table with the swinging lamp above it, the bunks on either side -where the sleeping men lay, clothes cast on the floor, all lit by -the moon-gleams through the skylight and portholes. - -From the bunk on the right hung an arm. It was Carlin’s; she knew it -by its size. She moved towards it, paused, looked up and stood -rigid. - -Above Carlin, now on the ceiling, now on the wall, something moved -and danced; a great silver butterfly, now at rest, now in flight, -shifting here and there, poising with tremulous wings. - -It was a water shimmer from the moonlit lagoon entering through a -porthole, a ghost of light; it held her only for a moment, the next -she had seized the hand of the sleeper and driven the spear point -into the arm. Almost on the cry of the stricken man, something -sprang across the table of the cabin, seized Le Moan by the throat -and flung her on her side. It was Rantan. - -Up above Kanoa, standing by the opening of the hatch, listening. The -reef spoke and the water trickled on the planking, but from below -there came no sound. Moments passed and then, sharp and cutting the -silence like a knife came a cry, a shout, and the sound of a furious -struggle. Then, fear flown and filled with a fury new as life to the -newborn, Kanoa plunged down into the darkness, missed his footing, -fell, rose half stunned and dashed into the cabin. - -Carlin, naked, was lying on his face on the floor, dead or dying; -Rantan, naked, was at death grips with Le Moan. She had risen by a -supreme effort, but he had got her against the table, flung her on -it and was now holding her down, his knee on her thigh, his hands on -her throat, his head flung back, the flexor muscles of his forearms -rigid, crushing her, breaking her, choking the life out of her, till -Kanoa sprang. - -Sprang like a tiger, lighting on the table and then in a flash on to -Rantan’s back, breaking his grip with the impact and freeing Le -Moan. He had got the throat hold from behind, his knees had seized -Rantan’s body and he was riding him like a horse. The attacked man, -whooping and choking, tried to hit backwards, flung up his arms, -rose straight, tottered and crashed, but still the attacker clung, -clung as they rolled on the floor, clung till all movement ceased. - -It was over. - -The silver butterfly still danced merrily on the ceiling and the -sound of the reef came through the skylight, slumbrous and -indifferent, but other sound or movement there was none till Le -Moan, stretched still on the table, turned, raised herself on her -elbow and understood. Then she dropped on to the floor. Rantan lay -half on top of Carlin and Kanoa lay by Rantan. - -Kanoa’s grip had relaxed and he seemed asleep. He roused as the girl -touched him; the fury and wild excitement had passed, he seemed -dazed; then recovering himself he sat up, then he rose to his feet. -As he rose Rantan moved slightly, he was not dead and Le Moan -kneeling on the body of Carlin seized the sheet that was hanging -from the bunk, dragged it towards her and handed it to Kanoa. - -“Bind him,” said Le Moan, “he is not dead, let him be for my people -to deal with him as they deal with the dog-fish.” - -As they bound him from the shoulders to the hands a voice came from -above. It was the voice of Poni who had come to listen and who heard -Le Moan’s voice and words. - -“Kanoa,” cried Poni, “what is going on below there?” - -“Coward!” cried Le Moan, “come and see. Come and help now that the -work is done.” - -“Ay,” said Kanoa the valorous, “come and help now that the work is -done.” - -Then, kneeling by the bound figure of Rantan, he gazed on the girl, -consuming her with his eyes, rapturous, and unknowing that the work -had been done for Taori. - -Taori, beside whom, for Le Moan, all other men were shadows, moving -yet lifeless as the moon-born butterfly still dancing above the -corpse of Carlin. - - -CHAPTER VI—MORNING - -When the firing had ceased and the boat had returned to the ship the -wretched people hiding amongst the mammee apple had come out and -grouped themselves around Aioma and Taori. Taori had saved them for -the moment by his act in swimming out to attack the boat; he was no -longer their chief, but their god, and yet some instinctive -knowledge of the wickedness of man and of the tenacity and power of -the white men told them that all was not over. - -Amongst them as they waited whilst Aioma and Katafa distributed -food, sat two women, Nanu and Ona, each with a dead child clasped in -her arms. The child of Nanu had been killed instantaneously by a -bullet that had pierced its neck and the arm of its mother. Ona’s -child, pierced in its body, had died slowly, bleeding its life away -and wailing as it bled. - -These two women, high cheeked, frizzy-headed and of the old fierce -Melanesian stock which formed the backbone and hitting force of -Karolin, were strange to watch as they sat nursing their dead, -speechless, passionless, heedless of food or drink or what might -happen. The others ate, too paralysed by the events of the day to -prepare food for themselves, they yet took what was given to them -with avidity, then, when dark came, they crept back into the bushes -to sleep, whilst Dick, leaving Katafa in charge of Aioma, left the -trees and under cover of the darkness came along the beach past the -bodies, over which the birds were still at work, until he was level -with the schooner. - -She showed no lights on deck, no sign of life but the two tiny dim -golden discs of the cabin portholes. - -Taking his seat on a weather-worn piece of coral, he sat watching -her. Forward, close to the foc’sle head, he saw now two forms, Le -Moan and Kanoa; they drew together, then they vanished, the deck now -seemed deserted, but he continued to watch. Already in his mind he -foresaw vaguely the plan of Rantan. To-morrow they would not use the -boat, they would move the schooner, bring her opposite the village -and then with those terrible things that could speak so loudly and -hit so far they would begin again—and where could the people go? The -forty-mile reef would be no protection; away from the trees and the -puraka patches the people would starve, they would have no water. -The people were tied to the village. - -He sat with his chin on his clenched fists staring at the schooner -and the two evil golden eyes that were staring him back like the -eyes of a beast. - -If only a single canoe had been left he would have paddled off and, -with Aioma and maybe another for help, would have attacked, but the -canoes were gone— and the dinghy. - -Then as he sat helpless, with hatred and the fury of hell in his -heart, the golden eyes vanished. Rantan had put out the light. - -With the rising moon he saw as in a glass, darkly, little by little -and bit by bit, the tragedy we have seen in full. He saw the -grouping of the foc’sle hands as they came up from below, he saw -them disappear as they sat on deck. Then he saw the figure of Le -Moan, her halt at the saloon hatch and the following of Kanoa, he -heard the scream of the stricken Carlin. - -Lastly he saw the crowding of the hands aft, Carlin’s body being -dragged on deck and cast overboard into a lather of moonshine and -phosphorus, and something white carried shoulder high to forward of -the galley where it was laid on deck. - -Then after a few moments lights began to break out, lanterns moved -on the deck, the portholes broke alive again and again were blotted -out as the cabin lamp lit and taken from its attachments was carried -on deck and swung from the ratlins of the main for decorative -purposes. The moon gave all the light that any man in his sober -senses could want, but the crew of the schooner were not sober, they -were drunk with the excitement of the business, and though nominally -free men they felt as slaves feel when their bonds are removed. -Besides, Rantan and Carlin had plotted to kill them as they had -killed Sru and the others. On top of that there was a bottle of -ginger wine. It had been stored in the medicine locker—Peterson, -like many other seamen, had medical fancies of his own and he -believed this stuff to be a specific for the colic. It had escaped -Carlin’s attention, but Poni, who acted as steward, had sniffed at -it, tasted it and found it good. - -It was served out in a tin cup. - -Then, across the water came the sound of voices, the twanging of a -native fiddle, and now the whoop-whoop of dancers in the hula dance -songs, laughter against which came the thunder of the moonlit sea on -the outer beach and an occasional cry from the gulls at their food. - -Dick, rising, made back towards the trees; his heart felt easier. -Without knowing what had occurred, he still knew that something had -happened to divide his enemies, that they had quarrelled, and that -one had been killed; that, with Sru and his companions, made five -gone since the schooner had dropped anchor. - -Lying down beside Katafa, whilst Taiepu kept watch, he fell asleep. - -At dawn Taiepu, shouting like a gull, came racing through the trees -whilst the bushes gave up their people. They came crowding out on -the beach to eastward of the trees and there, sure enough, was Le -Moan, the schooner against the blaze at the Gates of Morning, and -the boat hanging a hundred yards off shore. - -Kneeling on the sands before Taori, glancing sometimes up into his -face, swiftly, as one glances at the sun, Le Moan told her tale -whilst the sun itself now fully risen blazed upon the man before -her. - -Dick listened, gathered from the artless story the sacrifices she -had made at first, the heroism she had shown to the last, but -nothing of her real motive, nothing of the passion that came nigh to -crushing her as Katafa, catching her in her arms, and, pressing her -lips on her forehead, led her away tenderly as a sister to the -shelter of the trees. - -Then the mob, true to itself and forgetting their saviour, turning, -raced along the sands, boys, women and children, till they got level -with the waiting boat shouting welcome to the newcomers. - -Poni in the stern sheets rose and waved his arms, the boat driven by -a few strokes reached the beach and next moment the crew of the -_Kermadec_ and the people of Karolin were fraternizing—embracing one -another like long-lost relatives. - -And now a strange thing happened. - -Dick, who stood watching all this, deposed for a moment as chief men -are sometimes temporarily deposed and forgotten in moments of great -national heart movements, saw in the boat, the naked, bound figure -of Rantan lying on the bottom boards. - -He came closer and the eyes of Rantan, which were open, met the eyes -of Taori. - -Rantan was a white man. - -There was no appeal in the eyes of Rantan—he who knew the Islands so -well knew that his number was up; he gazed at the golden brown -figure of Taori, gazed at that face so strange for a kanaka, yet so -truly the face of an islander, gazed as a white man upon a native. - -For a moment it was as though race gazed upon kindred race disowning -it, not seeing it, mistaking it for an alien and lower race and from -deep in the mind of Dick vague and phantom-like rose trouble. - -He did not know that he himself was a white man, blood brother of -the man in the boat. He knew nothing, yet he felt trouble. He turned -to Aioma. - -“Will he die?” - -“Ay, most surely will he die,” said the old fellow with a chuckle. -“Will the dog-fish not die when he is caught? He who killed the -canoes, the children, is it not just that he should die?” - -Dick inclined his head without speaking. He turned to where Nanu and -the other woman were standing, waiting, terrible, with their dead -children still clasped in their arms. - -“It is just,” said he, “see to it, Aioma,” and turning without -another glance at the boat he walked away, past the shattered -canoes, past the half-picked bones, through the sunlight, towards -the trees. - -Aioma, no longer himself, but something more evil, came towards the -boat making little bird-like noises, rubbing his shrivelled hands -together, stroking his thighs. - -The tide was just at full ebb, the old ledge where the victims of -Nanawa were staked out in past times for the sharks to eat was -uncovered and only waiting for a victim. It lay halfway between the -village and the reef break and in old times one might have known -when an execution was to take place by the fins of the tiger sharks -cruising around it. This morning there were no sharks visible. - -Rantan was reserved for a worse fate; for, as Aioma, standing by the -boat, called on the people to take their vengeance, the woman Nanu, -still holding her dead child in her arms stepped up to him followed -by Ona. - -“He is ours,” said Nanu. - -Aioma turned on her like a savage old dog—he was about to push her -back amongst the crowd when Ona advanced a step. - -“He is ours,” said Ona, glancing at the form in the boat as though -it were a parcel she was claiming, whilst the crowd, reaching to the -woods, broke in, speaking almost with one voice. - -“He is theirs, he has slain their children, let them have him for a -child.” - -“So be it,” said Aioma, too much of a diplomat to oppose the mob on -a matter of sentiment, and curious as to what gory form of vengeance -the women would adopt. “So be it, and now what will you do with -him?” - -“We will take him to the southern beach with us. We alone,” said -Nanu. - -“We would be alone with him,” said Ona, shifting her dead child from -her right to her left arm as one might shift a parcel. - -“But how will you take him?” asked the old man. - -“In a canoe,” said Nanu. - -“Then go and build it,” said the canoe-builder. “What foolishness is -this, for well you know the canoes are broken.” - -“Aioma,” said Nanu, “there is one little canoe which is yet whole, -it lies in the further canoe-house, so far in that it has been -forgotten; it belonged to my man, the father of my child, he who -went with the others but did not return. I have never spoken of it -and no one has seen it, for no one goes into the canoe-houses now -that the great canoes are gone.” - -“Then let it be fetched,” said Aioma. He stood whilst a dozen of the -crowd broke away and racing towards the trees disappeared in the -direction of the canoe-houses. Presently the canoe, a fishing -outrigger, showed on the water of the lagoon, two boys at the -paddles. They beached it close to the boat, the dead children were -lashed to the gratings with strips of coconut sennit, Rantan, raised -by half a dozen pairs of hands, was lifted and placed in the bottom -of the little craft, and the women, pushing off, got on board, and -raised the sail. - -The steering paddle flashed and the crowd stood watching as the -canoe grew less on the surface of the water, less and less, making -for the southern beach, till now it was no larger than a midge in -the lagoon dazzle that, striking back at the sun, roofed Karolin -with a forty-mile dome of radiance. - - -CHAPTER VII—THE VISION - -Now when Katafa led Le Moan away into the shelter of the trees, Le -Moan, with the kiss of Katafa warm upon her forehead, knew nothing, -nothing of the fact that Katafa was Taori’s, the dream and treasure -of his life, beside whom all other living things were shadows. - -And Katafa knew nothing, nothing of the fact that Taori was Le -Moan’s—was Le Moan; for Le Moan had so dreamed him into herself that -the vision of him had become part of herself inseparable for ever. - -Ringed and ringed with ignorance, ignorance of their own race, and -the affinity between them, of the fact that they and Taori formed -amongst the people of Karolin a little colony alien in blood and -soul, of the fact that Taori was their common desire, they went -between the trees, Katafa leading the way towards the house of Uta -Matu, above which Nan on his pole still grinned towards the -schooner, grinned without nodding, maybe because the wind that had -moved him had ceased. - -Katafa, taking the sleeping mat used by her and Taori, spread it on -the floor of the house, then she offered food, but Le Moan refused, -she only wanted sleep. For nights she had not slept and the kiss -that Katafa again pressed upon her brow seemed to her the kiss of a -phantom in a dream as she sank down and died to the world on the bed -of the lover who knew nothing of her love. - -It was still morning. - -Outside in the blazing sun the people of Karolin went about their -business, mending the wall of the house that had been broken, -preparing food for the newcomers, rejoicing in the new life that had -come back to them. Whilst in the lagoon the anchored schooner swung -to her moorings, deserted and without sign of life, for Dick had -decided that no one should board her till he and Aioma led the way, -that is till the morrow, for there were many things to be attended -to first. - -Le Moan had brought him not only a ship, but six full-grown men, a -priceless gift if the men were to be trusted. - -Aioma, who had held off from the business of fraternizing, watching -the newcomers with a critical eye, believed that they were good men. -“But wait,” said Aioma, “till they are fed, till they have rested -and slept amongst us; a good-looking coconut is sometimes rotten at -the core, but these I believe to be good men even as Le Moan has -said; but to-night will tell.” - -At dusk he came to Taori, happy. Each of the new men had taken a -wife; incidentally, in the next few days each of the newcomers, with -one exception, had taken from four to six wives. - -“Each has a woman,” said the direct Aioma. “We are sure of them now, -they are in the mammee apple, all except one who is very young and -who says that he has no heart for women.” - -He spoke of Kanoa. Kanoa brooding alone by the water’s edge, sick -with love and desire. Love that was even greater than desire, for -the deed of Le Moan that had stirred in him the ghosts of his -ancestors, had raised the soul of Kanoa beyond the flesh where -hitherto it had been tangled and blind. - -Meanwhile Le Moan slept. Slept whilst the dusk rose and the stars -came out, slept till the moon high against the milky way pierced the -house of Uta Matu with her shafts. - -Then sleep fell from her gradually and turning on her elbow she saw -the moon rays shining through the canes of the wall, the little -ships ghostly on their shelves and through the doorway the wonderful -world of moonlit reef and sea. - -Nothing broke the stillness of the night but the surf of the reef -and a gentle wind that stirred the palm fronds with a faint -pattering rainy sound and passed away across the mammee apple where -men and women lay embraced, who the night before had not known even -of each other’s existence. - -Before the doorway, sheltered from the moon by a tree shadow, all -but their feet that showed fully in the light, two forms lay -stretched on a mat—Taori and Katafa. They had given up their house -to the saviour of Karolin, taken a mat from one of the women’s -houses, and fallen asleep with only the tree for shelter. Le Moan, -not recognizing them, still dazed with sleep, rose, came to the -doorway and looked down. - -Then she knew. - -Taori’s head was pillowed on Katafa’s shoulder, her arm was around -his neck, his arm across her body. - - -CHAPTER VIII—THE CASSI FLOWERS - -If the sea had risen above the reef destroying the village and -sweeping the population of Karolin to ruin whilst leaving her -untouched, Le Moan would have stood as she stood now, unmoved before -the inevitable and the accomplished. - -Her world lay around her in ruins and the destroyers lay before her -asleep. - -She had feared death and dreaded separation, but she had never -dreamed of this—for Taori, in her mind, had always stood alone as -the sun stands alone in the sky. - -A spear stood against the tree bole and the pitiless hand that had -killed Carlin could have seized it and plunged it into the heart of -Katafa, but if the sea had destroyed her world as this girl had -destroyed it, would she have cast a spear at the sea? The thing was -done, accomplished, of old time. Her woman’s instinct told her that. - -Done and accomplished, without any knowledge of her, in a world from -which she had been excluded by fate. - -Moving from the doorway she passed them, almost touching their feet. -To right and left of her lay the tumbling sea and the lit lagoon, -before her the great white road of the beaches and the reef. She -followed the leading of this road with little more volition than the -wind-blown leaf or the drifting weed; with only one desire, to be -alone. - -It led to the great trees where the canoe-builders had been at work. -Here across the coral lay the trunks felled by Aioma, filling the -air with the fragrance of new-cut wood. One already had been partly -shaped and hollowed, and resting on it for a moment, Le Moan -followed its curves with her eyes, felt the ax marks with her hand, -took in every detail of the work, saw it as, with outrigger affixed -and sail spread to the wind, it would take the sea, -sometime—sometime—sometime. - -The ceaseless breakers casting their spindrift beneath the moon -lulled her mind for a moment till trees, canoe, reef and sea all -faded and dissolved in a world of sound, a voice-world through which -came the chanting of stricken coral and, at last, pictures of the -wind-blown southern beach. - -The southern beach, sunlit and gull-flown, a beached canoe, a -form—Taori. - -It was now and now only that the pain came, piercing soul and -rending body, crushing her and breaking her till she fell on the -coral, her face buried in her arms, as though cast there by the sea -whose eternal thunder filled the night. - -The night wind moved her hair. It was blowing from the village and -as it came it brought with it a vague whisper from the bushes and -trees and now and again a faint perfume of cassi. Perfume, like -music, is a voice speaking a language we have forgotten, telling -tales we half understand, soothing us now with dreams, raising us -now to action. - -The cassi flowers were speaking to Le Moan. After a long, long while -she moved, raised her head and, leaning on her elbow, seemed to -listen. - -Close to her was a pond in the coral—a rock pool filled with fresh -water such as existed on the southern beach and a fellow of which -lay in the village close to the house of Uta Matu. - -Dragging herself towards it she leaned on her arms and looked deep -down into the water just as she had been looking into the pool that -day when raising her eyes she found herself first face to face with -Taori. - -The cassi flowers were speaking to Le Moan, their perfume followed -her mind as it sank like a diver into the pool’s moonlit, crystal -heart. Their voices said to her: - -“Taori is not dead. Whilst he lives do not despair, for who can take -his image from you and what woman’s love can equal yours? Peace, Le -Moan. Watch and wait.” - -Presently she arose, returning by the way she came. She drew towards -the house of Uta Matu and passed the figures on the mat without -glancing at them. Then in the house she lay down with her face to -the wall. When the dawn aroused Katafa, Le Moan had not moved; one -might have fancied her asleep. - - -CHAPTER IX—VENGEANCE - -Rantan, when they cast him in the fishing canoe, could see nothing -but the roughly shaped sides, bright here and there where the scale -of a palu had stuck and dried, the after outrigger pole, the blue -sky above the gunnel and the heads of the crowd by the waterside. - -By raising himself a little he might have glimpsed the two dead -children tied to the outrigger gratings, but he could not raise -himself, nor had he any desire to do so. - -He knew the islands, he had heard what passed between Aioma and the -women, and as they carried him from the boat to the canoe, he had -seen the dead children tied on the gratings. What his fate was to be -at the hands of Ona and Nanu he could not tell, nor did he try to -imagine it. - -All being ready, the stem of the canoe left the beach, the two women -scrambling on board as it was waterborne. Nanu sat aft and Ona -forward, trampling on Rantan’s body with her naked feet as she got -there. The paddles splashed and the spray came inboard striking -Rantan on the face, but he did not mind; neither did he mind the -heat of the steadily rising sun, nor the heel of Ona as she dropped -her paddle for a moment and raised the sail. - -Sometimes he closed his eyes to shut out the sight of Nanu, who was -steering, her eyes fixed on the sail; sometimes on the beach ahead, -never or scarcely ever on Rantan. - -Sometimes he could hear Ona’s voice. She was just behind his head -holding on to the mast and trimming the canoe by moving now to the -left or right—her voice came calling out some directions to the -other and then sharp as the voice of Ona came the cry of a seagull -that flew with them for a moment, inspecting the dead children on -the gratings till the flashing paddle and the shouts of Nanu drove -it away. - -And now as the sun grew hotter, a vague odour of corruption filled -the air, passed away with the back draught from the sail yet -returned again, whilst the murmur of the northern beach that had -died down behind them became merged in the wash of the waves on the -southern coral. - -Then as the place of their revenge drew close to them and they could -see the deserted shacks, the long line of empty beach and the -coconut trees in their separate groups, Nanu seemed to awake to the -presence of Rantan. She glanced at him and laughed, and steering all -the time, with side flashes of the paddle pointed him out to Ona -whose laughter came from behind him, shrill, sharp and done with in -a moment. - -Truly Rantan wished that he had never embarked on this voyage, never -seen Peterson, never left him for dead away there on Levua; bitterly -did he repent his temerity in coming into Karolin lagoon and his -stupidity in trying to shoot it up. - -Sometimes, long ago, he had amused himself by imagining what might -be the worst fate of a man at sea, shipwreck, slow starvation, death -from thirst, from sharks, from fire. He had never imagined anything -like his present position, never imagined himself in the hands of -two women of the Islands, whose children he had been instrumental in -murdering, two women who were taking him off to a desolate beach to -do with him as they pleased. He could tell the approach of the beach -by the face of Nanu and the outcries of Ona. Sometimes Ona would -give his body a kick to emphasize what she was saying, which was -Greek to Rantan. So sharp was her voice, so run together the words, -that her speech was like a sword inscribed with unintelligible -threats. - -Now Nanu was half standing up, Ona was hauling the sail, the paddles -were flashing, the sands close. They brought the stem of the canoe -on to the shelving sand, and, on the bump and shudder, dropping -their paddles, they jumped clear, seized gunnel and outrigger and -beached her high and dry. - -Then seizing their victim by the feet and the shoulders, they lifted -him from the canoe and threw him on to the sand. He fell on his -face, they turned him on his back and then left him, running about -here and there and making preparations for their work. - -The tide was running out and the wind, that had slacked to due west, -bent the coco palms and brought up from all along the beach the -silky whisper of the sands, the rumour of twenty miles of sea -beating on the southern coral and the smell of sun-smitten seaweeds -and emptying rock pools. - -Rantan, who had closed his eyes, opened them, and turning his head -slightly, watched the women; Nanu who was collecting bits of stick -and wood to light a fire and Ona who was collecting oyster shells. -There were many oyster shells lying about on the beach and Ona, as -she went, picked and chose, taking only the flat shells and testing -their edges with her thumb. - -Rantan knew, and a shudder went through him as he watched her -carrying them and placing them in a little heap by the place where -Nanu was building her fire. - -A big brown bird with curved beak and bright eyes sweeping in the -air above them would curve and drift on the wind and return, making -a swoop towards the beached canoe and the objects on the outrigger -gratings, and the women, busy at their work, would shout at the bird -and sometimes threaten it with a paddle which Ona ran and fetched -from the canoe. Not till vengeance had been assured would the dead -children be cast to the sharks. The shark was the grave and -burial-ground of Karolin. - -When everything was ready they turned from the fire and came running -across the sand to their victim. - -Rantan, lying on his back with eyes closed and mouth open, had -ceased to breathe. - -Never looked man more dead than Rantan, and Ona, dropping on her -knees beside him with a cry, turned him on one side, turned him -back, cried out to Nanu who dashed off to the fire, seized a piece -of burning stick, rushed back with it and pressed the red hot point -of it against his foot. Rantan did not move. - -Then furious, filling the air with their cries, with only one idea, -to rub him and pound him and to bring back the precious life that -had escaped or was escaping them, they began to strip him of his -bonds, tearing off the coconut sennit strips, the sheet, unrolling -him like a mummy from its bandages, till he lay naked beneath the -sun—a corpse that suddenly sprang to life with a yell, bounded to -its feet, seized the paddle and flung itself on Nanu, felling her -with a smashing blow on the neck, turned and pursuing Ona chased her -as she ran this way and that like a frightened duck. - -Few men had ever seen Rantan. The silent, quiet, sunburnt man of -ordinary times was not Rantan. This was Rantan, this mad figure -yelling hatred, radiating revenge, mad to kill. - -Rantan robbed of his pearl lagoon, of his ship, of his prospect of -wealth, ease, wine and women—by kanakas; Rantan whom kanakas had -bound with a sheet and dumped into a canoe; Rantan whom two kanaka -women—women!—women, mind you—had trodden on, and whom they had been -preparing to scrape to death slowly inch by inch with oyster shells, -and burn bit by bit with hot sticks. - -This was the real Rantan raised to his _n_th power by injuries, -insults, and the escape from a terrible death. - -Ona dashed for the canoe, maybe with some blind idea to get hold of -the other paddle to defend herself with, but he had the speed of her -and headed her off; she made for the rough coral of the outer beach -but he headed her off; time and again he could have closed with her -and killed her, but the sight of her frizzy head, her face, her -figure, and the fact that she was a woman, filled him with a counter -rage that spared her for the moment. He could have chased her for -ever, killing her a thousand times in his mind, had his strength -been equal to his hatred; but he could not chase her for ever, and, -suddenly, with a smashing blow he brought her to ground, beat the -life out of her and stood gasping, satiated and satisfied. - -Only for a moment. The sight of Nanu lying where he had felled her -brought him running. She had fallen near the heap of oyster shells, -the fire that she had built was still burning, the stick which she -had pressed against his foot was close to her. She had recovered -consciousness and as she lay, her eyes wide open, she saw him stand -above her, the paddle uplifted, and that was the last thing she saw -in this world. - -He came down to the water’s edge and sat, squatting, the paddle -beside him and his eyes fixed away over the water to where the -schooner was visible, a toy ship no larger than the model of the -_Rarotonga_, swinging to the outgoing tide. - -Beyond the schooner the trees that hid the village were just -visible. - -He was free, free for the moment, but still in the trap of the -lagoon. - -Free, but stripped of everything; absolutely naked, without even -shoes. - -He was thinking in pictures; pictures now vague, now clear ran -through his mind, the shooting up of the lagoon, the figure of Dick -swimming off towards him and Carlin as they were firing from the -boat, the fight in the cabin, the killing of Carlin—and again Dick. - -Dick as he had come and stood looking at him (Rantan) as he lay -bound and helpless. His hatred of the kanakas and the whole business -seemed focussed in Dick, for in that bright figure and noble face -lay expressed the antithesis of himself, something that he could not -despise as he despised Sru, the Karolin people, even Carlin. - -He loathed this creature whom he had only seen twice and to whom he -had never spoken—loathed him as hell loathes heaven. - -Then Dick dropped from his mind. - -He was still in the trap of the lagoon. He turned his head to where -behind him on the sands lay the two dead women, then he turned his -eyes to the beached canoe where lay the two dead children strapped -to the gratings. The waves spoke and the wind on the sands, and the -bo’sun bird returning with a mate swept by, casting its shadow close -to him. - -Rantan shouted and picking up the paddle threatened the bird just as -the women had done, then he sprang to his feet. - -He must get out, get out with the canoe, clear off before the -kanakas had any chance of coming across. They had no canoes, but -they had the ship’s boats and if they came and caught him, it would -be death; he could get drinking nuts from the trees, but first he -must untie those cursed children from the gratings. He turned -towards the canoe and as he turned something caught his eye away -across the water. - -The merry west wind had blown out a bunt of the schooner’s hastily -stowed canvas in a white flicker against the blue. Were they getting -sail on the schooner? - -He turned and ran towards the trees. He could climb like a monkey, -and heedless of everything but drinking nuts and pandanus drupes, he -set to work, collecting them. A mat lay doubled up near one of the -deserted shacks; he used it as a basket and between the trees and -the canoe he ran and ran, sweating, with scarcely a glance across -the water—his only idea the thirst and hunger of the sea which he -had to face, the terror of torture and death that lay behind him. -There was a huge fig tree, the only one on Karolin, and a tree -bearing an unknown fruit in form and colour like a lemon. He raided -them, tearing branches down and stripping the fruit off. Before his -last journey to the canoe he flung himself down by the little well, -the same into which Le Moan had been gazing when she first saw -Taori, and drank and drank—raising his head only to drink again. - -Reaching the canoe for the last time he threw the fruit in and took -a glance across the water to the schooner. The wind had taken -advantage of the clumsy and careless work of the crew and the size -of the bunt had increased. In his right senses he would have known -the truth, but terror had him by the shoulder and seizing the gunnel -he began to drive the canoe into the water. The falling tide had -left her almost dry, the outrigger interfered with his efforts, -getting half buried in the sand. He could not push her out and at -the same time keep her level with the outrigger lifting. He had to -run from side to side pushing and striving, till at last the idea -came to him to spread the mat under the outrigger. That made things -easier. He had her now nearly waterborne; throwing in the paddle he -prepared to send her out with a last great push, and, running -through the shallow water, scramble on board. - -Such was the state of his mind he had not recognized that the bodies -of the two babies tied to the gratings were a main cause in the -tilting of the canoe to port and his difficulty in keeping her on a -level keel; nor did he now, but he recognized that he could not put -to sea with those terrible bodies tied to him. - -He set to work to untie them, but Nanu and Ona, as though -previsioning this business, had done their work truly and well—the -spray and the sun had shrunk the coconut sennit bindings and the -knots were hard as bits of oak. He had no knife, and his hands were -shaking and his fingers without power. - -A gull swooped down as if to help him and he struck at it with his -fist; the sweat poured from him and his knees were beginning to -knock together. - -The tide was still falling, threatening to leave the canoe dry -again; he recognized that and, leaving the bodies untied, raced -round to the starboard side, seized the gunnel and pushed her out. -On board he paddled kneeling, and using the paddle now on one side, -now on the other; making straight out, the lose sail flapping above -him, his knees wet with crushed pandanus drupes, gulls following him -swooping down and clanging off on the wind. - -Then, far enough out, he gave the sail to the breeze that was -blowing steady for the break. He was free, nobody could stop him -now. Wind and tide were with him, so were the lagoon sharks, who -guessed what was tied to the gratings and the gulls who saw. - -A royal escort of gulls snowed the air above the flashing paddle and -the bellying sail as the canoe, driving past the piers of the -opening took the sea and the outer swell, steering dead before the -wind for the east. - -Little by little the gulls fell astern, gave up the chase, swept -back towards Karolin, leaving the man and the dead children and the -canoe to the blue sea and the wind that swept it. - -Rantan steered. He was used to the handling of a canoe and he knew -that, alone as he was, he could do nothing but just keep the little -craft before the wind. Where the wind blew he must go and with him -his cargo, the fruit at his feet and the forms tied to the grating. - -Once with a dangerous and desperate effort he tried to untie them, -but his weight thrown to port nearly capsized him. Then, giving the -matter up and steeling his heart, he steered before a wind that had -now shifted, blowing from the north. - -At sunset it was blowing dead from the north and all night long it -blew till the dawn rose and there before Rantan, breaking the -skyline, palm tops showed and the foam of a tiny atoll singing to -the sunrise. - -The break was towards the north and the wind brought him through it -into the little lagoon, not a mile broad, and on to the beach. - -Springing on to the sand and looking wildly around him he saw -nothing—only the trees, not a sign of life, only the trees in their -beauty, the lagoon in its loveliness, the sky in its purity. Blue -and green and the white of coral sand, all in the fresh light of the -forenoon Paradise. - -Having looked around him, listened and swept the sea with a last -glance, he turned to the trees, cast himself in their shadow and -leaving the canoe to drift away or stick, fell into a sleep profound -as the sleep of the just. - -He was saved—for the moment. Freed from Karolin, he had not done -with Karolin yet. He had sailed for twenty hours before a five-knot -breeze. Karolin was just that distance away below the horizon to the -nor’-nor’-west. - - -BOOK III - - -CHAPTER I—LE MOAN WILL KNOW - -The dawn that showed Rantan the tiny atoll awakened Aioma who had -fallen asleep thinking of the schooner. - -Dick had promised that to-day they would board her and the -canoe-builder in him craved to get to work, and the boy—the boy -wanted to sail her, to feel the wind settling in the great spaces of -her canvas, to feel her heeling to it like a tilted world, to feel -her answering the helm; the canoe-builder wanted to explore her -above and below, examine the fastenings of her timbers; her masts -and rigging. - -Aioma was very old. He might have been a hundred. No man could tell, -for Karolin the clockless kept no account of years. He was too old -for fighting, having lost the quickness without which a spear- or -club-man is of no account as a fighter; but he was not too old for -fun. - -Whip-ray fishing was fun to Aioma—a sport that, next to conger -killing, is the nearest approach to fighting with devils; so also -was shaping heavy logs to the form of his dream, for Aioma dreamt -his canoes before he shaped them, the breaking of Rantan’s joints -and the staking him on the reef for sharks to devour would also have -been fun had not the women claimed the victim to torture him as they -pleased. - -Aioma, in fact, was as young as he ever had been and as potent in -all fields except those of war and love. He came to the water’s edge -and stood looking at the schooner. He had dreamt that, walking on -the sands of the beach with Taori they had looked for the schooner -and found her gone. But she was there right enough, her spars -showing against the blaze in the east. - -The gulls knew that she was deserted, they flew above her in the -golden morning and lighted on her rails and spars whilst the ripple -of the tide past her anchor chain showed the living brilliancy of -light on moving water. - -The canoes and dinghy being destroyed they would have to get off to -her in the boat. - -For a moment the old man stood looking at the bones of the broken -canoes and the planks of the poor old dinghy; the fishing fleet of -Karolin had gone just as the fighting fleet had gone, yet the gods -had made compensation, for there lay the schooner, a thing more -potent than all the fleets of Karolin combined, and there lay her -boat, a fine four-oared double-ender, carvel built, white painted, a -joy to the eye. - -Yesterday at odd times he had examined her outside and in; this -morning as his eyes swept over her again, new thoughts came to him -and a new vision. - -Canoes, what were they beside these things, and why build canoes any -more, why hollow and shape those vast tree-trunks over which they -had been labouring for long weeks when here to their hands lay -something better than any fleet of canoes? If Taori wished to attack -those men on the northern island, why not attack with the schooner, -a whole fleet in one piece, so to speak? - -As he stood pondering over this new idea, Dick, who had awakened -early, came towards him from the trees accompanied by Katafa. - -“Taori,” said the canoe-builder, “we will go to her (the schooner) -you and I; she is ours and I want no other hand to touch her or foot -to rest on her till we alone have been with her for a space. Help -me.” He laid his hand in the gunnels of the boat as he spoke and -Dick, as eager as the other, calling to Katafa to help them, went to -the opposite side; between them they got her afloat and tumbled in. - -Aioma had learned to handle an oar in the dinghy; the heavy ash -sweep was nothing to him and as the boat made across the glitter of -the lagoon, Katafa, her feet washed by the little waves on the sand, -stood watching them. - -Dick had not asked her to accompany him. It was as though the -schooner had come between them as a rival—a thing, for the moment, -more desirable than her. - -She was feeling now what she had felt before only more vaguely. She -had always distrusted the little ships, those models born of the -pocket knife and ingenuity of Kearney, those hints of an outside -world, a vague outside world that might some day break into their -environment and separate her from Dick. - -This distrust had been built up from the cannon shot of the -_Portsey_ that had smashed her canoe, from the schooner that had -come into Palm Tree lagoon with its cargo of Melanesians and it -joined with a vague antagonism born of jealousy. - -When Dick fell into contemplation of the ship models and especially -that of the schooner, he seemed to forget her more completely than -even when he was fishing. - -Fishing, his mind would be away from her no doubt, but it would -still be close; brooding over the little ships and especially the -schooner, his mind would be far away. She could tell it by the look -in his eyes, by his expression, by his attitude. - -And now that this apotheosis of the model schooner was handed to him -by the fates as a plaything, the distrust and antagonism in the mind -of the girl became acute. - -It was almost as though another woman had put a spell upon him -alienating him from her. As a matter of fact this was the case, for -the schooner was the gift of Le Moan. - - * * * * * - -As the boat came alongside the _Kermadec_, the gulls left her, -drifting off on the wind. Swinging with the tide, her stem was -towards the break, the water rippling on the anchor chain which -could be followed by the eye through the crystal clear water to -where the anchor held in the lagoon floor. The copper sheathing was -clearly visible with a few weeds waving from it, fish hung round the -stern post and the secret green, the ship-shadow green—the green -that is nowhere but in sea water alongside a moored ship—went to -Dick’s heart as something new, yet old in memory, a last touch to -the wonder and enchantment of the hull, the towering masts, the -rigging outlined against the diamond-bright blue of the sky. - -Tying the boat to the chain plates he scrambled on board followed by -the other. Then he stood and looked about him. - -His feet had not rested on the deck of a ship since that time when -as a tiny child he stood on the deck of the _Rarotonga_, Kearney -about to hand him into the shore boat, Lestrange waiting to receive -him. So many years ago that time had taken away everything from -memory, everything but a vague something that was partly a perfume: -the smell of a ship in tropical waters, tar, wood, cordage, all -intensified by the tropical sun and mixed with sea scents in one -unforgettable bouquet. - -He swept the deck with his eyes and then looked aloft. The strange -thing was that not only did he know all the important parts of the -standing and running rigging, but he knew each part by its name, and -by its English name; the only remnants of the language of his -childhood were here, attached to the down-hauls, the topping lifts, -the halyards, the blocks, taught by Kearney and held tightly to his -mind by the model; and Aioma, the old child, voracious in sea -matters as the child that once was Dick, knew them too, nearly all, -taught to him on the model by Dick. - -Master and pupil stood for a moment in silence, looking here, -looking there, absorbed, taking possession of her with their minds. -Then the pupil suddenly clapping his hands began to run about -swinging on to ropes, poking his head here and there, now into the -galley, now down the foc’sle hatch. - -“It is even as it was in my dream,” cried he, “but greater and more -beautiful, and she is ours, Taori, and we will take her beyond the -reef—_e manta Tia kau_—and we will fill her sails with the wind; she -will eat the wind, there will be no wind left for canoes in all the -islands.” As he chattered and ran about, every now and then his face -would turn to port as though he were looking for something. It was -the obsession of the outrigger. You will remember that even in his -dream when _half an inch high_ he had helped to work the model -across the rock pool, the dream ship had developed an outrigger; it -was so now. The outrigger had so fixed itself in his mind, owing to -ancestral and personal experience, as part of the make-up of a -sailing craft that Aioma could not escape from the idea of it. - -There was something wanting. Reason told him that there was nothing -wanting, that the schooner had beam and depth enough to stand up to -the wind and sea without capsizing—all the same every now and then, -when facing the bow, he was conscious that on his left-hand side -there was something wanting, something the absence of which as a -stabilizer made him feel insecure. - -Dick, having glanced at the compass in the binnacle, of which he -could make nothing, turned his attention to the wheel. He had never -seen a wheel of any sort before and he had no idea of the use of -this strange contrivance. Kearney’s ships were all rigged with -tillers. Aioma was equally mystified. - -“Le Moan will know,” said he, “and the men she brought with her. But -look, Taori.” - -He was standing by the saloon hatch and pointing down. He was brave -enough on deck, but, like Le Moan, the interior of the schooner -daunted him. He had never gone down stairs in his life, nor seen a -step, neither had Dick. - -The peep down the stairway, the mat below, the vague light through -the saloon doorway fascinated Dick without frightening him, and, -leaving the other to keep the deck, he came down cautiously, step by -step, pausing now and then to listen. - -In the saloon he stood looking about him at the handiwork of a -civilization of which he knew nothing. The place was in disorder, -nothing had been put straight since the fight that still existed in -evidence. Bunk-bedding was tossed about, a water bottle lay smashed -on the floor by the clothes that once had belonged to Rantan and -Carlin. He noticed the telltale compass and the attachments of the -swinging lamp, that had been brought on deck, the chairs, the door -of the after cabin, the glass of the skylight and portholes, the -table on which Rantan had held down Le Moan, the rifles in the rack -and the two rifles used by the beachcomber and his companion -standing in a corner cleaned and waiting for the deadly work which -Le Moan had frustrated. - -The smell of the place came to him. The vague odour of sandalwood -from the cargo piercing bulkheads and planking, the smell of stale -tobacco smoke, fusty bunk-bedding and the trade schooner smell that -hinted of cockroaches and coconut oil gone rancid. It seemed part of -the place and the place after the first few moments began to repel -him. - -What came to him through the sense of smell and sight was in fact a -waft from the closed spaces of the cities of which he knew nothing, -from the men who labour and construct and live and trade crowded -like ants under roofs, shut out from the sun and stars and winds of -God. - -He drew slowly back as though the environment were clinging to him -and holding him—but in his hand there was a rifle. Close to him, in -the corner by the door, he had seized hold of it. His piercing sight -had taken in the shape of the thing used by Rantan in the boat, the -thing that spoke so loud and killed at such a distance, and now, -seeing the death-dealer so close to his hand, he could not resist -it. - -He brought it on deck where Aioma was waiting for him and they -examined it, but could make nothing of it. - -“Let it be,” said the canoe-builder, resting it against the coaming -of the skylight. “Le Moan will know, or some of those men she has -brought with her.” - -He looked round. Something was troubling his mind. Knowing nothing -of the use of the steering wheel he was looking for the tiller. - -Dick looked about also. On boarding the schooner he had noticed the -absence of a tiller, the most striking object on the deck of the -model, but other things had so seized him that he put the question -by for the moment. - -“No matter,” said Aioma, “I know not how we will steer (_accoumi_) -when the sails are given to the wind, but Le Moan, she will know.” - - -CHAPTER II—THE THREE GREAT WAVES - -The schooner had two boats, the four-oar and a smaller one black -painted, battered by rough usage, but still serviceable. Later that -day Aioma brought both boats on to the beach for an overhaul. - -The remains of Sru and his companions had been dragged by the women -to the outer coral and cast at low-tide mark for the sea to dispose -of them. Nothing spoke of the tragedy but the remains of the canoes, -the planking of the broken dinghy and the ship swinging idly at her -moorings. - -It was late afternoon and the crew, released from their wives for a -moment, sat round whilst Aioma worked. Le Moan sat close to him but -apart from the others, amongst whom was Kanoa. - -The eyes of Kanoa might wander here or there, towards the -canoe-builder, towards the lagoon, towards the schooner, but they -always returned to Le Moan, who sat unconscious of his gaze -listening to the talk of the old man and the answering words of -Poni, whose dialect was the closest to that of Karolin. - -Aioma had taken Le Moan off to the schooner that afternoon when he -went to fetch the second boat. - -It was not really the boat he wanted. His object was to get the girl -on board alone with himself so that she might teach him the secret -of the tiller and other things so that he might teach Taori. He was -not jealous of Taori on land, he had supported him in every way as -ruler, but in sea matters and in the mysteries of construction it -was just a little hard that he, Aioma, should be less in knowledge -than Taori or be condemned to learn with him from the mouth of a -girl. - -So, not stealing a march on Taori, but at least not awakening him, -as the whole village slept in the heat of early afternoon, Aioma had -pushed off with the girl and Kanoa, who, being unmarried, was -drowsing close under the shelter of a tree. - -Leaving Kanoa to keep the boat they had boarded the schooner alone. - -Here the girl had explained the mystery of the wheel, the binnacle, -in which dwelt a spirit prisoned there by the white men, the winch -for getting up the anchor chain. She told him she alone had been -able to steer the schooner and she showed him the compass card whose -spear head always pointed in one direction no matter how the ship -lay. - -She did not know how it told the white men where to go, but she -thought it must be friendly to Karolin as it had always pointed away -from it. If they had obeyed it, they would not have been killed nor -the children of Nanu and Ona, nor would Nanti have been wounded (the -boy first shot by Carlin and whom Taori had carried off on his back -amongst the trees). - -“What of that,” said Aioma, “children are children, and Nanti will -take no hurt. He is already running about and the hole in his thigh -will fill up— What of all that, beside the _ayat_?” Yet still his -respect for the thing in the binnacle increased, and he followed -with his eyes the pointing of the spear head. Why, it was pointing -in the direction in which Marua (Palm Tree) lay! Marua, the island -of the bad men, who some day—some day would raid Karolin, according -to Taori. - -He put this matter by in his mind to mature, and then he turned to -the last unexplained mystery, the rifle leaning against the saloon -skylight just as Dick had left it. She could explain this, too. She -had seen Peterson using a rifle for shooting at bottles and her keen -eyes had followed everything from the taking of the cartridge from -the box to its insertion in the breech, to the act of firing and -extraction. - -She went to the galley where Carlin had placed the spare ammunition -to be handy, and returned with a half full box of cartridges, and, -obeying direction, Aioma did everything that Peterson had done. The -recoil bruised his shoulder and the noise nearly deafened him, but -he was unhurt, neither was the village alarmed owing to the -distance, a few birds rose on the reef and that was all. But it was -great. The noise delighted him and the smell of the powder. Then -leaving the rifle on deck they returned to the beach towing the -second boat. - -He was talking now as he worked, telling Poni and the others that -life on Karolin was not going to be all beer and skittles for them, -that as they had joined the tribe and taken wives they would have to -work; to work in the paraka patches and in the fishing and to help -man the schooner. “For,” said Aioma, “there are things to be done -beyond the reef, away over there,” said he straightening himself for -a moment and wiping his brow and pointing north, “where lies Marua, -an island of tall trees, and evil men who may yet come in their -canoes—no matter. It is not a question for you or for me, but for -Taori.” - -“What you set us to do we will do,” said Poni. “We are not beach -crabs, but men, Aioma. What say you, Kanoa?” - -Kanoa laughed and glanced at Le Moan and then away over the lagoon. - -“I will work in the paraka patches and at the fishing,” said he, -“but the work I would like best would be the work of measuring -myself against those evil men you speak of, Aioma—that is the work -for a man.” - -As he spoke the reef trembled and the air shook to a long roll of -thunder, an infinite, subdued, volume of sound heart-shaking because -its source seemed not in the air above them, but in the earth -beneath them and the sea that washed the reef. - -The wind had died out at noon, the outer sea was calm and the -lagoon, mirror-bright, was making three inch waves on the sand; the -tide was at half flood. - -Aioma looked about him, the others had risen to their feet and Poni, -leaving them, had run on to a higher bit of ground and was looking -over the outer sea. - -Through the windless air came the outcrying of gulls disturbed and -then in the silence following the great sound that had died away, -came another silence. The voice of the rollers on the outer beach -had almost ceased. - -“The sea is going out,” cried Poni, “she is leaving us, she is -dying—she has ceased to speak!” - -As his voice reached them, they saw the water at the break swirling -to an outgoing tide: an outgoing tide at half flood! - -Led by Aioma they reached the higher ground, stood and gazed at the -sea. The vast blue sea glittering without a touch of wind showed -like a thing astray and disturbed. Its rhythm had ceased, swell met -counter swell, and the Karaka rock spoke in foam; the wet coral -showed the fall of the receding tide, and away to eastward white -caps on the flawless blue marked the run of the north-flowing -current checked for a moment in its course. - -The village, disturbed by the vast rumour from the heart of things -and answering to the call of Poni, came crowding out from the -trees—the women had caught up their children, the boys and young men -had seized spears and bows. They glanced to right and left; a woman -cried out; then dead silence fell on them. Every eye was fixed on -Aioma. - -He was standing on a higher piece of coral, mute, motionless, as if -carved from rock, his eyes fixed on the troubled waters. Taori might -be their chief, but the wisdom of Aioma they knew of old, and seeing -him undisturbed, they remained calm, waiting. - -The voice of Poni broke the silence: - -“She is coming back.” - -The flood was returning, the swirl at the break had ceased and a -wave broke on the coral of the outer beach; the line of white caps -died away, the Karaka rock ceased to spout, moment by moment the sea -resumed her lost rhythm as breaker on breaker came in filling the -air again with the old accustomed sound. - -A great sigh went up from the people. All was over. - -Yet Aioma did not move. - -Dick, who had followed with the others, stood beside Katafa. He -noticed that the schooner was swinging back to her old position, the -incoming tide setting her again bow to the break, that the sea had -regained its accustomed appearance, and that the lagoon was filling. -All was right again. - -Yet Aioma did not move. He stood with his eyes fixed to the far -north. Then, suddenly, he turned and sprang from the rock. - -“To the trees—to the trees!” He was no longer a man, he was a -whirlwind, he rushed on the people with arms outspread, and, -turning, they broke and ran. - -“To the trees—to the trees!” - -A hundred voices caught up the cry, the groves echoed it in a flash, -the beach and coral stood empty, the people had taken to the trees; -some to the near trees, some racing along the reef sought the great -trees of the canoe-builders. - -It was not climbing, as we know it. These people, like the people of -Tahiti, could literally walk up a tree, bodies bent, hands clinging -to the trunk and feet clutching at the bark. - -Katafa could climb like this; Dick, less expert but a good climber, -followed her, making her go first, seizing before he left the ground -a child that held on to his neck. The child was laughing. - -Fifty feet above the ground they clung and looked. - -From east to west across the sea stretched a line of light, lovely -and strange and infinite in length, swift moving, changing in -brilliancy yet ever brilliant. Ever advancing, whilst now from tree -top to tree top came the cry, shrill on the windless air: - -“_Amiana—amiana!_—the wave—the wave!” - -It met the Karaka rock and a great white ghost of foam rose towards -the sun. A few seconds later came the boom of the impact followed by -the clanging of the reef gulls rising in clouds and spirals; it -passed the rock, re-forming, forward sweeping, bearing straight for -the reef; a mound of sea towards which the shore waters rushed out -as it checked, curved, paled and burst in thunder on the reef, -sweeping houses to ruin and flooding into the lagoon. - -The trees held though the foam dashed thirty feet up their trunks. -Aioma unterrified, with one thought only, the schooner, could see -from his aerie that she was safe. Broken by the reef the great wave -had not harmed her. But now and again came the cry caught from tree -top to tree top. - -“_Amiana—amiana!_ The wave—the wave!” - -The duplicate, the glittering brother of the first long line of -light, was moving as swiftly towards them across the sea. Again the -Karaka spouted and the gulls clanged out, again the great green hill -of water sucked the shore sea to it, curved, crested and broke to -the roar of miles and miles of reef. - -The bones of the houses broken by the first great comber could be -heard washing amidst the tree roots below and from the -canoe-builders’ grove came the crash of a great tree, a matamata, -less secure a refuge than the slender-stemmed coconuts. It had -fallen lagoonward and the people on it, unkilled, were climbing -along it back to shore when yet again came the cry: - -“_Amiana—amiana!_ The wave—the wave!” - -It was the third great wave, bright like a far glittering bar of -crystal, scintillating with speed, sweeping through distance as the -others had swept towards the reef and lagoon of Karolin. - -But now, after the first outcry, the people in the treetops no -longer awaited the coming of the danger in silence. - -Their spirit suddenly broke. The sight of this third dazzling -apparition was too much. What had they done to the sea that she -should do this thing to them? Their houses were gone, the trees were -beginning to go; the trees would be destroyed and the reef itself -would follow them, for what could withstand the enmity of the sea or -the night that sent these vast glittering waves unleashed across -her, one following on another—with how many more yet to come! - -So as the third great wave drew back in silence for its blow against -the land, the voice of Karolin was heard, a lamentable voice against -the crying of the gulls; children and women and youths and some of -the newcome kanakas joined in the cry, but not Le Moan or Katafa, -nor Dick. Not Aioma, who, sure of his beloved schooner, found now -time and words to comfort his weaker brethren when the comber -crashing in spindrift and thunder left the trees still unbroken and -a silence through which his voice could be heard. - -He called them names that cannot be repeated, but which heartened -them up, then he told them that the worst was over and to look at -the sea. - -Yes, the worst was over. No fourth brilliant line of light showed -like the sword blade of Destruction sweeping over the blue, only a -greater heave of the swell lifting the inshore green into breakers, -horses of the sea resuming their eternal charge against the long -line of the reef. - - -CHAPTER III—THE SECOND APPARITION - -Dick was the first person down, followed by Katafa. - -He nearly stepped on the spinous back of a great fish, a fish such -as he had never seen before, larger than a full-grown man and -tangled amongst the bushes and the trees. - -The ruin was pitiable. Gone were the great canoe-houses, their -thatch and ridgepoles floating in the lagoon water, gone the houses -of the village, and all their humble furniture, mats and bowls and -shelves, knives, implements and ornaments. - -Gone were the little ships and each single thing that Dick and -Katafa had brought from Palm Tree; gone was Nan, grin and post and -all. - -The house of the Uta Matu which, despite its walls of cane and roof -of thatch, was in fact a public building, the canoe-houses which -were a navy yard—three great waves had washed away all visible sign -of the past of Karolin; but the people did not mourn, they were -alive and the trees were saved, and the wreckage in the lagoon could -be collected and rebuilt into new houses. There were three hours yet -before sunset and led by Aioma the salvage hunting began, knives -were recovered from cracks in the coral and mats that had wrapped -themselves round tree trunks, canes and ridgepoles from the near -water of the lagoon; the rainy season was far off and in that sultry -weather being roofless was little discomfort; a week or more would -put the houses up again, the only serious loss was in the paraka -patches, washed clean out. But there was paraka growing on the -southern beach, which the waves had not affected, and there was the -huge fish of which the sea had made them a present. - -Not one of them asked why this thing had occurred, or only Dick of -Aioma and Aioma of his own soul. - -“I do not know,” said Aioma, “only as I stood there I knew in my -mind that the sea had not ceased to speak, then I saw the far waves -and called to the people to climb the trees.” - -Of the little ships, not a trace could be found. They had gone -forever to some port beyond recall. Dick, to whom these things had -been part of his existence, bound up in his life, left Aioma and sat -apart by himself brooding as the dusk rose. - -The heat had dried up the moisture that had not drained off into the -lagoon and the sleeping mats were spread near to where the house of -Uta Matu had once stood, but Dick had no heart for sleep. - -Not only were the little ships gone, but everything he and Katafa -had brought from Palm Tree. But it was the loss of the ships that -hurt. - -They were his earliest recollection, they were his toys; they had -never ceased to be his toys, he who could kill so well and fight so -bravely had never tired of them as playthings, playthings sometimes -used in play, sometimes forgotten, but always remembered again. Then -they were more than that; who can tell how much more, for who can -see into the subliminal mind or tell what dim ghosts hiding in the -under mind of Dick were connected with these things—Kearney surely, -Lestrange and the men of the _Rarotonga_, perhaps. Palm Tree and his -life on that enchanted island, certainly. - -It was as though Fate, in taking his toys, had cut a cord attaching -him to his past and the last remnant of civilization. How completely -the hand of Fate had done its work he was yet to know. - -The stars showed through the momentary gauze of dusk, and then -blazed out over a world of night. - -Le Moan, who had refused a mat, was nowhere to be seen. She had -slunk away into the tree shadows, where, sitting with her back to a -tree bole, she could, unobserved, see the reef and the figure of -Dick seated brooding, Katafa’s form on the mat where she had lain -down to wait for Dick, the foam lifting in the starlight and the sea -stars beyond the foam. - -What the cassi flowers had said still lingered in the mind of Le -Moan. - -In that mind so simple, so subtle, so indefinite, so wildly strong, -had grown since the night before an energy, calm, patient, sure of -itself: a power so large and certain that the thought of Katafa did -not even stir jealousy; a passion that could not reason but yet -could say, “He is mine, beside me all things are nothing—I want only -time.” - -Katafa had ruined her imaginary world only to create from the ruins -this giant whose heart was determination. - -Amidst the trees Kanoa, resting on his elbow, could see Le Moan as -she sat, her head just outlined in the starlight. - -The mind of Kanoa formed a strange contrast to that of the girl. In -his mind there was no surety, no calm. Though he had rescued Le -Moan, his heart told him that her heart was far from him, she had no -eyes for him and though she did not avoid him, he might have been a -tree or a rock, so little did his presence move her—and yet, if only -she would look at him once, give him recognition by even the lifting -of a finger, all his weakness would be turned to strength, his -longing to fire. - -Presently as the moon rose high, Le Moan’s head sank from sight. She -had lain herself down and the lovesick one, turning on his side, -closed his eyes. - -Dick, rising and straightening himself and stretching his arms, -turned to where Katafa was waiting for him; he made a step towards -her and then stood, his eyes fixed across the northern sea. - -Cutting the sky from east to west, bright in the light of the moon -lay a cloud, a long thready cloud. - -No, it was not a cloud, it was too low. It was different; it swelled -and contracted, rose and sank. - -He called to Katafa and his voice roused Kanoa, whose voice brought -Poni from the mammee apple. - -In a minute the village was awake and watching this new prodigy, -wondering, doubting, the women calling one to the other till the -voice of a man rang out: - -“Gulls.” - -A murmur of relief went up from the women. - -Gulls, only gulls. Thousands of gulls flying in line formation—and -then the murmur checked and died out. - -What was driving the gulls? - -A storm coming from the north? No, the sky to the north was -stainless and to these people who could smell and feel weather, -there was no sign of storm. - -“Look!” cried Kanoa. - -The formation had altered; sweeping round from the east in a grand -curve, the great moonlit line was shortening moment by moment till -now it had contracted, showing only the van of the oncomers, who -were heading for Karolin through the night sky like a spear towards -a target. - -The sound of them could now be heard, a steady winnowing sound, the -pulse-like beat of ten thousand wings, whilst all along the reef -from windward and leeward came the crying of the gulls of Karolin. - -The crying of the burgomasters and skuas, the frigate birds and the -great southern gannets, the laughing gulls and the Brandt’s -cormorants, all rising like a challenge to the newcomers from whom -came no response other than the steady throbbing of the wings. - -The gulls of Karolin knew, knew that of which the human beings were -ignorant—knew that away beyond the sea line some great home of the -sea fowl had vanished beneath the waves as Kingaman island and -Lindsay island have vanished in the past, as many a Pacific island -will vanish in the years to come. Knew that this was an army of -invasion, a fight for a home and fishing rights. Knew that the -waters of Karolin and the breeding places were insufficient for -themselves and the strangers, knew that the moment which all nations -and all wild herds and flocks must face, had come, and then as -though actuated by one single mind, rose in a vast ringshaped cloud -and swept away south. - -Swept away south beneath the moon whilst the van of the invaders now -nearly above the reef swerved and turning due west, was followed by -the whole line in what seemed, at first, level flight. Then rising -and curving in a grand curve like that of a spiral nebula it broke -into voice, a challenge that was answered from the south. - -“Look!” cried Aioma. - -The Karolin birds were returning, drifting like a curl of smoke. A -wind seemed blowing them lazily through the sky, a wind seemed -moulding them and the invaders, till, in the form of two great -vortex rings, they overhung the lagoon: a moment and then clashing -in battle, they broke, reformed, and broke again, snowing dead and -wounded gulls beneath the moon. The storm of their cries filled the -night from reef to reef— now they would be dark against the moon, -now away like blown smoke. - -Sometimes the battle would drift towards the southern beach only to -return gliding towards the northern. It was truly the battle that -drifted, not the birds. - -Just as a flock flies like one bird, moving here, heading there, -under the dominion of a common mind, so these two great flocks -fought—each not as a congregation, but as an individual; till, of a -sudden and as if at the sounding of a trumpet, the combat broke, the -storm ceased, the clouds parted, one still circling above the reef, -the other drifting away southeast beneath the moon. - -Southeast to find some more likely home, to die in the waves, to -split up into companies seeking shelter in the Paumotuan atolls—no -man could say, or whether the birds of Karolin were the victors or -the strangers from the north. Wanderers lost for ever to sight as -their home sunk beneath the waves. - - -CHAPTER IV—WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE REEF? - -Three weeks’ work had recreated the houses broken by the great -waves, and put a top knob to the work of the builders. Nan had been -recovered. A boy found him cast up in the sand near the break. A new -post for him was cut, and Karolin, no longer godless, was itself -again. But Aioma was not happy. - -The sea when it had swept the reef had not disturbed the tree trunks -felled and partly shaped, or had only altered their position -slightly as they lay waiting for the canoe-builders to resume work; -but Aioma had lost heart in the business. He had come to the -conclusion that the schooner was better than any fleet of canoes, -and all his desires were fixed on her. - -Yet still something called him to the shaping of the logs, the voice -of the Unfinished Job perhaps calling to the true workman, or maybe -just the voice of habit—all the same he did not turn to it. He was -under the spell of the schooner. Pulled this way and that he was -unhappy. It is hard to give up a life’s vocation even at the call of -something better, and he would sit sometimes squatting on the sands, -his face turned now to the object of his passion, and now towards -the trees that talked to him of the half-born canoes. - -Meanwhile in his mind there lay side by side and growing daily, a -great curiosity and a great ambition. - -The curiosity had been born of the battle of the gulls. - -“What,” asked he of himself, “has happened to the reef of Marua -(Palm Tree)?” He knew Marua, he had been one of the fighters in the -great battle of long years ago when the men of the north of Karolin -had pursued the men of the south and slain them on Palm Tree beach. -He had seen the reef and instinct told him that the invading gulls -of three weeks ago had come from there. - -They were seeking a new home. Why? What had happened to the reef, or -what had driven them from the reef? - -Had the great waves of the same day, those three great waves that he -still beheld scintillating in his mind, had they destroyed the reef? -But how could that be, since they had not destroyed Karolin reef? -The whole thing was a mystery and beside the curiosity that it -excited, there lay in his mind the great Ambition, to take the -schooner into the open sea and sail her there. - -The lagoon, great as it was, was too small for him, besides, it was -dangerous to the west with shoals and banks. - -No, the outer sea was the place for him and there came the -rub—Katafa. - -Katafa had a horror of the vessel. She would not go on board it and -well he knew that Taori would not go any distance from Karolin -without Katafa, and he (Aioma) greatly daring, wished to go a long -way, even as far as Marua, to see what had happened to the reef. - -There you have the whole tangle and you can see how the curiosity -and the ambition had grown together whilst lying side by side in his -mind. - -There was also a scheme. - -Katafa would not object to Taori going out in the schooner a little -way, and Taori would not mind leaving Katafa for a little time. And, -thought the cunning Aioma, once we are out beyond there I will tell -him what is in my mind about the gulls and the reef and he will want -to go and see; it is not far and the colour of the current will lead -us as it always has led the canoes, and the light of Karolin in the -sky (_ayamasla_) will lead us back; besides, I will take with me Le -Moan, who can find her way without eyes. Cooking this scheme in his -mind he said nothing for some days till one evening, getting Taori -and Katafa alone with him, he broached the idea of taking the ayat -out a little way and to his surprise there was no resistance to it -on the part of Katafa. - -She had seen Dick’s face light up at the suggestion. His trouble on -account of the lost toys had affected her as though the loss had -been her own, and she would say no word to mar this new pleasure, -she would even overcome her hatred of the schooner and go with him, -if he asked her. - -But he did not ask her, he knew her dislike of the ship and the idea -of taking her along never occurred to him. - -“Then,” said Aioma, “to-morrow I will get all things ready with -water and fruit, for it is a saying of Karolin that no canoe should -ever pass the reef without its drinking nuts lashed to the -gratings—one never knows.” - -“Aie,” said Katafa. Then she checked herself and turned away whilst -Dick and the old man finished their talk. - - * * * * * - -They had several names for the sea in Karolin, names to suit its -moods in storm and calm; one of these names spoke volumes of past -history, history of sufferings endured by canoe men through the -ages—The Great Thirst. - -The sea to the people of Karolin was not an individual, but almost a -multitude; the sea of calm, the sea of storm, the sea that canoe men -encountered when blown off shore with the last drinking nut gone—The -Great Thirst. - -Katafa had known of it all her life. Once she had nearly sailed into -it, and the words of Aioma about the water for the _Kermadec_ -recalled it to her. She shivered, and as the others talked, she -scarcely heard their voices, contemplating this new terror which had -arisen above her horizon. - -But she said nothing, neither that night nor the next day when the -casks were being brought on shore to be filled, when the nuts and -pandanus fruit were being brought down to the boat by the women, -many of them wives of Poni and the others of the crew. - -Aioma had told Poni about the coming expedition and the men of the -schooner were not only willing to take their places on board again, -but eager. Maybe they were tired for a moment of their wives, or -just craving for something new—however that may be, they went aboard -that night to make preparations for a start on the morrow, leaving -their wives on the beach to look after themselves—all but Kanoa. - -Kanoa did not go on board. He had had enough experience of that -schooner, he did not want to set foot on her again; besides, he -wanted to be left behind for his courage was growing and with it the -determination to have it out with Le Moan. - -So when the others were putting off, Kanoa was not with them. He had -gone off along the beach towards the great trees, determining to -hide till the schooner was beyond the reef. She was due to go out at -dawn or a little later with the ebb tide and he would hide and -watching till her topmasts were visible beyond the coral he would -come back to the village to find Le Moan. - -He would pretend that he had gone fishing on the reef and so had -lost the schooner. As he sat down by the great logs of the -canoe-builders and watched the stars looking out above the foam, he -saw himself returning to the village, the sun in his face, the -hateful vessel gone and Le Moan waiting for him. - -Kanoa thought in pictures. Pictures suggested to him pictures. He -did not know, neither did he picture the fact that Aioma, having -decided to take Le Moan with him as a sort of navigating instrument, -the girl was at that moment on board of the schooner, asleep, -waiting for the dawn, dreaming, if she dreamed at all, of Taori. - - -CHAPTER V—MAINSAIL HAUL - -The dawn rose up on the shoulder of a southeast wind, warm, steady, -and breezing the gold of the lagoon water. - -Gulls flew about the schooner on board of which Dick and Aioma had -slept so as to be ready for an early start. - -Now could be heard Aioma’s voice calling up the hands from the -foc’sle and now Katafa, watching from the shore, could hear the -sound of the winch heaving the anchor chain short. - -Poni, who had been chief man under Sru, knew all the moves in the -game. He watched the mainsail set and the fore, the gaskets taken -off the jib; talking to Aioma and explaining things, he waited till -the canvas was set and then gave the order for the anchor to be got -in. - -Le Moan watched as Poni, taking the wheel, let the mainsail fill to -the wind that was coming nearly dead from the south, whilst the -schooner, moving slowly against the trickle of the ebb, crept up on -the village and then turning south in a great curve made for the -break on the port tack. - -Le Moan could see Katafa far away on the shore backed by the trees -of the village, a tiny figure that grew less and less and less as -the Gates of Morning widened before them and the thunder of the -billows loudened. - -The sun had lifted above the sea line and the swell and the wind -whipped the spray across the coral of the southern pier whilst -Aioma, hypnotized, half terrified, yet showing nothing of it all -stood, his dream realized at last. - -Oh, but the heart clutch when she heeled to starboard and he -recognized that there was no outrigger to port—for the outrigger is -always fastened to the port side of canoes—no outrigger to port for -the crew to crawl out on and stabilize her by their weight, and when -she heeled to port the terror came lest the outrigger should be run -too deep under. - -There was no outrigger, he knew it—but, just as in the dream ship, -he could not get rid of the obsession of it. - -Moreover, now that the canvas was raised, now that the wind was -bravely filling it, the enormousness of the size of those great -sails would have set his teeth chattering had he not clenched his -jaws. - -To take a ship out of Karolin lagoon with the ebb running strong and -a south wind, required a cool head and a steady nerve on the part of -the steersman. The great lagoon emptying like a bath met the -northerly current, the outflowing waters setting up a cross sea. -There was also a point where steerage way was lost and it all -depended how the ship was set for the opening as to whether she -would broach to and be dashed against the coral. - -But Poni was used to lagoon waters and the schooner safe in his -hands came dead for the centre of the opening; then the ebb took -her, like an arrow she came past the piers of coral, met the wash of -the cross sea, shook herself and then to the thunder of thrashing, -cleared the land and headed north. - -“She will eat the wind,” Aioma had once said, “there will be no more -wind left for canoes in all the islands”; and now as Poni shifted -the helm and the main boom stuttered and then lashed out to port, -she was eating the wind indeed, the wind that was coming now almost -dead aft. The smashing of the seas against her bows had ceased: with -a following swell and a following breeze, silence took them—silence -broken only by the creak of timber, block and cordage. - -Le Moan looked back again. Almost behind them to the sou’-sou’west -Karolin lay with the morning splendour on its vast outer beach whose -song came faint across the blue sea, on the tall palms bending to -the wind, on its gulls for ever fishing. - -Her eyes trained to great distances could pick out the thicker tree -clumps where the houses lay and near the trees on a higher point of -coral something that was not coral; the form of a girl, a mote in -the sea dazzle now perceived, now gone. - -Le Moan watched till the reef line was swallowed by the shimmer from -which the trees rose as if footed in the sea. She had stirred no -hand in the whole of this business: her coming on board had been at -the direction of Aioma, the fate that threw her and Taori together -even for a few hours whilst separating him from Katafa was a thing -working beyond and outside her, and yet it came to her that all this -was part of the message of the cassi flowers, something that had to -be because of her love for Taori, something brought into existence -by the power of her passion—something that united her for ever with -Taori. - -The mind of Le Moan had no littleness, it was wanting in many things -but feeble in nothing; it was merciless but not cruel, and when the -sun of Taori shone on it, it showed heights and depths that had only -come into being through the shining of that sun. For the sake of -Taori she had sacrificed herself to Peterson, for the sake of Taori -she had destroyed Carlin, for the sake of Taori she would sacrifice -herself again, she who knew not even the meaning of the word -“unselfish” or the meaning of the word “pity.” - -She could have killed Katafa easily, and in some secret manner—but -that would not have brought her Taori’s love, and to kill the body -of Katafa, of what use would that be whilst the image of Katafa -endured in Taori’s mind. - -Katafa was a midge whose buzzing disturbed her dream, it was -passing, it would pass. - -She turned to where Aioma, who had recovered his assurance and -stability of mind, had suddenly flung his arms round Dick, embracing -him. - -There was something of the schoolgirl in this old gentleman’s -moments of excitement and expansion, something distinctly feminine -in his times of uplift. No longer fearing capsize, free now of the -obsession of the outrigger and glorying in the extraordinary and new -sensations crowding on him, he remembered the gulls, the reef of -Marua and his scheme. - -“Taori,” cried Aioma, “the canoes I have built, nay the biggest of -them, are to this as the chickens of the great gull to their mother. -Let the wind follow us till the going down of the sun and we will -see Marua.” - -Dick, for the first time, looked back and saw the far treetops of -Karolin. They seemed a vast distance away. - -He thought for the first time of Katafa. She had said no word asking -him to limit the cruise. Aioma had only suggested taking the ship -beyond the reef and the provision of water and fruit had only been -taken as a precaution against the dangers of the sea. She had -dreaded the business but had spoken no word, fearing to spoil his -pleasure, and sure that he would risk nothing for the love of her. -But she had reckoned without his youth and the daring which God had -implanted in the heart of man; she had reckoned without the -extraordinary fascination the schooner exercised upon him and of -which she knew next to nothing. She had reckoned without Aioma. - -A thread tying his heart to the distant shore twitched as though at -the pull of Katafa. - -“But Marua is far,” said he. - -Aioma laughed. “The canoes have often gone there,” he replied, “and -what are they to this? Besides, Taori, it is no idle journey I wish -to make, for it is in my mind that it was from the reef of Marua -those gulls came that fought the gulls of Karolin, they were seeking -a new home. Why?” - -“The gulls only know,” replied Dick, “and then there are the bad men -whom some day I mean to slay, but not now, for we have not enough -men, not a spear with us.” - -“We have the speak sticks of the papalagi,” said Aioma, “and I can -use them. Le Moan taught me, but the bad men are out of sight; in -this business we need not draw nearer to Marua than we are now from -Karolin, or only a little. It is the reef I wish to see and what may -walk on it, for gulls do not leave their home just because the wind -blows hard or the sea rises high. They have been driven, Taori, and -what has driven them—greater gulls, or some new form of man—who -knows? But I wish to see.” - -Dick pondered on this. He had only intended to sail the schooner a -short way, to feel her moving on the outer sea, to handle her; with -the eating had come the appetite, with the handling of power the -desire to use it. He had no fear about getting back, Karolin lagoon -light would lead them just as it had led him and Katafa, and his -mind was stirred by what Aioma had said about the gulls. - -What had happened to drive them away from their home? He had never -thought of the matter before in this light, thinking of it now he -saw the truth in the words of the other, and having a greater mind -than the mind of the canoe-builder, he linked the great waves with -the business more definitely than the latter had done. - -“Aioma,” said he, “the great waves that broke our houses drove the -gulls.” - -“But the waves,” said Aioma, “came before the gulls.” - -“But the gulls may have rested on the water and come after,” said -Dick, “the waves may have broken the reef as it broke our houses.” - -“But the reef of Karolin was not broken,” said Aioma. - -“The waves may have been greater at Marua,” replied Dick, “and have -grown smaller with the coming.” - -“I had thought of the waves,” said Aioma; “well, we will see; if the -reef of Marua is broken, it is broken; if greater gulls are there, -we will see them.” - -Dick looked back once again. The treetops of Karolin so far off now -showed only like pins’ heads, but the lagoon glow in the sky was -definite; ahead could be seen the north-flowing current. Like the -_Kuro Shiwo_ of Japan, the _Haya e amata_ current to the east of -Karolin showed a blue deeper than the blue of the surrounding sea; -but the _Kuro Shiwo_ is vast, many miles in breadth, sweeping across -the Pacific from Japan, it comes down the coasts of the Americas—a -world within a world, a sea within a sea. The _Haya e Amata_ is -small, so narrow that its confines can be seen by the practised eyes -of the canoe men, and from the deck of the schooner its marking was -clearly visible to the eye that knew how to find it; a sharp yet -subtle change of colour where the true sea met its river. - -Dick could see it as plain as a road. With it for leader and the -lagoon light of Karolin for beacon, they could not lose their way. -Then there was Le Moan, the pathfinder who could bring them back -even though the lagoon light vanished from the sky. - -The weather was assured. - -Le Moan had taken the wheel from Poni, who wanted to go forward. -She, who had brought the schooner to Karolin was, after Aioma and -Dick, the chief person on board; in a way she was above them, for -neither Dick nor Aioma had yet learned to handle the wheel. - -Forward, by the galley, stood the rest of the crew and Dick’s eyes -having ranged over them, turned to Aioma. - -“Yes,” said he, “we will go and see.” He turned to the after rail. -The treetops had vanished, the land gulls were gone, but Karolin -still spoke from the great light in the sky that like a faithful -soul remained, above all things, beautiful, assured. - - -CHAPTER VI—VOICES OF THE SEA AND SKY - -Kanoa, dreading another voyage in the schooner and hating to be -parted from Le Moan, hid himself amongst the trees of the -canoe-builders. - -He was nothing to Le Moan. Though he had saved her from Rantan, he -was less to her than the ground she trod on, the sea that washed the -reef, the gulls that flew in the air; for these she at least felt, -gazed at, followed with her eyes. - -When she looked at Kanoa, her gaze passed through him as though he -were clear as a rock pool. Not only did she not care for him but she -did not know that he cared for her. - -Worse than that, she cared for the sun-like Taori. This knowledge -had come to Kanoa only the other day. - -Sitting beneath a tree, Reason had stood before him and said, “Le -Moan does not see you, neither does she see Poni nor Aioma, nor any -of the others— Le Moan only sees Taori, her face turns to him -always.” - -As he lay now by the half-shaped logs waiting for the daylight that -would take away the schooner, Reason sat with him telling him the -same story, the sea helping in the tale and the night wind in the -branches above. - -It was night with Kanoa, black night, pierced by only one star—the -fact that Taori was going away, if even for only a little time. The -perfume of the cassi flowers came to him, and now, with the perfume, -a far-away voice calling his name. - -It was the voice of Poni. The men were going on board the schooner -and Poni was collecting the crew. - -Again and again came the call, and then the voice ceased and the -night resumed its silence, broken only by the wash of the reef and -the wind in the trees. - -“They will think I have gone fishing,” said Kanoa to himself, “or -that I have gone on a journey along the reef, or perhaps, that the -sea has taken me, but I will not go with them. I will not leave this -place that is warm with her footsteps, and on all of which her eyes -have rested; the place, moreover, where she is.” - -He closed his eyes and presently, being young and full of health, he -fell asleep. - -Dawn roused him. - -He could see the light on the early morning sea. The sea grew -luminous and the gulls were talking on the wind, the stars were -gone, and the ghost of Distance stood in the northern sky blue and -gauzy above the travelling sea that now showed the first sun rays -level on the swell. - -Then Kanoa rose up and came towards the village beyond whose trees -the day was burning. - -A woman met him and asked where he had been. - -“I have been fishing,” said Kanoa, “and fell asleep.” He came -through the trees till the beach tending towards the break lay -before him and the lagoon. The schooner under all plane sail was -moving up towards the village and turning in a great curve, but so -far out that he could not distinguish the people on deck. He watched -her as she came up into the wind and lay over on the port tack. He -watched her as she steered, now, close-hauled and straight, for the -Gates of Morning, and then he saw her meet the outer sea. - -She was gone. Gone for a little time at least; gone and he was left -behind, free in the place Le Moan had warmed with her feet, on every -part of which her eyes had gazed, and where, moreover, she was -living and breathing. - -The women had parted with their new husbands the night before. There -was no crowd to watch the vessel go out, only Katafa, a few boys and -a couple of women who were dragging in a short net which they had -put out during the night, using the smaller of the schooner’s boats -which Aioma had left behind. The women stood for a moment with their -eyes sheltered against the sun, then they returned to their work -whilst Katafa, leaving the beach, came on to the high coral and to -the very point of rock where Aioma, standing, had seen the approach -of the giant waves. - -She had scarcely slept during the night. Taori was going away from -her, nor far or for any time, but he was going beyond the reef. To -the atoll dweller the reef is the boundary of the world—all beyond -is undecided and vague and fraught with danger; the comparative -peace of the lagoon waters gives the outer sea an appearance of -menace which becomes fixed in the mind of the islander and even a -short trip away from the harbour of refuge is a thing to be -undertaken with precaution. - -But she had said nothing that might disturb Dick’s mind on her -account or spoil his pleasure or mar his manhood. Even had the -business been visibly dangerous and had Dick chosen to face it, she -would not have held out a hand to prevent him. This was a man’s -business with which womenfolk had nothing to do. So she ate her -heart out all the night and stood waving to him as the boat pushed -off and watched the _Kermadec_ leave the lagoon just as she was -watching it now out on the sea, sails bellying to the wind and bow -pointing north. - -She watched it grow smaller, more gull-like and more forlorn in the -vast wastes of water and beneath the vast blue sky. On its deck Le -Moan was watching Karolin and its sinking reef just as on the reef -Katafa was watching the ship and its disappearing hull, dreaming of -wreck, of disaster, of thirst for her beloved one, dreaming nothing -of Le Moan. - -She watched whilst the morning passed, and the schooner still held -her course. “She will soon turn and come back,” said Katafa, as the -distance widened and the sails grew less, and as the hull sank from -sight she strained her eyes thinking that she saw the sails broaden -as the ship, tired from going so great a distance and remembering, -turned to come back to Katafa. - -But the mark on the sky did not broaden. Vaguely triangular and like -a fly’s wing it stood undecided in the sea dazzle, it seemed to -wabble and change in shape and change back again, but it did not -increase, and one moment it would be gone and the next it would say -“Here I am again, but see how much smaller I have grown!” Then it -vanished, vanished for a long time, only to reappear by some trick -and again to vanish and not to return. - -The sea had taken the schooner and its masts and spars, its sails, -its boat; everything that was mirrored only last evening in the -lagoon the sea had taken and dissolved and made nothing of. The sea -had taken Poni and Timau and Tahuku the strange kanakas; the sea had -taken Aioma, and—the sea had taken Taori. - -Oh, the grief! The pain that like a knife cut her heart as she gazed -on the sea, on the far horizon line above which the speechless sky -stood crystal pale sweeping up to azure. He had gone only a little -way, soon to return, storms would not come nor would the wind -change, nor would it matter if it did change. - -Nothing could keep him from coming back. He had food with him in -plenty, water in abundance, he had Poni and Timau and Tahuku and -Nanta and Tirai; he had Aioma the wise and he had Le Moan—Le Moan -the pathfinder. - -Nothing could keep him from coming back and yet the heart of Katafa -failed her before that speechless sky and that deserted sea whose -meeting lips had closed like the lips of silence upon her lover. Her -happiness, so great, perhaps too great, had been cut apart from her -for the moment; it stood aside from her never to join her again till -Taori came back from what the gods might be doing to him beyond that -deserted sea, beneath that speechless sky. - -The waters that from all those desert distances drew the voice of -indifference and fate that she heard at her feet in the thunder of -the breakers, the sky, robbed of speech, yet filled with the -ever-lasting complaint of the questing gull. - -Someone drew near her. It was Kanoa. - -Katafa, who was a friend of all the world, was a friend to Kanoa. -She had watched him as he sat apart from the others, noticed his -melancholy and spoken to him, asking the reason. - -“I am thinking of my home at Vana Vana,” had lied Kanoa, “of the -tall trees and the village and the reef, of my young days and my -people.” His young days! He who was still a boy! - -“But you will return,” said Katafa. - -“I do not wish to return,” said Kanoa, “I am as one lost at sea, who -has become a ghost, and whose foot may no more be set in a canoe and -whose hand may no more hold the paddle.” Then Katafa knew that he -was in love, but with whom she could not tell, nor had she time to -watch and find out, being busy. - -As he drew near her now, she turned to him, and for a moment almost -forgot Dick in her anger. - -“Kanoa,” said she, “where have you been in hiding? They have gone -without you; they called for you and you did not come, and they -could not wait. You were wanted to help them in the raising of the -sails and the work with the ropes—where have you been in hiding?” - -“I have been fishing,” said Kanoa. - -“And where are the fish?” asked Katafa. - -“Oh, Katafa,” replied Kanoa, “I hid because I could not leave Le -Moan, who is to me as the sun that lights me, who is my heart and -the pain in my heart, my eyes and the darkness that blinds them when -they see her not. I go to find her now to say to her what I have -never said and to die if she turns her face from me.” - -“And how will you go to find her now?” asked Katafa. “Have you then -the wings of the gull and know you not that she has gone with the -others?” - -“She has gone with the others!” - -“She has gone with the others.” - -Kanoa said nothing. He seemed to wither, his face turned grey, and -his eyes sought the distant sea. He, too, had watched the schooner -disappear, rejoicing in the fact that she was gone with Taori -leaving him (Kanoa) to find his love. And now Le Moan was gone—and -with Taori. But he said nothing. - -He turned away and lay down with his face hidden in his arms and as -Katafa stood watching him, her anger turned to pity. - -She came and sat beside him. - -“She will return, Kanoa; they will return: he whom I love and she -whom you love. They are gone but a little way. It is because they -have gone from our sight that we grieve for them. Aioma said they -would go but a little way—aie, but my heart is pierced as I talk, -Kanoa, my breast is torn; they have gone from our sight and all is -darkness. I will see him no more. I will see him no more.” - -Then, as on the night of the killing of Carlin, the man in Kanoa -rose up and cast the boy away; saying not a word about his -suspicions of the passion of Le Moan for Taori, he turned to comfort -the wildly weeping Katafa. - -“They will return,” said he, “Aioma is with them and they can come -to no harm—they will return before the sun has found the sea or -maybe when he rises from it we will see them sailing towards -Karolin. Peace, Katafa, we will watch for them, you and I. Go now -and sleep and I will wait and watch, and if I see them I will come -running to you, and when I sleep you can wait and watch and so with -our eyes we will draw them back to us.” - -Katafa, whose tears had ceased, heaved a deep sigh. She rose and -stood, her eyes fixed on the coral at her feet. Weary from want of -sleep, she listened to the words of Kanoa as a child might listen, -then, without looking once towards the sea, she passed away towards -the trees. - -Kanoa stood, his gaze fixed on the sea line, and from then through -the hours and the days the eyes of the lovers watched and waited for -the return of those who had gone “but a little way.” - - -CHAPTER VII—ISLANDS AT WAR—THE OPEN SEA - -Something beside curiosity and the spirit of adventure had made Dick -decide to push on towards Marua (Palm Tree). - -The truth is Marua was calling to him. He wished to see it again if -only for a moment. The hilltop and the groves and the coloured birds -sent their voices across the sea to Karolin just as Karolin had sent -its appeal across the sea to Katafa when Katafa had lived at Palm -Tree. - -As a matter of fact those two islands were for ever at war in the -battle ground of the human mind. In the old days natives of Karolin -had gone to live on Marua, and Karolin had pursued them and brought -them back, filling their minds with regret and longing and pictures -of the great sea spaces and free sea beaches of Karolin. In the same -way natives of Marua had gone to live on Karolin and Marua had -pursued them and brought them back, filling their minds with regret -for the trees, the hilltop and the blue ring of the lagoon. - -Between Dick and Katafa there was only one faint suspicion of a -dividing line, something that might increase with the years and make -unhappiness the difference between Marua and Karolin: the pull of -the two environments so vastly different, the call of the high -island and the call of the atoll, of the land of Dick’s youth and -the land of the youth of Katafa. - -It is extraordinary how the soul of man can be pulled this way and -that way by things and forms that seem inanimate and yet can -talk—aye, and express themselves in the most beautiful poetry, -strike in their own defence through the arms of men, follow without -moving though the pursued be half a world away, and inspire a love -as lasting as the love that a man or woman can inspire. - -The love of a range of hills, what battles has it not won, and the -view of a distant cloud, to what lengths may it not raise the soul -of man—heights far above the plain where philosophy crawls, heights -beyond the reach of thought. - -With the suggestion of Aioma, the concealed longing in the mind of -Dick began to show itself. He forgot Katafa; he forgot the bad men -who had taken possession of Marua, old days began to speak again and -the sound of the reef, so different from the voice of Karolin reef, -began to be heard. - -He watched Le Moan at the wheel, and noticed how her eyes followed -the almost imperceptible track far to starboard where the water -colours changed. She was steering by the current as well as by the -sense of direction that told her that Karolin lay behind. He did not -know the speed of the schooner, but he had travelled the road when -coming to Karolin with Katafa and he knew that soon, very soon, the -hilltop of Marua must show. - -He went forward and gazed ahead—nothing. The land gulls had been -left behind and in all that sea to the north there was nothing. He -came aft to find Poni again at the wheel, and as he came he crossed -Le Moan who was going forward; she did not look at him and he -scarcely looked at her. Le Moan, for Dick, was the girl who had -saved them by killing Carlin and fighting with Rantan till he was -overcome; but to him, personally, she was nothing. So cunningly had -she hidden her heart and mind that not by a glance or the least -shade of expression had she betrayed her secret to him. Kanoa only -suspected—but he was her lover. - -Aioma was squatted on the deck near the steersman, eating bananas -and flinging the skins over his shoulder and the rail. - -“Aioma,” said Dick, “there is no sight of Marua yet, but soon we -will see it lifted to the sky, with the trees—it calls to my heart. -You have seen it?” - -“I was one of those who chased Makara and his men to Marua,” said -Aioma, “we fought with them and slew them on the beach; aie, those -were good times when Uta Matu led us and Laminai beat the -drum—_taromba_—that is only beaten for victory, and will never be -beaten again, since it went away with Laminai and has never -returned. Tell me one thing, Taori. When you came to Karolin with -Katafa, you made friends with the women and children, and Katafa -told them a tale, how the canoes of Laminai had been broken by a -storm, and all his men lost, and how the club of Matu was found by -you on the reef of Marua and the gods had declared you were to be -our chief. I was on the southern beach at that time and did not hear -the tale, but the women and children took it without any talk, glad -to have a man to lead them. - -“Tell me, Taori, was that all the tale? I never asked you before and -I know not why I ask you now.” - -“Aioma,” said Dick, “there was more than that. Laminai and his men -came through the woods of Marua and there was a great fight between -them and me. I slew with my own hands Laminai and another man. Then, -taking fright, all his men ran away and they fought with each other -in the woods—many were killed, and then came the big wind from the -south and the men who were trying to leave Marua were dashed on the -reef, not one being left.” - -Aioma forgot his bananas. Some instinct had told him that there was -more in the story of Katafa than revealed by her to the women, but -he had not expected this. - -So Laminai, the son of Uta Matu, had been slain by Taori, and his -men put to flight; the storm had destroyed them before they could -put away, but it would not have destroyed them only for Taori. - -He looked up at Taori, standing against the line of the rail, his -red-gold head against the patient blue of the sky, and to Aioma it -seemed that this journey they had embarked on was no trip to view -the outer beach of Marua—that they had been deluded by the guardians -of Karolin and the ghosts of the Ancient, drawn to sea to meet the -vengeance of the dead Uta Matu, of his son, and the men slain by the -hand and will of Taori. - -That thunder from the heart of the sea, those waves from nowhere, -the prodigy of the gulls, all these were portents. - -“Taori,” said he, “now that you have told me, I would go back. My -heart misgives me and if I had known that Laminai fell by your hand -I would not have come; I love you as a son, Taori, you fought for -the women and children of Karolin against the white men, but you do -not know Uta Matu the king, whose son you killed, whose men you put -to flight.” - -“But Uta Matu is dead,” said Dick, “he has no power.” - -“You do not know Uta Matu,” said Aioma, “nor the length of his arm, -nor the power of his blow. You have not seen his eyes or you would -not say those words. Let us return, Taori, before he draws us too -far into his grasp.” - -“When I have seen what I wish to see, I will return,” said Dick. He -had no fear of dead men, nor of living men either, and for the first -time his respect for Aioma was dimmed. “I will return when I have -seen what we came to see. I am not afraid.” - -Aioma rose and straightened himself. - -“I have never known fear,” said he, “and I do not know it now. It -was for you I spoke. Go forward then, but this I tell you, Taori, -there are those against us who being viewless we cannot strike, -whose nets are spread for us, whose spears are prepared.” - -“Aioma,” said Dick, “no net can hold me such as you speak of. Nets -spread by the viewless ones are for the spirit—_Ananda_—not the -body. My spirit is with Katafa, safe in her keeping, how then can -Uta Matu seize it?” - -“Who knows?” said Aioma. “He is artful as he is strong, and Le Juan -who is dead with him is more artful still, and, look, we have the -child of Le Juan’s daughter with us—Le Moan. Aie! had I thought of -all this I never would have brought her.” - -“How can she hurt us?” - -“It is not she. It is Le Juan, the wicked one, whose blood is in -her.” - -To Aioma, as I have said before, people were not dead as they are -with us, only removed to a distance, and though he might speak of -Spirits, he spoke of people removed out of sight, yet still potent. - -He did not believe that Uta Matu could use a real net or spear -against Dick, but he did believe that the dead king of Karolin and -his witch woman could, in some way, stretch through the distance to -lay nets and strike with spears. Ghostly spears and nets not meant -for the body, but the man. - -If you could have pierced deeper into the mind of Aioma you would -have found the belief—never formulated in words—that a man’s body -was just like the shell of a hermit crab, a thing that could be -thrown off, crept out of, discarded. Uta Matu when called into the -distance had discarded his shell, but the man and his power -remained—at a distance. - -“I fear neither Le Juan nor Uta Matu,” said Dick, and as he spoke -the air suddenly vibrated to the clang of a bell. - - -CHAPTER VIII—WE SHALL NOT SEE MARUA AGAIN - -It was the ship’s bell. - -Tahuku had struck it in idleness, just as a child might, but the -unaccustomed sound coming just then seemed to Aioma a response to -the words of the other. But he said nothing. Taori had chosen his -path and he must pursue it. - -At noon the northern horizon still showed clear and unbroken by any -sign of land, yet still the wind blew strong and still the schooner -sped like a gull before it. - -Tahuku, who had been cook and who knew where the stores were kept, -prepared a meal; and whilst the crew were eating, Aioma took the -place of the lookout in the bow. Nothing—neither land gull nor trace -of land. Nothing but the never ending run of the swell bluer from -the southern drift that showed still the contrast of the deeper -blue. - -A road leading nowhere. - -The canoe-builder came up to where Dick was standing in the bow. - -“Taori,” said Aioma, “we have not lost our way, there runs the -current and there Karolin still shows us her light, we have come -faster than the big canoes of forty paddles and so have we come -since morning, yet Marua is not in sight.” - -It was late afternoon, and Aioma as he spoke skimmed the sea line -from west to east of north with eyes wrinkled against the light. - -“No cloud hides it,” went on the old man like a child explaining a -difficulty, “it is full day, yet it is not there—to our sight.” - -Dick, as perturbed as Aioma, said nothing. He knew quite well that -by now Marua should have been high on the horizon. They had been -travelling since morning, how swiftly he could not tell, but with -great speed, seeing that they had with them the wind and the -current; also the sky stain made by Karolin was now very vague, -vague as when he had viewed it from Marua. - -“Where then is it gone?” went on the old fellow, “or how is it -hidden? Has Uta Matu cast a spell upon us or has Marua been washed -away?” Then turning as if from a suddenly glimpsed vision: “Taori—we -may sail till the days and the nights are left behind us with the -sun and the moon and the stars, but Marua we shall not see again.” - -Dick still said nothing. He refused to believe that Uta Matu had the -power to put a spell on them and he refused to believe that Marua -had been washed away by those waves that did little more than smash -a few houses at Karolin. All the same he was disturbed. Where then -was Marua? - -Poni, who was standing near them with Le Moan who had heard what -Aioma said, suddenly struck in, in his sing-song voice. - -“Surely we passed an island when Pete’son commanded this ship and we -were running on this course, an island that would be about here, but -is not here any more—and you remember the great waves that came to -us at Karolin and the gulls who sought a home? All these things have -just come together in my head as it might be three persons meeting -and conversing. Well then, Aioma, it is clear to me now that this -island you seek is gone beneath the sea. At the time of the gulls -and those great waves, I said to Timan, that somewhere an island had -gone under just as Somaya which lay not far from Soma went under in -the time before I started to sail in the deep-sea ships. One day it -was there and the next day it was not, and there were the big waves -just like those that came to Karolin. Marua, you called this island; -well, Aioma, you may be sure that Marua has gone under the sea.” - -And now strangely enough Aioma, so far from accepting the support of -this statement, turned upon the unfortunate Poni who had dared to -bring experience and common-sense with him to the bar. - -“Gone under!” The scream of laughter with which Aioma received this -suggestion when it had percolated down into the basement of his -intelligence made the faces of the others turn as they stood about -near the foc’sle head discussing the same subject. - -“Gone under!” What did Poni mean by such silly talk, did he not know -that it was impossible for an island to sink in the sea? Sink like a -drowning man! No, the great waves had knocked Marua to pieces, -either that or Uta Matu had veiled it from their sight ... and so -the talk went on and all the time the sun was falling towards the -west and Le Moan’s palms were itching to feel again the spokes of -the wheel and the kick of the rudder; for a plan had come into the -mind of Le Moan, a plan put there maybe by Uta Matu, who can tell; -or Passion, who can tell? But a perfectly definite plan to take the -wheel, steer through the night and put the schooner absolutely and -fatally astray: Put her away from Karolin so far and so much to the -east that the lagoon light would be no guide and a course to the -south no road of return. - -The plan had come to her, fallen into her head, only just now; it -was indefinite, but cruelly straight like the flight of an arrow, -and in one direction—away from Karolin. - -Great love is an energy that, born in mind, has little to do with -mind. It is a thing by itself, furiously alive, torturing the body -it feeds on and the mind that holds it. Hell is the place where -lovers live. Even when they escape from it to heaven as in the case -of Katafa, it is always waiting to receive them back, as also in her -case. - -To Le Moan, dumbly suffering, the message of the cassi flowers -telling that Taori was hers by virtue of the power of her passion -for him, had suddenly lost all significance. He was here now by the -power of the wheel of the ship over the rudder. She could take him -away, now, to be always with him—take him away for ever from Katafa, -steer him into the unknown. And yet the knowledge of this physical -power and the determination to use it brought her no ease. She would -be close to him, but of what avail is it to a person suffering from -the tortures of thirst if he is close to water yet may not drink. -All the same she would be close to him. - -As she watched the sun so near its setting she dwelt on this fact as -a bird on the egg it is hatching, and brooding, she listened whilst -Aioma urged that they should turn back at once, and Dick countered -the suggestion asking for more time. He had it in his mind to hold -on till sunset, till night came to cut them off in the quest. Well -knowing in his mind that Marua was no more, that the reef and lagoon -and hilltop, the tall trees and coloured birds had all vanished like -a picture withdrawn, either gone beneath the sea as Poni said or -devoured by the waves as Aioma held—well knowing this in his mind, -his heart refused to turn from the quest till turned by darkness. - -He would never see Palm Tree again. Like grief for a person lost, -the grief of this thing came on him now. He knew now how he loved -the trees, the lagoon, the reef, and he recalled them as one recalls -the features of the dead. He could not turn till darkness dropped -the veil and said to him definitely, “Go back.” - -He was standing with this feeling in his mind when a sound made him -turn to where Aioma had suddenly taken his seat on the edge of the -saloon skylight with body bent double and head protruding like the -head of a tortoise. He seemed choking. He was laughing. - -Aioma, like Sru, had a sense of humour, and a joke, if it were -really a good joke, took him like the effect of a dose of -strychnine. Sure now that Marua had been swallowed by the sea, the -catastrophe, having made itself certain and obtained firm footing in -his mind, suddenly presented its humorous side. He had remembered -the “bad men.” They were swallowed with Marua, he could see them in -his imagination swimming like rats, screaming, bubbling—drowning—and -the humour of the thing skewered him like a spear in the stomach. - - -BOOK IV - - -CHAPTER I—E HAYA - -The sun touched the sea line, the blazing water leaping to meet him, -and then in a west golden and desolate, in a sea whose water had -turned to living light, he began to drown. - -Dick watched as the golden brow, almost submerged, showed a -lingering crescent of fire and then sank, carrying the day with it -as Marua had sunk carrying with it his youth and the last visible -threads connecting him with civilization. - -He turned. Le Moan had taken the wheel. - -The sails that had been golden were now ghost white and a topaz star -had already pierced the pansy blue where in the west the new moon -hung like a little tilted boat. - -“To the south,” cried Aioma. “_E Haya_—to the south, Le Moan, to -Karolin now that we have seen there is nothing to be seen, to the -south; to the south, for I am weary of these waters.” - -Le Moan, dumb and dim in the starlight now flooding the world, spun -the wheel; on the rattle of the rudder chain came the thrashing of -canvas and the schooner bowing to the swell lay over on the port -tack—due east. - -Aioma glanced towards the moon but Le Moan reassured him. - -“The current is fighting us,” said she, “and I would get beyond it. -Have patience, Aioma, the way is clear to me.” - -He turned away satisfied and lay down on deck. Dick, who had brought -up some blankets from below to serve as a sleeping mat, lay down by -him, and the kanakas, all but Poni and Tahuku, went to their bunks -in the foc’sle. - -Aioma, lying on his face with his forehead on his arms, heard the -rattle of the rudder chain and knew that Le Moan was edging now to -the south. She would steer all night with the help of Poni, and sure -of her and sure of Karolin showing before them at daybreak, he let -his mind wander, now to the canoe-building, now to the spearing of -great fish, till sleep took him as it had taken Dick. - -Le Moan, steering, could see their bodies in the starlight, and -beyond them Poni and Tahuku seated close to the galley, their heads -together talking and smoking, heedless of everything but the eternal -chatter about nothing which they could keep up for hours together, -whilst the schooner under the hands of the steersman was heading -again due east. - -An hour after midnight the wind shifted, blowing from the west of -south. Poni came aft to see if Le Moan wanted anything, food, water, -a drinking nut—she wanted nothing; as she had steered all that night -long ago towards Karolin, she steered now, tireless, wrapt in -herself, without effort. - -As the dawn showed in the eastern sky she altered the course to full -south and handed the wheel to Poni. - -She had done her work, _e Haya_, steered they for ever now they -would never raise Karolin—so far to the west that even the lagoon -light would be all but invisible. - -The first sun ray brought Aioma to his feet, he saw Poni at the -wheel and Le Moan lying near him fast asleep like a creature caught -back into darkness now that her work was done. The sunrise to port -told him that the ship was heading south, then he came forward and -looked. - -The southern sea showed no sign and the southern sky no hint of the -great lagoon. Not a bird’s wing appeared. - -He roused Dick, who came forward and they stood whilst the -canoe-builder pointed to the south. - -“There is nothing,” said Aioma—“yet we have come all the night and -she is never wrong—not even the light in the sky. Yet by now the -trees should have shown.” - -Dick, gazing into the remote south at the blue and perfect and -pitiless sky, unbroken at the sea line, unstained above it, drew in -his breath; a cold hand seemed placed on his heart. Where then was -Karolin? - -“Who knows,” said Aioma, “it may show when the sun is higher. Let us -wait.” - -They waited and watched whilst the sun rose in the sky, but the sun -revealed nothing that the dawn had not shown—nothing save away to -the westward unseen by them and so faint as scarcely to be seen, a -pale spot in the higher blue—the light of Karolin. - -Aioma came running aft. He shook Le Moan and roused her from her -sleep and she came forward and stood in the bow, sheltering her eyes -against the light. - -“It is not there,” said she; “I can see nothing with my eyes nor in -my mind—the power has gone from me, Aioma, it has been taken from me -in my sleep.” - -Aioma struck his head with the flat of his hand, then he turned to -her as she stood there with the lie on her lips, close to, almost -touching Dick, who stood, his hand on the rail, scarcely breathing. - -“Gone from you,” cried the canoe-builder, “taken in sleep, aie, what -is this! We are adrift and astray, gone! And who could take it but -Uta Matu. Taori, we are lost, we are in the hands of the viewless -ones; their nets have taken us. I told you this, yet you would not -put back. Never more shall we see Karolin.” - -Dick did not move. He saw again the figure of Katafa as she stood on -the beach when they were leaving, that loved figure from which he -had parted with scarcely a thought, so full was he of the schooner -and the dream of sailing her on the outer sea. Katafa who even then -was watching for him away beneath that tiny stain on the western -sky, grown so faint now as to be almost invisible. - -Even last night when sure of return, his heart had longed for her, -he had dreamed of her; by a thousand little threads, each living, -she had joined herself to his very being, and he would never see her -again! - -“Never more shall we see Karolin.” He turned to the desolate south, -to the west, to the east; then, heedless of the others, a savage in -his grief, he cast himself on the deck, his face on his arms as if -to hide himself from the hateful sun. - - -CHAPTER II—AIOMA CURSES THE WIND - -“Never more shall we see Karolin.” - -The words of Aioma were repeated by the sky, by the sun, and the -sea. Never more would he see Katafa, hear her voice, feel her arms -about him. The hard hot deck beneath him, the sun beating on his -back, the sounds of the sea on the planking and the groaning of the -timbers all were part of his misery, of the awful hunger that fed on -his heart. - -He loved her as a man loves a woman, as a child loves a mother, as a -mother loves a child. He who had killed men and dared death was, in -fact, still a child; passionate, loving, ignorant of the terrors -that life holds for the heart of man, of the grief that kills and -the separation that annihilates. He had never met grief before. - -Le Moan watched him as he lay. She knew. He was lying like that -because of Katafa, she had lain like that on the coral because of -him. - -By declaring that vision had returned to her, by seizing the wheel -and steering for Karolin, she could have brought him to his feet a -well man—only to hand him over to Katafa. - -She could not do that. - -Her heart, pitiless to the world, was human only towards him; she -had braved the unknown and she had braved death to save his life, -but to save him from this suffering she could not speak three words. - -Aioma watched him absolutely unmoved. If Dick had been wounded by a -spear or club, it would have been different, but mental anguish was -unknown to the canoe-builder and you cannot sympathize with the -unknown. - -Then as Dick struggled to his feet and stood with his hand on the -rail, dazed and with his face turned again to the south, the old man -recommenced his plaint with the insistency of a brute, whilst the -wind blew and Poni at the wheel kept the ship on her course south, -ever towards the hopeless south. - -“No,” said Aioma, “never more shall we see Karolin. Uta has us in -his net. Never more shall I shape my logs (he had dropped that -business before leaving Karolin) or spear the big fish by night -whilst the boys hold the torches (_upoli_), and the great eels will -go through the water with none to catch them. It is this ayat that -has brought us where we now are to confusion and a sea without -measure, and this wind, which is the breath of Le Juan, and may her -breath be accursed. Well, Taori, and so it stands, and what now? -Shall we go before the wind or counter it—seek the south _e Haya_ -where nothing is, or the east _e Hola_ where nothing is?” - -Dick turned his face to the canoe builder. “I do not know, Aioma, I -do not know. It is all darkness.” His eyes turned to Le Moan and -passed her, falling on Poni at the wheel, and the sea beyond. - -Aioma had told him that he was taking Le Moan as a pathfinder, but -Dick had troubled little about that, scarcely believing in it. He -had trusted to the current and the light of Karolin as a guide. They -were gone, but it was the words of Aioma that removed the last -vestige of hope. - -He trusted Aioma in all sea matters and when Aioma said that they -were lost, they were lost indeed. Palm Tree vanished, Karolin gone, -nothing but the sea, the trackless hopeless sea and the words of -Aioma! - -Urged by a blind instinct to get away from the sight of that sea, -that sky, that pitiless sun, he left the deck and came down the -steps to the saloon where he stood, a strange figure, almost nude, -against the commonplace surroundings; the table, the chairs, the -bunks with their still disordered bedding, the mirror let into the -forward bulkhead, a mirror so old and dim and spotted that it -scarcely cast a reflection. - -He looked about him for a moment, moved towards the bunk where -Carlin had once slept, and, sitting down on the edge of it, leaned -forward, his arms resting on his knees, his head bowed; just as his -father had sat long, long years ago when Emmeline had vanished into -the woods to return bearing a child in her arms—bearing him, Taori. - -Just as his father had sat all astray, crushed, helpless and lost, -so he sat now, and for the same reason. - -Up on deck Poni at the wheel turned to the canoe-builder. - -“And what now, Aioma,” said Poni, “since Le Moan knows not where to -go, where go we?” As he spoke the mainsail trembled, rippled, and -flattened again. - -The canoe-builder turned aft. The breezed-up blue, beyond a certain -point, lay in meadows and a far glitter spoke of a great space where -there was no wind. - -“The wind is losing its feathers,” said Poni with a backward glance -in the direction towards which the other was looking. - -As he spoke the mainsail trembled again as though a shudder were -running up it and the boom shifted to the cordy creak of the topping -lifts. - -Yes, the wind was losing its feathers, dying, jaded, exhausted; -again the mainsail flattened, shivered and filled only to flatten -again, the wabble of the bow wash began to die out and the schooner -to lose steerage way. - -The breath of Le Juan was failing and Aioma who had cursed it saw -now the calm spreading towards them, passing them, taking the -southern sea. - -Poni left the wheel. - -There was nothing to steer. A ship is only a ship when she is -moving, and the schooner, now a hulk on the lift of the swell, lay -with a gentle roll on the glassy water—drawing vague figures upon -the sky with her trucks, complaining with the voice of block and -cordage whilst the canoe-builder standing with his eyes on the -north, felt the calm: felt it with a sixth sense gained from close -on a century of weather influence; measured it, and knew that it was -great. Great and enduring because of its extent, complete and -flawless as a block of crystal placed by the gods on the face of ten -thousand square miles of sea. - -He remembered how he had cursed the wind, and turning to speak to Le -Moan, found her gone. - -Le Moan following Dick to the saloon hatch had stood for a moment -listening. - -Unable to hear anything below, she waited till Aioma’s back was -turned and then cautiously began to descend the steps of the -companion-way; cautiously, just as she had come down those steps -that night to attack the white men single-handed and save, at the -risk of her life, the life of Taori. - -Reaching the door of the saloon, she saw him half seated on the -bunk’s edge, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands -whilst above him, now on the ceiling, now on the wall, glimmered and -glittered and danced the same water shimmer that had danced above -the sleeping Carlin. Only now it was a butterfly of gold. - -The ripples sent out by the roll of the schooner on the sea surface -gave it its tremor, the roll its extent of flight, the sunlight its -gold. - -It fluttered now, sweeping down as if to light on Dick, and now it -was flying on the ceiling above him. It seemed a portent, but of -what she could not tell, nor did she heed it after the first glance. - -Crossing the floor, she came to him, sat down beside him, and rested -her hand on his shoulder. - -Dick turned to her. Like the child that he was, he had shuddered and -sobbed himself into a state where thought scarcely existed above the -sense of despair. He turned to her, the touch of a woman’s sympathy -relaxing the numbing grip of Disaster, yet not for a moment -releasing him. Then casting his arms around her neck, he clung to -her for comfort as a child to its mother. - -Clasping her arms around his naked body, her lips on his throat, her -eyes closed, in Paradise—heedless of life and death and dead to the -world, Le Moan held him, flesh to flesh, soul to soul, for one -supreme moment her own. That she was nothing to him was naught, that -grief not love had thrown him into her arms was naught, she held -him. - -To Le Moan whose soul was, in a way, and as far as Taori was -concerned, greater than her body, marriage and its consummation -could have given little more—if as much. She held him. - -Above them danced the golden butterfly that no man could catch or -brutalize; a thing born of light, of the sea, of chance; gold by day -that had been silver by moonlight, elusive as the dreams that had -led Carlin to his death and the love that had led Le Moan to destroy -him. - -Then, little by little, the world broke in upon her, her arms -relaxed, and rising, half blind and groping her way, she found the -door, the steps, the deck, where Poni stood released from the wheel, -and Aioma by the rail. - - -CHAPTER III—HE HAS TURNED HIS FACE FROM THE SUN - -The Ocean is a congregation of rivers, the drift currents and the -stream currents; rivers, some constant in their flow, some -intermittent and variable; some wide, as in the case of the Brazil -current which at its broadest covers four hundred and fifty miles; -some narrow as in the case of the Karolin-Marua drift, scarcely -twenty miles from east to west. The speed of these rivers varies -from five miles a day to fifteen or thirty, as in the case of the -Brazil current, or from ten to a hundred and twenty miles a day as -in the case of the Gulf Stream. - -Sometimes these rivers, lying almost side by side, are flowing in -opposite directions, as in the case of the north running -Karolin-Marua current and the southerly drift that had now got the -schooner in its grasp; and each one of these streams of the sea, -from the Arctic to the Antarctic, has its own peculiar people, from -the Japanese swordfish of the _Kuro Shiwo_ to the Gambier turtles on -the Karolin-Marua. - -Left without wind the schooner drifted, her sails casting vast -reflections on the glassy swell; sometimes, away out, a slight -disturbance on the water would show where a sleeping turtle had -suddenly submerged, and over-side in the ship’s shadow, fucus and -jelly-fish floating fathoms deep could be seen drifting with the -ship. Nothing else. Neither shark nor albacore nor palu nor gull -spoke of life across or beneath that glacial sea. - -The sun sank in a west of solid gold and the stars took the night, -the sails showing black against the brilliant ceiling. - -Dick, who had come on deck before sunset, stood by Aioma at the -after rail. He seemed himself again, but he had not eaten that day; -a fact that disturbed the canoe-builder, who had turned from dark -thoughts and misgivings to a sort of cheery fatalism. Aioma was -alive and there was food and water on board for a long time and the -wind might blow soon or the drift—he sensed a drift—take them -somewhere. He had a feeling also that his curses had closed the -mouth of Le Juan; he had eaten well, and his belly was full of -ship’s food and bananas, so his sturdy nature refused depression. - -“Of what use,” he was saying, “is a man without food? A man is the -paraka he eats and the fish.... Go and eat, Taori, for without food -a man is not a man.” - -“I will eat to-morrow,” said Taori, “I have no heart for eating -now.” - -Away forward crouching in her old place Le Moan listened to the -creak of the ship as it moved to the swell and watched the stars -that shone on Karolin. - -The faithful unbreakable sense born with her as truly as the power -of the water-finder is born in him, or the power of the swallow to -find its southern nest, told her just where Karolin lay; away on the -starboard beam to the north, now dead aft as the schooner turned to -some gentle swirl of the current, now a bit to port, now back again -to starboard. - -She could see the figures of Taori and Aioma in the starlight and -she could hear the voices of Poni and the others from the foc’sle, -the creak of the timbers and the creak of the main boom as it moved -to the rocking of the swell. She too had not eaten that day. - -She had done her work and she had received her reward. With his body -in her arms and her lips on his neck, she had drunk him as a -creature dying of thirst might drink long delicious draughts from a -poisoned well; for he had clung to her not in the passion of love, -but of misery, and he had let her hold him as a comforter not as a -lover, and she knew that till the stars fell dead and the sun ceased -to shine that never would he be closer to her than that. - -This knowledge had come to her from the very contact with his body, -from the clasp of his arms about her neck. He had told her -unconsciously and without speech more than he could have ever have -told her in words. He was Katafa’s. - -He was for ever out of her reach, sure and certain instinct told her -that, yet he was near her and she could see him—they were together. - -Only a little before sundown Aioma had said to her, “Le Moan, maybe -since the wind has gone the spell of Uta Matu has ceased to work. -Shut your eyes, turn, and see if you cannot get a view again of -where Karolin lies; is the sight of it still gone from you, Le -Moan?” - -“It is still gone,” she had answered him, “and even if it were with -me, of what use, for there is no wind?” - -She had told the lie looking him in the face and seeing only Taori. - -It was no little jealousy that made her lie; she had no jealousy -towards Katafa whom Fate had bound to Taori before she had seen him. -He had not chosen Katafa in preference to her; perhaps that was why -her heart held no jealousy. All the same to bring him back, to take -the wheel and steer him into the arms of Katafa—she could not. - -To save his life she could easily have died for him, to give him -back to joy and love was impossible. - -The night passed and the sun rose on another day of calm, and still -the schooner drifted, the variable current setting her back -sometimes, sometimes leading her a bit more south. Truly it was a -great calm as Aioma had predicted and it fell on Taori, as on the -sea, like the hand of death. He scarcely ate at all; he had fallen -away from himself, his mind seemed far away, he scarcely spoke. - -As men who have never met the microbes of disease fall easily -victims and die when other men only fall ill, Taori, who had never -before known grief, in the language of Aioma, turned his face from -the sun. - -On Karolin men had often died like that, of no disease—because of -insult, because of a woman, sometimes just for some reason that -seemed trivial. It is one of the strangest attributes of the kanaka, -this power of departing from the world when life becomes -unendurable, too heavy or even just wearisome. - -“He has turned his face from the sun,” said Aioma to Poni one -morning—the fourth morning of the calm—and Le Moan who was nearby -heard the words. - -It was on that same morning that the breeze came, a light air from -the north strengthening to a steady sailing wind, and almost on the -breeze came the call of the lookout who had climbed to the -crosstrees. - -“Land!” - -Just a few palm tree tops to the southeast, the trees of a tiny -atoll, so small that it cast no lagoon reflection; and Aioma who had -climbed to see came down again whilst Poni, who had taken the wheel, -put the ship to the southeast taking his position from the sun not -far above the eastern skyline. - -Presently the far-off treetops could be seen from the deck, but Dick -as Poni steered, and after a glance at the distant trees, lost -interest. - -He had turned his face from the sun. - - -CHAPTER IV—WHAT HAPPENED TO RANTAN - -When Rantan awoke from sleep it was morning. He had slept the clock -round. He awoke hungry and full of vigour, and coming out from -amongst the trees he stood for a moment by the edge of the little -lagoon above whose sapphire waters the white gulls were flighting -against a sky newborn and lovely and filled with distance and light. - -The canoe lay where he had left it, high-beached now, for the tide -was out. The bodies that had been tied to the gratings were gone, -the gulls had done their work, and nothing showed but the coconut -sennit bindings hanging brown like rags and moving to the breeze. - -Close to the northernmost of the trees lay a little pond from which -he had drunk before lying down; the trees stretching from the pool -ran in a dense line for a quarter of a mile, pandanus, coconut palm, -bread fruit, and a dense growth of mammee apple, shading beach and -reef to a spot where the naked reef took charge. The rest of the -ring of the atoll showed few trees, just a small clump or two of -fifty-foot palms, wand-like and feathery against the blazing blue. - -There was food here, enough of a sort, but he had neither knife nor -fire nor fishing line. He was naked. - -When they had bound him and kept him and flung him in the canoe to -take him to the southern beach of Karolin, he had not bothered about -the fact that he was naked—it had not troubled him at all till now. -Now that sleep had restored him to himself, the fact of his -nakedness came to him as a sudden trouble making him forget for the -moment everything else, even food. - -The trouble was entirely psychical. The climate of the beach was so -warm that he did not require clothing as a protection, and there was -shade enough to shelter him from the sun if he were too warm. All -the same, his nakedness lay on him like a curse. He felt helpless, -part of his environment that had clung to him for forty years was -gone from him and without it he was all astray; naked as a worm he -felt useless as a worm, ready to flinch at anything, without -initiative, without power. - -Dick had never known the need of clothes, he had never worn them. It -was different with Rantan. - -The absence of shoes he felt less, though without them he was -condemned to keep off the rough coral and keep to the beach sands. - -He came along the sands towards the canoe. Had you been watching him -and had he been clothed in purple and fine linen you still would -have said to yourself “There is something wrong about that man, why -does he walk like that?” - -When he reached the canoe he looked in at the remains of the fruit -all squashed and gone bad from the sun; then, turning to the -gratings he began to unfasten the strips of coconut sennit that had -tied the bodies of the children. - -The birds had pulled the bodies to pieces, not even the little bones -were left and the bindings hung lax; his fingers were not trembling -now as they had trembled on Karolin when trying to untie the knots; -he had plenty of time to work in and bit by bit the fastenings came -undone. - -Then the gulls, if they had bothered to look, might have seen a -strange sight: Rantan trying to make himself a loin cloth. - -Why? - -He had neither real decency nor shame in his composition, there was -no one to see him in his nakedness but the gulls. Why then did he -trouble? - -Trouble he did and the result was scarcely worth his trouble. Then, -and still without eating, he turned to and cleared the rotting -pandanus and other fruit out of the canoe—he could not swill her out -as he had nothing with which to hold water, but she had brought in a -long piece of weed tangled on the outrigger; the sun had dried it, -but he wet it again in the lagoon water and used it as a sort of -mop. - -Having cleaned her and seen that the mast, sail and paddles were all -right, he came back to the trees, plucked some pandanus drupes and -began to eat. - -As he sat down to the food, he made to hitch up his left trousers -leg, a habit he had. Before leaving the canoe to come back to the -trees he had tried to put his hand in his pocket. In this way and in -other ways and incessantly his vanished clothes spoke to him, -reminding him that he was naked, worm-naked on the face of the -world. - -He ate, staring at the lagoon as if hypnotized by its blueness, and -as he ate, pictures travelled before his mind’s eye, pictures of -Karolin lagoon and the two dead women he had left on the southern -beach, and then, as a bird hops from one branch to another, his mind -left Karolin and lit on the deck of the _Kermadec_ and from that on -to the sands of Levua in whose woods he had slain Peterson. - -All his troubles had started from the killing of Peterson. It was -just as though Peterson had been following him, stripping him -steadily and bit by bit of everything down to his very clothes: of -the schooner, of the pearl lagoon, of his sea chest, of the few -dollars he had saved, of his hat, his shoes, his trousers, his -shirt, his coat—everything. He tried to put away this idea but -failed. - -It was now only nine o’clock in the morning of a day that would not -end at sunset, of a blue and blazing day that, with night -intermissions, would last for months and months—for the rainy season -was far off. And he was out of trade tracks. - -He stood up, looked about him, and then walking carefully, picked -his way on to the rough coral above the outer beach. Here on a -smooth spot he stood looking over the sea to the northeast. - -Nothing. - -Karolin, with fabulous treasure in its blue heart, lay somewhere -over there, lost, so far that even the lagoon light did not show. - -He turned to the southeast. Somewhere there lay the Paumotus. - -Should he push off in the canoe and try to reach them? - -Since waking this morning there had fallen upon Rantan a double -obsession, the paralysing sense of his nakedness and now the feeling -that somehow in some way Peterson was following him—following him -wearing the seven-league boots of bad luck. He believed neither in -God nor in ghosts, but he believed in luck—and his luck had been -frightful and it had dated from the killing of Peterson. - -This double obsession cut the ground from under the feet of his -energy, so that the idea of escape in the canoe entered his mind -only to leave it again. He came back to the trees, lay down in their -shadow and now the gulls began to talk to him. - -The little island had two voices, the endless sound of the breakers -and the unending complaint of the gulls; sometimes it would be just -a voice or two, sometimes clamour—always indifference, voices from a -world that knew nothing of man. - -The dead women he had left lying on Karolin beach were not further -beyond the pale of things than he who had slain them, and it came to -Rantan as he lay there that he was shut out; no one knew of his -fate, he was of no manner of interest to anything that surrounded -him; to the wind, to the sunlight, to the trees, to the gulls. If he -were to drop dead on the sands, he would become an object of -interest to the predatory gulls, but alive he was of interest to -nothing. - -This was not a passing thought; it was kept alive in his mind by his -nakedness. His mind had been stripped of its clothes in the form of -living beings and accustomed surroundings, just as his body had been -stripped of its clothes in the form of shirt, coat and trousers. The -two nakednesses were as two voices perpetually talking together, -answering each other, echoing one another. - -Then, hypnotized by the murmur of the reef, he drifted off into -sleep. - -He was on the schooner. She was anchored in Karolin lagoon and the -crew were diving for pearls, the deck was strewn with heaps of -shells and Carlin was showing him a huge pearl in the palm of his -hand. It was the last, they had stripped the lagoon clean, and now -it was mainsail haul for ’Frisco, wealth, wine and women. He was -down in the cabin, pearls all over the floor and pearls in the -bunks, and as the ship rolled, the pearls ran and he chased them -about the floor on his hands and knees, and they turned into pebbles -as he caught them. Some turned into white mice and ran over Carlin -who was lying dead by his bunk, and then Poni shoved his head -through the skylight and called down at him: “Caa—caa—caa,” and he -awoke beneath the trees to the call of a passing gull. - - -CHAPTER V—WHAT HAPPENED TO RANTAN (CONTINUED) - -He sprang to his feet and came running out on to the sands. For a -moment he could not tell where he was, then he remembered. It was -past noon and the tide was beginning to ebb. He saw the canoe and he -stood, stood for a full minute without moving a single muscle—his -mind working furiously, no longer diffident, no longer helpless, as -though the dream in restoring his old environment had given him -strength, renewed courage and daring. - -He must clear out of this place, get to the open sea. The Paumotus -were possible, ships were possible, death was possible, but better -than this place where nothing was possible, where nothing was but a -beach to walk on, blazing sun and jeering gulls. - -The ebb was beginning to run, it would take him through the break, -he must act at once. - -He ran towards the trees and began collecting pandanus drupes and -carrying them to the canoe. He climbed like a monkey for drinking -nuts, and just as on the Karolin beach he ran, sweating as he came -piling the fruit on board; drinking nuts, drinking nuts—he never -could have enough of them. Then the last of his frantically -collected cargo on board he did what he had also done on the beach -of Karolin, flung himself down by the little pool and drank till he -nearly burst. - -It was all a repetition of that business and only wanted the dead -bodies of the women to make the picture complete. Then he came to -the canoe. - -Here it was the same again. He could not get her off. The dead -children no longer weighed down the outrigger, but he had stowed his -cargo badly and that did the business; the outrigger was bedded in -the sand. He laboured and sweat rearranging the fruit, then at last -she began to move; he pushed and drove, the lagoon water took her to -amidships—another effort and she was waterborne and he was on board -working with a single paddle and getting her farther out. - -He was free. - -A weight seemed gone from his soul, he no longer felt his nakedness; -the power of movement, the escape from the beach and the new hope -that lay in the open sea, were like wine to his spirit. It was a -move in a new game and daring whispered to him that he would yet -beat Peterson. - -Working with the paddle from side to side, he got her farther and -farther out, and the break lay before him now and beyond the break -beckoned the sea. - -He had turned sideways to take a last derisive look at the prison -house of the trees and beach when—aye, what was that? Water ran over -his knees as he knelt to the paddling, water that moved with a -slobber and chuckle beneath the nuts. - -The canoe was leaking. The sun must have done this business -yesterday, craftily, whilst he was asleep. She had been bone dry -when he stowed the fruit and now the stuff was awash or nearly so. - -The mat sail was brailed ready to be broken out when clear of the -lagoon. He looked at it, then his eyes fell again to the interior of -the canoe—the water had risen higher still: this was no ordinary -leak that immersion would caulk, there was nothing to be done but to -return and try to mend it on the beach. - -He began to paddle, making frantic efforts to turn the canoe’s head -and bring her ashore. He was too late, the ebb had her like a leaf -and though he turned her head, it was only to make her float -broadside to the spate of the tide. - -The only chance was to try and hit the beach near the break. - -He worked like a giant. - -Only a few minutes before his heart had rejoiced at his escape, now, -with the prospect of certain death from drowning in the outer sea, -the beach seemed to him the most delectable place in the world. - -But he could not reach it. The nearer the break the swifter the ebb; -the lagoon water had him like a swiftly running river; the canoe -twisted and turned to his efforts but he could not alter the line of -its travel sufficiently to hit the beach. - -Then, flinging the paddle away he rose, held on to the mast, plunged -over the side and struck out for the shore. - -When he reached it and stood up, the canoe was gone, swept to sea to -be submerged and tossed on the swell. - -His last possession had been taken from him. Schooner, money, -pearls, clothes and lastly the canoe, all were gone; he had nothing -in the world—save the loin cloth made from the bindings of the dead -children. - -But he was not thinking of that. His life had been saved. He had -almost touched death and now as he looked on the boiling current, he -saw a shark fin shearing along as though the shark that had missed -him was blindly hunting for him. - -He came back to the trees, hugging the life that had been spared to -him and sat down to rest, Death sitting opposite to him—cheated. - -This business brought things to a crisis with Rantan; though robbing -him of his last possession, it still had given him a sense of -winning a move, and truly, though his luck had been dreadful, there -had been an under-current of good luck. He had escaped from Le Moan -that night, he had escaped from Nanu and Ona who had him bound hand -and foot, he had escaped from the sea coming to this atoll, and he -had escaped from the leaking canoe and the shark. His mind took a -turn. He felt that he was meant to live, he was sure that now he -would be rescued. A ship would come. - -And at this thought that seemed clothed in surety, the man’s soul -blazed up against Karolin. If she were only a ship with the right -sort of people on board, he would find Karolin for them and they -would rip the floor out of that lagoon and the hearts out of the -kanakas that lived by it. - -And the right sort of people would be on that ship and she would -come—she would come. He knew it. - - -CHAPTER VI—WHAT HAPPENED TO RANTAN (CONTINUED) - -He fell asleep on the thought and for days and days he hugged it, -and every day a dozen times he would go to the flat space on the -coral and look over the sea for the ship. - -One morning he saw something dark on the beach near the break; it -was the canoe, the tide had taken her out only a little way and the -sea had played with her, submerged as she was, returning her to the -lagoon where the full flood had beached her. The water had drained -out of her with the ebb and there she was and there he found her, -pulling her up higher just for something to do. He found the crack -that made the leak, it was quite small and he might have plugged it, -but there was no paddle and anyway he would not have used her—he was -waiting for the ship that was sure to come. - -Rantan had, like most sailors, the full use of his hands, and he -longed to use them, but he had no tools or anything to work on; near -the trees and close to the mammee apple there was a patch of coarse -grass and the idea came to him to make something out of it. Once in -Chile he had escaped from prison by making a grass rope and the idea -came to him now to make another; anything was better than sitting in -idleness, and it seemed a lucky thing to do, for not only had he -escaped from the Chilean prison by means of the rope, but he had -come on a streak of good luck when free. So, gathering grass, he sat -down to weave his rope. - -The business was a godsend to him. - -He limited the work to a few hours a day so as not to cloy himself, -and he would look forward to the work, hours as men look forward to -a smoke. - -Whilst he worked at it, he wove his thoughts into the rope, his -desires, dreams and ambitions all were woven into it, the killing of -Peterson went in, and the memory of the dead women on Karolin beach, -his hatred of the kanakas and of the red-headed one who had come and -looked at him, Dick. - -As a woman weaves into her knitting her household affairs and so on, -the busy fingers of Rantan wove into his rope visions of ripping the -pearls out of Karolin lagoon, of hunting the kanakas to death, of -drinking bars and loose pleasures to be had with the pearl -money—truly, if an inanimate thing could be evil, it was evil, for -it held Rantan’s past. The amount of grass being limited, he -sometimes knocked off work for a couple of days; and the days became -weeks and the weeks went on and on till one morning, when the grass -being nearly finished and the rope almost long enough to hang a man -with a six-foot drop, Rantan, coming to his lookout, sighted a ship. - -Away towards the north she lay so far that he could only tell she -was of fore and aft rig and making either for or away from the -atoll. Ten minutes showed her bigger—she was coming for the atoll. -She was The Ship. - -Then Rantan danced and sang on the smooth bit of coral and shouted -to the gulls, and he came down to the sands and ran about on them -like a dog in high spirits; he shouted to the canoe and abused her -and called her filthy names, then back again to see how the ship was -growing and back again to the sands to cut more capers. - -She grew. - -Returning to his lookout post for the fourth time, she seemed to -have suddenly shot up in size as if by magic. Now he could see her -clearly, her make and size and the patch on her foresail. He took a -breath so deep that his chest stood out above his lean belly like a -barrel. God! she was the _Kermadec_! The _Kermadec_ or a sister -ship, her twin image; the eye of a sailor told him that, the patch -on the foresail he knew—he had helped to put it there. - -He turned and came running on to the sands. - -White men must have come into Karolin lagoon and made friends of the -kanakas—the women would have been found dead on the beach, the canoe -gone. It was all plain. - -They would know that with the wind blowing at that time the canoe -would have come in this direction; he was being searched for, either -to be clubbed to death, by kanakas or hanged by whites. - -There lay the canoe on the beach and his footsteps on the sand. - -He looked round. There was no mark of a campfire to give him away, -nothing but the canoe, the footsteps, the fruit skins and coconut -shells he had left lying about, and the rope. - -He started to clear up, casting the skins and shells amongst the -bushes. Then, diving into the bushes he hid there listening—waiting, -sweating, the rope coiled by his side. - - -CHAPTER VII—THE BATTLE AND THE VICTORY - -The island grew. - -Poni at the wheel, his eyes wrinkled against the sun, steered; Aioma -beside him, Le Moan near Aioma and Dick forward near the galley. -Dick had taken his seat on the deck in a patch of shadow and now he -was leaning on his side supporting himself with his elbow. The sight -of this island that was not Karolin had completed the business for -Dick. - -For four days he had scarcely touched food and for four days Le Moan -had watched him falling away from himself. It was like watching a -tree wither. - -There was a vine on Karolin that would sometimes take a tree in its -embrace just as ivy does, grow up it and round it and cling without -doing the tree any injury; but if the vine were cut away from the -tree, the tree would die. - -It seemed to Le Moan that Taori was like the tree and Katafa the -vine. - -She was right. - -Seldom enough, yet every now and then you find in this wilderness of -a world, amidst the thorns of hate and the poison berries of passion -and the dung of beasts and the toadstools of conjugal love, a -passion pure and unselfish like the love of Katafa and Taori. Who -moreover, above most other mortals, stood apart in a world there was -no room for little things—where the sky was their roof and the ocean -their floor and storm and war and cataclysm, halcyon weather, and -the blaze of a tropic sun their environment, where the love that -bound them together had, woven into it—after the fashion of the rope -of Rantan—their past. - -The thousand little and great and beautiful and terrific things that -made up their past, all these were woven into the passion that bound -them together. - -To cut this bond, to separate them forcibly one from the other, was -death. - -In hot climates, in the tropics where the convolvulus grows so -rapidly that the eye can all but see it grow, people can die quickly -of love. Death grows when released with the fountain speed of the -rocketing datura and the disruptive fury of corruption. - -Dick cut away from Katafa was going to die. It was not only the -cutting away, but the manner of it, that made his case hopeless. - -Not only was he cut away from Katafa, but he was also divorced from -his environment. His universe had consisted of Palm Tree and -Karolin, the sea that held them, the sky above them: Katafa—nothing -more. - -Then Palm Tree had vanished and Karolin had been taken from him and -nothing was left but the great vacant world of the sea, that and the -grief for the loss of Katafa. - -He was going to die. He was dying. His very strength was killing -him. - -You sometimes find that—find that the power of a powerful man can be -turned in against itself by grief or by disaster or disease. - -He was going to die, as Aioma said, and Le Moan knew it. - -He was dying because Katafa had been cut away from him. - -The sound of the bow-wash and the sound of the sea as it washed past -the counter, and the creak of rope and spar, kept saying all this. - -“Taori is dying because Katafa is no more with him—no more with -him....” - -Meanwhile the island grew. - -And now Aioma, cheered by the sight of this bit of land, began -talking to Poni in a high-pitched voice. But Le Moan did not hear or -heed what he said. - -So, Taori was going to die. And it was for this that she had taken -him away from Katafa. She had taken him away to have him to herself -and he was turning into a dead man. To save him from death she had -given herself up to Peterson, to save him from death she had killed -Carlin and risked being killed by Rantan, and yet he was going to -die. - -She could hear now the faint and far-away breathing of the surf on -the reef ahead mixed with the words of Aioma to Poni; and now harsh -and complaining and sudden and near came the call of a gull; a land -gull, flying as if racing them. - -“Taori is dying because of Katafa—Katafa—Katafa,” cried the gull, -and Le Moan following the bird with her eyes let her gaze sweep back -to the deck where Taori was lying, half leaning, the sun upon his -bare back where the vertabræ showed and the ribs. - -And louder now came the breathing of the surf on the reef, heavy -like the breathing of a weary man. - -“All life is weary and full of labour,” sighed the surf, “and there -is no more joy in the sun—and Taori is going to die because of -Katafa.” - -“Katafa,” creaked the cordage to the foam that went sighing aft. - -The wind freshened and the main sheet tautened and the great sail -bellied hard against the blue, the schooner lifting to the swell -crushed into it with great sighs and long shudders like the sighing -and shuddering of a dying man, and the atoll leaped larger to view, -the palm trees standing clear of the water above the coral and the -visible foam. - -“The palm grows, the coral waxes, but man departs,” whispered the -wind, repeating the old rede of the islands; and now the lagoon -showed through the break and Le Moan, watching and knowing that -there, should they enter that lagoon, Taori would find his last home -beneath the palm trees, scarcely knew of the terrible battle raging -in the darkness of her mind—knew only that she was all astray, -helpless, useless, pulled this way and that between two opposing -forces great as the powers of life and death; whilst louder now came -the sound of the surf, louder and deeper and more solemn, till once -again she was on the beach of Karolin, the stars were shining, the -little conch shells whispering and chirruping to keep the evil -spirits away, for Uta Matu the king was dying and his breathing came -from the house like that. - -Then, suddenly, with the cry of a dreamer awakened from some -terrible dream, flinging out her arms to thrust away the dark spirit -that had all but seized her soul and the body of Taori, Le Moan -flung Poni from the wheel, seized the spokes and the schooner, -checking, turned, her canvas thrashing and clawing at the wind. - -Turned—the island wheeling to the port quarter and the main boom -flogging out with Aioma and Poni hauling at the sheet; turned and -held, close hauled and steering for the west of north. - -“Karolin,” cried Le Moan, “Aioma, the sight has come to me—the path -is plain.” - -“Karolin!” cried Aioma. “Taori, the spell is broken, we are free and -the net of Le Juan torn asunder and the spears of Uta blunted.” - - -CHAPTER VIII—WHAT HAPPENED TO RANTAN (CONCLUSION) - -Safe hidden amongst the bushes he listened. It would take a full -hour yet before the schooner could make the break, yet he listened -as he lay, his rope beside him, his mind active as a squirrel in its -cage. - -They would search the atoll, they would hunt amongst the bushes—yet -they might miss him. - -Should they find him! His dark mind took fire at the thought, wild -ideas came to him of escaping into the lagoon, boarding the -schooner, seizing a rifle and turning the situation. He was a white -man, a match for a hundred kanakas if only he could get a foothold -above them, a rifle in his hands. In this he was right, as he had -slain the women who had him safely bound, so had he the possibility -in him to meet this last attack of fate, free himself, and -dominating and destroying, make good at last. - -Time passed, the reef spoke and the wind in the trees, but from the -outer sea came nothing. He peeped through the bushes, getting a view -of the reef line to northward. By now surely the topmasts of the -schooner ought to show close in as she must be, yet there was -nothing. - -He came out of the bushes like a lizard, stood erect and then came -cautiously towards the higher coral where his outlook post was; -literally on hands and feet he crawled, inch by inch, till the sea -came in view and then he crawled no longer. He stood erect. - -Far off on the breezed-up sea the schooner close-hauled was standing -away from the island. - -Rantan could scarcely grasp the fact before his eyes. She had been -making for him and now she was standing away. - -She had not been searching for him, then. Was she after all the -_Kermadec_ or had he been mistaken? - -Her shape, her personality, that patch on the sail—well what of -that? Other ships had patched canvas besides his schooner. He had -surely been mistaken. - -As she dwindled dissolving in the wind, his hungry eyes followed -her. - -How fast she was going, faster than the _Kermadec_ could sail -close-hauled. - -He watched her till she was hull down, till her canvas showed like a -midge dancing in the sea dazzle, till it vanished taken by the round -world into the viewless. - -Then he came back to the trees. - -Just as the ship had gone from the sea, so had his dream ship gone -from his mind, taking hope with her, leaving him to his utter -nakedness. He went to the old canoe that he had abused and vilified -in his hour of triumph; the sun had enlarged the crack, the forward -outrigger pole had worked loose with the tossing in the swell, there -was no paddle. - -Yet she could talk to him, telling him of Nanu and Ona and their -dead children, and of Carlin and Peterson, and beyond that of Soma -and Chile and many a traverse to the beginning of that great -traverse of his life. - -He wished to be done with it all. - -With the going of hope, the fact of his nakedness had seized him -again. - -It had never quite left him; the feeling of being without clothes -had tinged even his dreams, he had fought against it and put it by, -but it always returned, and now that hope had departed it was back -and in a worse form. For now if he did not fight it hard, it was -taking the form, not of discomfort and a sense of want, but of -uneasiness, the terrible excitable uneasiness that the stomach can -produce when disarranged—stomach fear. - -He fought it down, returned to the trees and found that his worry -about the ship and his own position had quite gone; he was worrying -about nothing, for he was at grips with something new, something -born of his naked skin and his stomach that had been feeding on -uncooked food for so long, something that had been making for him -for weeks, something that threatened to rise to a crisis and make -him run—run—run. - -Dropping to sleep that night he was brought awake by something that -hit him a blow on the soles of his feet; twice this happened and -when he slept he was hunting for his clothes, and when he awoke it -was to face another blue day, a day lovely but implacable as a sworn -tormentor. - -He walked the beach in his nakedness. - -The gulls had begun to jeer at him now. Up to this they had left him -severely alone, treating him with absolute indifference, but they -had found him out at last; they were laughing at him all along the -reef, talking about him and every now and then rising above the -trees to look at him. - -This idea held for a little and then passed, and he knew that he had -been the victim of a delusion. - -The gulls were quite indifferent to his presence. - -Now amongst the trees and close to the waterside stood a gigantic -soa with rail-like branches projecting like limbs across the sand -and one big branch standing at right angles from the trunk some -fifteen feet up. - -Lying now amongst the tree shadows, and listening to the gulls’ -voices that had become normal, and the long roll of the unending -breakers and the whispering movements of the robber crabs, Rantan -fixed his eyes on this branch and saw himself in fancy swinging from -it at the end of a rope, free of all his trouble, naked no longer. -The rope he had woven and which was lying amongst the bushes had -tied itself to the branch in his imagination. - -He saw himself rising, hunting amidst the bushes and coming out of -them with the rope in his hand; climbing the tree, fixing the rope -to the limb, making the noose in the free end, placing the noose -round his neck, dropping—kicking the air—dangling. - -At noon a great gull sweeping across the lagoon from the leeward to -the windward beach, seeing the dangling figure, altered its line of -flight as if deflected by a blow, and a high-going burgomaster, -seeing the deflected flight of his brother in hunger, circled and -dropped like a stone to where Rantan was dangling and dancing on the -wind. A naked figure yet capable, had the schooner put in, of -boarding it by night, seizing command by treachery, sailing north -and sweeping Karolin, for such is the power of the White Man. But -Rantan was dead, slain by the action of Le Moan in putting the -schooner about. This was the third time she had sacrificed herself -for the sake of Taori, the third time that she had countered danger -and death with love. - - -CHAPTER IX—THE GREEN SHIP - -Le Moan steered. Tireless and heedless of time as when she had -brought the schooner first to Karolin, she kept the wheel all that -day and through the night, giving it over to Poni for short -intervals, whilst Dick slept. - -She had given life back to him and it was almost as though she had -given him her own life, for the world around her had become as the -world wherein ghosts move; disembodied spirits, not dead but no -longer connected with earth. - -Before setting eyes on Taori, she had lived on the southern beach of -Karolin, lonely, cut off with Aioma and the others who had no -interests beyond the interests of the moment; as she lived so might -she have died neither happy nor unhappy, without pity and without -love or care for the morrow or thought of the past. - -Then Taori had come, not as a man but as a light greater than the -sun, a light that struck through the darkness of her being, bringing -to birth a new self that was his—that was he. - -She had braved death and the unknown—everything—only to find herself -at the end face to face with death, and death saying to her “He is -mine—or Katafa’s.” - -Like the woman who stood before Solomon, she had to choose between -the destruction of the thing she loved and the handing of it to a -rival to be lost to her forever, to see its arms clinging to -another, and its love given to another, and its life becoming part -of the life of another; and she chose the greater sacrifice, not -because she was Le Moan, a creature extraordinary or supernormal, -but just because at heart she was a woman. - -A woman, acting, when brought to the great test, less as an -individual than as a part of the spirit of womanhood. The spirit -changeless through the ages and unalterable. The spirit so often -hidden by the littleness of the flesh, so seldom put to the heroic -test, so absolutely certain in its answer to it. For when a woman -really loves she becomes a mother even though she never may conceive -or produce a child. - -Aioma, who had slept through the night on his belly on the deck, -spread like a starfish, awoke as the sun was rising. - -Poni was at the wheel—Le Moan had gone below. The cabin had no fears -for her now, and she had said to Poni, just as the sun was rising -and pointing into the west of north, “You will see the lagoon light -there.” - -Dick, by the galley, was still sleeping, Tahuku and Tirai were the -watch. - -The beauty of that sunrise on that blue and lonely sea, beyond word -or brush, was unseen by Aioma. - -“It will be over there,” said Poni, pointing ahead. “It does not -show yet.” Aioma went forward and stood looking into the northwest. -No, it did not show yet nor would it show till the sun was twice its -diameter above the horizon. Aioma, listening to the slash of the bow -breaking the water and fanned by the draught from the head sails, -having swept the sky found his eye caught by something far across -the sea and right in their course. It looked at first glance like a -rock but at once his bird-like eyes resolved it into what it was—a -ship, an _ayat_, but with no sail set. - -The canoe-builder glanced back along the deck past the sleeping -figure of Dick to the figure of Poni at the wheel, then he turned -his eyes again upon the far-off ship, and now in the sky to the -north above and beyond the ship lay something for which he had been -on the lookout—the lagoon light of Karolin, almost imperceptible, -but there just in the position where Le Moan had said it would be. - -The something he had waited and longed for, but spoiled, almost -threatened, by this apparition of a ship. - -Aioma wanted to have nothing more to do with ships; this traverse in -the schooner had turned him clean back towards canoes; for days -past, though he had said no word on the matter, all his ancestors -had been hammering at the door of his mind shouting, “Aioma, you are -a fool, you have forsaken the canoes of your forefathers for this -_ayat_, and see how it has betrayed you, and why? Because it is the -invention of the white men, the cursed _papalagi_ who have always -brought trouble to Karolin. If we could get at you, Aioma, we would -stake you out on the reef for the sharks to eat. You deserve it.” - -He had said nothing of this because Aioma never confessed to a -fault. - -Well there was another _ayat_, blocking the way to Karolin and sure -to bring trouble. - -Civilization and trouble had come to be convertible ideas in the -mind of this old gentleman who although he did not know the English -word that represents greed, brutality, disease, drink, and robbery -dressed in self-righteousness, had sensed the fact that the white -man always brought trouble. - -Well, there it was straight before him heading her off from Karolin. -What should he do? Turn and run away from it? Oh, no. Aioma, who had -fought the big rays and who was never happier than when at grips -with a conger, was not the person to turn his back on danger or -threat, especially now with Karolin in view. - -This thing lay straight in his path, as if daring him, and he -accepted the challenge; they had the speak sticks, there were eight -of them not including Le Moan and if it came to a fight—well, he was -ready. - -Without rousing Dick, he called the fellows up from below, pointed -out the ship and then stood watching as she grew. - -Now she stood on the water plainly to be seen, a brig with canvas -stowed as if in preparation for a blow. If any canvas had been set -it must have been blown away by the wind, for she showed nothing but -her sticks as she lay rolling gently to the swell. - -Tahuku, who had the instinct of a predatory gull coupled with the -eye of a hawk, suddenly laughed: - -“She is empty,” said Tahuku, “she has no men on her. It is a dead -turtle, Aioma, you have called on us to spear.” - -Aioma hit by the same truth ran and roused Dick, who on waking -sprang to his feet. He was renewed by sleep and hope, a creature -reborn and as he stood with the others he scarcely noticed the ship, -his eyes fixed on the light of Karolin. - -Poni at the wheel called Le Moan and she came up from below and -stood watching whilst the brig, now close to them, showed her -nakedness and desolation beneath the burning light of morning. - -Old-fashioned, even for these days, high-pooped, heavily sparred and -with an up-jutting bowsprit, her hull of a ghastly faded green -rolled with a weary movement to the undulations of the swell, -revealing now the weed-grown copper of her sheathing, now a glimpse -of the deserted deck. There were no boats at the davits and as the -current altered her position, giving her a gentle pitch, came a -sound faint against the wind, the clapping of her deck-house door. - -Aioma turning, ran aft and stood beside Poni at the wheel giving him -directions. The canoe-builder, urged by his ancestors and his hatred -of the _papalagi_, had evolved an idea from his active brain and -Dick, who had let his eyes wander from the brig to the far-off light -of Karolin, heard suddenly the thrashing of canvas as the steersman -brought the schooner up into the wind. - -Aioma was going to board the _ayat_. He was shouting directions to -Tahuku and the others—they ran to the falls, the boat was lowered, -and in a moment he was away, shouting like a boy; scrambling like a -monkey when they hitched on to the broad channel plates he gained -the deck and stood looking round him. - -Aye, that was a place! Bones of dead men picked clean by the birds -lay here and there, and a skull polished like a marble rolled and -moved and rotated on the planking to the pitch of the hull, the -clicking of the lax rudder chain, and the clapping of the deck-house -door. - -He had brought his fire-stick with him and its little bow, from the -deck of the schooner. They watched him as he stood looking about -him. Then turning, he darted into the deck-house. - -He was there a long time, perhaps ten minutes, and when he came out -a puff of smoke came after him. Holding the door open, he looked in -till another puff of smoke garnished with sparks, hit him in the -face, then having done a little dance on the deck and kicked the -skull into the starboard scupper, he dropped into the boat and came -back to the schooner, singing. - -The boat was hoisted in, the schooner put on her course and the -smoking brig dropped far astern, but Aioma, still flushed with his -work and victory, heeded nothing. - -He sat on the coaming of the saloon skylight singing. - -He sang of the bones of the dead men and the skull he had kicked and -the ayat he had fired and the cursed _papalagi_ whose work he had -destroyed; then, with a great whoop he curled up and went asleep, -undreaming that the _papalagi_ might yet have their revenge, and -Dick, to whom Aioma and the ship astern flaring horribly in the -sunlight were as nothing, watched from the bow the steady growing -beacon of Karolin in the sky. - -There was Katafa. - -His soul flew ahead of the schooner like a bird, flew back and flew -forward again calling on the wind, and the wind, nearing, -strengthened, so that a little after midday the far treetops of the -southern beach came to view and now, faint and far away, the song of -the great atoll. - -Birds flew to meet them and birds passed them flying towards the -land and as the sun began its downward climb to the water, the break -began to show away on the port bow and Le Moan, pushing Tahuku, who -was at the wheel, aside, prepared to take them in. - -For only Le Moan knew the danger of the break when the tide was -ebbing as now. - -The waters were against them. It seemed the last feeble effort of -fate to separate Dick from the being he loved. - -The vast lagoon was pouring out like a river, it was past full -spate, but the swirl was enough, if the helmsman failed to drive -them on the coral. Now they were in the grip of it, the schooner -bucking like a restive horse, now steady, now making frantic efforts -to turn and dash out to sea again—Aioma in the bow crying -directions, Le Moan heeding him as little as she heeded the crying -of the gulls. - -Now they had stolen between the piers. The break on either side of -them seemed immensely broad and the grand sweep of the outgoing -water lit by the westering sun showed with scarcely a ripple to -where it boiled against the piers: gulls in flight above it showed -as in a mirror, yet it was flowing at a six-knot clip. - -The schooner with every sail drawing seemed not to move, yet she -moved, turning the mirror to a feather of foam at her cut water and -a river of beaten gold in her wake. The piers dropped astern, the -current slackened, the lagoon was conquered and lay before them a -blaze of light from the beach sands to its northern viewless -barrier. - -Katafa was sleeping. She who slept scarcely at all by night and -whose eyes by day were always fixed towards the sea, was sleeping -when the voice of Kanoa roused her: - -“They come, Katafa, they come!” - -Raising herself on one hand, she saw the sunset light through the -trees and the form of Kanoa making off again to the beach his voice -drifting back to her as he ran: - -“They come, Katafa, they come!” - -Then where the whole village was waiting, she found herself on the -sands, the lagoon before her and on the lagoon the schooner bravely -sailing in the sunset blaze, the sails full and now shivering as, -curving to her anchorage, the wind left them and the rumble of the -anchor chain running out came across the water, rousing her to the -fact that what she saw could not be, that what she saw was a ship, -but not the ship that had taken Taori away, the ship she had watched -and waited for till hope was all but dead and life all but darkness. -It could not be. It could not be that she should return like this, -so sure, so quietly, so real, the dream ship that held her heart and -soul, her love, her very life. - -The boat putting off now was a phantom, surely, and Taori as he -sprang on the sands and seized her in his embrace was unreal as the -world fading around her, till his lips seized her up from twilight -to the heaven of assurance. - -“Taori has come back,” cried the women, forgetting him as they -turned to the men who were standing by the boat—unheeding Le Moan -who stood, her work done, a being uncaring, seeing nothing, not even -Kanoa, crouched on the sands half dead with the beatitude of the -vision before him. - - -CHAPTER X—ARIPA! ARIPA! - -“Listen!” said the wind. - -From her place amidst the trees where Le Moan had settled herself -like a hare in its forme she heard the silky whisper of the sands -and the voice of the beach and the wind in the leaves above bidding -her to listen. - -Far-away voices came from the mammee apple where the men of the -schooner and their wives were making merry, and now and then, the -faintest thing in the world of sound, a click and creak from Nan on -his post above the house where Taori lay in the arms of Katafa. - -To Le Moan all that was nothing. She had banded death in exchange -for Taori, all her interest in life, all her desires. She had not -even the desire to destroy herself. The fire that had been her life -burned low and smouldered; it would never blaze again. - -“Listen!” said the wind. - -Something moved amidst the trees—it was Kanoa: Kanoa, his heart -beating against his ribs, his hands outstretched touching the tree -boles. - -She saw him now as he came towards her like a phantom from the -star-showered night, and she knew why he came, nor did she move as -he dropped on his knees beside her—all that was nothing now to Le -Moan. - -Since the night when he had saved her from Rantan, he had been -closer to her than the other men of the schooner, but still only a -figure, almost an abstraction. - -To-night, now, he was a little more than that, as a dog might be to -a lonely person, and as he poured out his heart in whispers she -listened without replying, let him put his arm around her and take -her lips; all that was nothing now to her whose heart would never -quicken again. - - * * * * * - -The wind died, day broke, and the wind of morning blew. - -Joy and the sun leapt on Karolin. Joy for Katafa who came from the -house to look at a world renewed, for the women whose husbands had -returned, for the men, for the children. Joy for Kanoa, his soul -shouting in him, “She is mine, she is mine,” and for Aioma, the lust -of revenge and destruction alive and dancing in his heart. - -He had killed the green ship; this morning he would kill the -schooner; the cursed _ayat_, that he had yet loved so dearly only a -week ago, was doomed to die. - -He hated it now with an entirely new and delicious brand of hatred -and if he could have staked it out on the reef for the sharks to -devour, so would he have done. - -It had given him the scare of his life, it had all but snapped him -away from Karolin, it had caused ancestral voices to rise cursing -him for his folly and treachery towards his race; it had brought up -visions of the Spanish ship, the brutal whale men, Carlin, Rantan, -and the whole tribe of the _papalagi_, it was theirs and it had got -to die. - -Besides, it was going to give him the chance to set fire to things. -He was still licking his chops over the firing of the green ship and -the joy of incendiarism was about to be recaptured. - -It was the last blaze up of youth in him. He called the village -together and explained matters. - -The _ayat_ was accursed. His father, Amatu, had explained it all in -a dream, commanding him, Aioma, to attend to this matter. The thing -had to burn; if it did not burn worse would befall Karolin. - -“Burn, burn, aripa, aripa!” cried the boys. - -“Aripa!” shrieked the women, the men took tongue and the cry went up -like the crackle of flame. - -Katafa listened, loathing the schooner. The cry went up from her -heart. - -Dick stood dumb. Dumb as a man hesitating before cutting away the -very last strand connecting him with his past. Dumb as a man about -to renounce his race, though of his race and of the civilized world -from whence he had sprung he knew nothing—nothing save the fact of -the cannon-shot of the _Portsey_ long years ago, the white-led -Melanesians of Palm Tree, the ruffianism of Carlin and Rantan and -the rage in his own breast for adventure that had nearly separated -him forever from Katafa. - -Then, suddenly, he joined in the shout. - -“Aripa! aripa! aripa!” - -Forgetting his chieftainship, he raced with the others to help to -push off the boat bearing Aioma to his work. - -Then he stood with Katafa watching. Near them and beside Kanoa stood -Le Moan. - -They watched the canoe-builder clamber on board like a monkey, they -saw him dancing on the deck like a maniac insulting the ropes and -spars, then they heard the ship’s bell go clang-clang, as he made -her talk for the last time. - -He vanished down the foc’sle and came out escorted by a cloud of -smoke, down the hatch of the saloon from whose skylight presently a -blue-grey wreath uprose and circled on the faint breeze. - -Then he was on deck again and away in the boat, and the schooner was -burning fore and aft. - -Wreathing herself in mist that cleared now to show two tall columns -of smoke rising and spreading and forming spirals on the wind, red -flames like the tongues of hounds licking out of the portholes, -flames that ran spirit-like about the old tinder-dry deck. The main -boom was burning now, the topping lofts were snapped, flames curling -round the masts like climbing snakes, and now, like the rumble of a -boiler, came the rumble of the fire as it spread in her, breaking -through bulkheads, seizing the cargo and splitting the decks. - -The sandalwood was burning and the incense of it spread across the -lagoon to the white-robed congregation of the gulls wheeling and -giving tongue above the reef; burning and blazing till the decks -gave utterly and the crashing masts full sheeted in flame like tall -men tumbling to their ruin amidst the roar of a burning city. - -The flames devoured the smoke and the sun devoured the flames, -forty-foot jets that leaped tongue-like sunwards, fell and leapt -again. The great conflagration gave no light; it roared, and the -consuming wood, pine and deal, teak and sandal filled the air with -the sound of bursting shells and the rattle of musketry, but the sun -of that blazing day ate the light of the flames so that they showed -stripped of effulgence, stark naked; ghosts, cairngorm coloured, -wine coloured, spark spangled, illuminating nothing. - -And now the port bulwarks, breaking in one piece from the stern to -amidships, fell in a blaze and the anchor chain, running out, broke -from its attachments and she was adrift miraculously on the flood, -now low to the break, now broadside, as the current took her—blazing -as she drifted, pieces of her ever going, dipping now by the bow, -slipping from sight in a veil of steam as the water rushing in -fought the fire and the fire fought the water and was killed. And -now there was nothing but driftwood so far out as scarcely to be -seen, and a tiny cloud that vanished and a perfume of sandalwood -that lingered in the air, ghost-like ... gone. - - -CHAPTER XI—THE GREEN SICKNESS - -All that remained of her was the boat, the lesser of the two boats -which Aioma had saved for the moment. - -The island was without a single canoe, and he intended to build one -as swiftly as might be for the fishing; that being done he would -destroy the boat and so obliterate the last trace of the cursed -_papalagi_. - -So he set to work and the work progressed, Le Moan helping with the -others. She worked at the making of the sail, Kanoa helping her, -happy, ignorant of her utter deadness to all things, yet sometimes -wondering. - -Sometimes this woman he had taken to his heart seemed indeed a -spirit or a lost soul as she had seemed to him that time before the -killing of Carlin; always she was remote from him in mind, -untouchable as the gulls he had chased as a child on Soma. Yet she -was his and she let him love her,—and “Time,” said the heart of -Kanoa, “will bring her arms around me.” - -Her strangeness and indifference increased his passion. A child and -yet a man, he moved now in a wonder world, he was always singing -when alone and there was something in his voice that made it -different from the voices of the others, so that when the women -heard him singing in the groves they said “That is Kanoa.” - -And despite his happiness in her and his love for her and his -embraces, despite the joy of new life that filled Karolin and the -beauty of the nights in which Taori and Katafa walked together on -the reef, never once did the desire come to Le Moan to destroy -herself—all that was nothing to her now. - -She had torn out her heart and nothing else mattered, even life. - -“And to-morrow or next day,” one morning said Aioma, “the canoe will -be ready and we will burn the lesser _ayat_ as we burned the -greater. Ah hai, what is this, the reef is lifting before my -eyes—Look you, Tahuku!” - -But Tahuku saw nothing. The reef was solid as of old and the sun was -shining on it and he said so. - -The canoe-builder shut his eyes and when he opened them again the -reef had ceased to lift, but he was weary. Bells rang in his ears -and his hands were hot and dry and now after a while and towards -midday one of the _papalagi_—so it seemed to him—had seized him from -behind and tied a band round his head, screwing it so tight that he -would have screamed had he been an ordinary man. - -He lay on the ground, and as he lay a woman, one of the wives of -Poni, came running, panting as she ran. - -“I burn, I burn!” cried the woman. “Aioma, my sight is going from -me; I burn, I burn!” She fell on the ground and Katafa running to -her raised her head. - -Aioma turning on his side tried to rise but could not, then he -laughed. - -Then he began to sing. He was fighting the _papalagi_ and killing -them, the Spaniards of long ago and the whale men and Carlin and -Rantan; his song was a song of victory, yet he was defeated. The -white men had got him with the white man’s disease. Measles stood on -the beach of Karolin, for the green ship with its cargo of labour -had fallen to measles and Aioma in boarding it had sealed his doom. - -It was Poni who guessed the truth. He had seen measles before—and -now, remembering the ship, he cried out that they were undone, that -the devils from the green ship had seized them and that they must -die. - -He had no need to say that. - -Aioma lasted only a day, and the lagoon took him; by then the whole -population was down, all but Taori, Katafa, Le Moan and Kanoa. - -Kanoa had taken the disease at Vana Vana many years ago and was -immune; the others, saved, perhaps, by the European blood in their -veins, still resisted the disease. - -The people died on the coral or cast themselves burning into the -lagoon and were seized by the sharks, who knew. - -And to Le Moan as she watched them, it was not the green sickness -that did the work, but she herself. - -She had brought this curse on Karolin. She had brought the schooner -and the white men, she had taken the schooner to meet the green -ship; it was the mother of her mother, Le Juan, who was reaching -through her to slay and slay. Aioma in a lucid interval before he -died had seized her by the hands and told her this, but she had no -need of the telling of Aioma. She knew. And she watched, helpless -and uncaring. She could do nothing, and the people passed, vanished -like ghosts, died like flies, whilst the wind blew gently and the -sun shone and the gulls fished and dawn came ever beautiful as of -old through the Gates of Morning. - - -CHAPTER XII—THE RELEASE OF LE MOAN - -One night, when the disease seemed past and only ten people were -left of all those who had watched the burning of the schooner, Le -Moan, sleeping by Kanoa, was awakened by Katafa. - -Katafa was weeping. - -She seized Le Moan by the hands and raising her without waking -Kanoa, led her to the house above which Nan still stood -frizzy-headed in the moonlight. - -In the house on a mat Dick was lying tossing his head from side to -side and talking in a strange tongue. - -Talking the language of his early childhood, calling out to Kearney -whom he had long forgotten, but whom he remembered now. - -The green sickness had seized Dick—resisted for days and days it had -him at last. - -Le Moan stood in the doorway and the moon looking over her shoulder -lit the form on the mat, the reef spoke and the wind in the trees, -but she heard nothing, saw nothing and for a moment felt nothing. - -Taori was lying on the mat talking in a strange tongue, turning his -head from side to side. - -Then, as a person all but drowned, all but dead, comes slowly back -to life and comes in agony, Le Moan began to feel the world come -round her once more, the world she had known before she tore her -heart out. - -Taori was going to die. And the heart she had torn out was back -again and the love that had filled it. - -Taori was going to die—to die as the others had died and as surely, -and as certainly through her who had brought this curse on Karolin -and through whom the hand of Le Juan was still striking. - -So great was the power of this thought that it fought with and -overcame the passionate desire to fling herself on her knees beside -him and take him in her arms; so great was its power that it almost -drove the thought of him away before the crowding recollections it -brought up of her own disastrous history in which she had brought -evil to everyone. To Peterson, to Rantan, to Carlin, to Poni, to -Tahuku—Tirai, all whom she had touched or come in contact with. To -Aioma—and lastly to Taori. - -Taori is going to die—_Ai amasu Taori_—the wind sighed it above him, -it came mixed with the sobbing of Katafa and the voice of the beach -with the rumbling voice of Taori himself, talking, talking, talking, -as he wandered on the reef of memory with Kearney in a land that -knew not Katafa. - -_Ai amasu Taori_—and she dared not bid him goodbye; to save him she -must go, leave him untouched, for the net of Le Juan was not yet -torn, nor the spears of Uta blunted. - -Even to look at him was fatal, yet she could not tear her eyes away. - -_Ai amusu Taori_—a great breaker on the coral cried it to the night -and broke the spell and turned her towards the weeping Katafa. - -“Oh, Katafa,” said Le Moan, speaking in a voice clear but scarcely -above a whisper, “Taori will not die—I go to save him; the nets are -spread for him but I will break them, I the daughter of Le Jennibon, -the daughter of Le Juan” - -Even as she spoke the voice from the house quieted. - -“I who have brought this evil.” Katafa heard her voice, not knowing -what she said, for the change in the voice of the sick man was -speaking to her. - -Gliding into the house she lay down beside him, her cool hand upon -his brow. - -Le Moan turned to the beach through the trees. Night rested on -Karolin and the moon showed the sands far stretching and filled with -the silky whisper of the wind. - -Far to the right lay the canoe all but completed, to the left the -boat of the schooner. Le Moan came to the boat. - -The tide was full, almost touching the keel, it was a light boat, -the sands were firm, and evil though it was, it could not resist -her. Afloat, with an oar, she drove it out, and raising the sail -shipping the rudder, gave the sail to the wind. - -The wind was favourable for the break, the ebb was beginning to run, -all things were helping her now because she had conquered. Death -could do no more against her for she was his. - -To the right lay the moonlit sands of the southern beach from which -she had sailed that morning with Peterson and with a dread in her -heart that she did not feel now; before her lay the widening break -with the first ebb racing through it to the sea, a night-flying gull -cried above her as the breakers loudened on the outer beach and fell -behind her as the wind and tide swept her out to the sea. - -Far out, beyond return by drift or chance, she brailed the little -sail, unstepped the mast and cast mast and sail to the water, cast -the oars to the water, and lying down gave her soul into the hands -of that Power through which her mother’s people had gained release -when, weary of the world, they chose to turn their faces from the -sun. - - * * * * * - -Northwest of the Paumotas men talk of a vast atoll island half -fabulous, half believed in. Ship masters have sighted a palm line by -day reefless because, steer as they will, some sort of current has -never allowed them to raise the reef and by night the pearling -schooners have heard the breathing of a beach uncharted, and always -on the sound a wind has followed blowing them away from the -mysterious land. - -Karolin—who knows?—the island of dreams, sealed by the soul of Le -Moan to the civilization that the children of Lestrange and their -child escaped from; a beach that the pleasant sunshine alone lights -for me; where Aioma shapes his logs and where I watch, undisturbed -by the noise of cities, the freshness we have lost and the light -that comes alone through the Gates of Morning. - - THE END - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -Transcriber’s Notes - -1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations - in spelling. - -2. Retained other archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as - printed. - -3. Words or phrases printed in italics in the original text are - surrounded by underscores, _like this_. - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67187 *** |