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 savage1 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 cargo2 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 bumming3 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 spat4 over the rail.
“Not much,” said he, “not by the likes of me or you; clam5 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 lagoon6, 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 navigating7? 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 wilt8 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 pelting9 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 smelt10 it out.
Its p............