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 boiler¹ came to work the sea of romance, before the B. P. boats churned its swell² 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 fronds³ 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 beads⁴ or pieces of hoop⁵ 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 lagoon⁶ in fragrant⁷ 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 spoke⁹ the truth and she had an instinct for the truth keen as her instinct for direction, so she waited and watched whilst the cargo¹⁰ came leisurely¹¹ and day by day and week by week, the cargo bound for nowhere, never to be sold, never to be turned into incense¹², 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 taro¹³.
 
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 sapphire¹⁴ blue of twelve fathoms¹⁵ their songs came and went on the wind, the singers unconscious that all the business of that beach was as futile¹⁶ 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 ashore¹⁷ 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 foam¹⁸ of the reefs and gilding¹⁹ the heights of Levua, the trees and the bursting torrent²⁰ 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 oar⁸, Peterson steering²¹. 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 squatted²² on the sands, lit their pipes and fell to playing su-ken, tossing pebbles²³ and bits of coral in t............