The remains4 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 spoke5 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 lagoon6, 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 condemned7 to learn with him from the mouth of a girl.
So, not stealing a march on Taori, but at least not awakening8 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 steer9 the schooner and she showed him the compass card whose spear head always pointed10 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 thigh11 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 cartridge12 from the box to its insertion in the breech, to the act of firing and extraction.
She went to the galley13 where Carlin had placed the spare ammunition14 to be handy, and returned with a half full box of cartridges15, and, obeying direction, Aioma did everything that Peterson had done. The recoil16 bruised17 his shoulder and the noise nearly deafened18 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 crabs19, 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, subdued20, 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 gulls21 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 swirling22 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, swell24 met counter swell, and the Karaka rock spoke in
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BOOK III CHAPTER I—LE MOAN WILL KNOW
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CHAPTER III—THE SECOND APPARITION
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