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 tangled¹ amongst the bushes and the trees.
 
The ruin was pitiable. Gone were the great canoe-houses, their thatch² and ridgepoles floating in the lagoon³ water, gone the houses of the village, and all their humble⁴ furniture, mats and bowls and shelves, knives, implements⁵ and ornaments⁶.
 
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 cane⁷ 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 wreckage⁸ in the lagoon could be collected and rebuilt into new houses. There were three hours yet before sunset and led by Aioma the salvage⁹ hunting began, knives were recovered from cracks in the coral and mats that had wrapped themselves round tree trunks, canes¹⁰ and ridgepoles from the near water of the lagoon; the rainy season was far off and in that sultry weather being roofless was little discomfort¹¹; 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 affected¹², 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 subliminal¹³ 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 enchanted¹⁴ 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 momentary¹⁵ 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 foam¹⁶ 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 jealousy¹⁷; 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 longing¹⁸ to fire.
 
Presently as the moon rose high, Le Moan&rsq............