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 ebb¹. 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 jeering² gulls³.
 
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 frantically⁵ collected cargo⁶ 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 lagoon⁷ 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 beckoned⁸ the sea.
 
He had turned sideways to take a last derisive⁹ 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 chuckle¹⁰ beneath the nuts.
 
The canoe was leaking. The sun must have done this business yesterday, craftily¹¹, 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

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