then from the shore you might have seen the kermadec like a frightened bird unfolding her wings as the boat came on board and the anchor came home, mainsail, foresail and jib filling to the steady wind coming like an accomplice out of the west, the forefoot cutting a ripple in the starlit waters of the lagoon and the stern swinging slowly towards levua, where two white men lay dead in the trader’s house and where in the village by the sandal grove tahuku and his men lay asleep, unconscious of what civilization had done in their name.
rantan, steering, brought the ship through the broad passage in the reefs where the starlight lit the spray of the breaking swell, the vessel lifting to the heave of the sea caught a stronger flow of wind and with the main boom swung to port headed due south.
rantan handed the wheel to sru and turned to a bundle lying in the port scuppers. it was carlin sound asleep and snoring; the mate touched the beachcomber with his foot and then turning, went below.
he saw the locker smashed open and the whiskey bottle in the bunk, he opened a porthole and flung the bottle out and then turning to the locker, searched it. there were two more bottles in the locker and having sent them after the first, he closed the port and sat down at the table under the swinging lamp.
kermadec, cargo, crew and ship’s money were his; the crew knew nothing except that tahuku had killed pete’son and the white trader; there was no man to speak except sru, who dared not speak, and carlin who knew nothing definite. in time and at a proper season it was possible that these might be rendered dumb and out of count, and this would be the story of the kermadec.
without her captain, murdered by the natives of levua, and navigated by her mate, who knew little or nothing of navigation, she had attempted to make back to soma; had missed soma and found a big lagoon island, karolin, which was not on the charts. there sru, the bo’sun, and carolin, a white man, had died of fish poisoning, and there she had lain for a year—doing what...?
“and what were you doing all that time, mr. rantan?” the question was being put to him before an imaginary admiralty court, and the answer “pearling” could not be given.
it was only now, with everything done and the ship his, that the final moves in the game were asking to be solved; up to this the first moves had claimed all his mental energy.
the kermadec could be lost on some civilized coast quite easily, everything would be quite easy but the accounting for that infernal year—and it would take a year at least to make good in a pearl lagoon.
no, the kermadec must never come within touch of civilization again, once he was sure of the pearl ground being worth working; the vessel must go; with the longboat he might get at last back to soma or some of the paumotuan islands—might.
the fact of his ignorance of navigation that had helped his story so far, hit him now on the other side, the fact so useful before a board of trade enquiry would help him little with the winds and tides and to the winds and tides he had committed himself in the long run.
he came on deck. the crew, all but the watch, had crowded down into the foc’sle where all danger over and well at sea, they had turned in. sru was still at the wheel and le moan, who had been talking to him, vanished forward as the mate appeared in the starlight and stood watching for a moment the far-off loom of the land.
carlin still slept. he had rolled over on his back and was lying, mouth open and one hand stretched out on the deck planking, his snores mixed with the sound of the bow wash and the creaking of the gaff jaws and cordage.
rantan looked into the binnacle, then with a glance at carlin he turned to sru.
the paumotuan did not speak, he did not seem to see the mate or recognize his presence on deck, the whites of his eyeballs showed in the starlight; and as he steered, true as a hair to the course, his lips kept working as he muttered to himself.
he looked like a man scared, and steering, alone, out of some imminent danger, that appearance of being isolated was the strangest thing. it made rantan feel for a moment as though he were not there, as though the kermadec were a ship deserted by all but the steersman.
sru was scared. steering true as an automaton, his mind was far away in the land of vacancy and pursued by white feller mas’r pete’son. it had come on him like a stroke when le moan, approaching him, had asked where the bearded man was who had gone ashore and not returned. he had no fear of le moan or her question, but out of it peterson had come, the white man whom he had always feared yet whom he had dared to kill. the appalling power that had strengthened his arm and mind, the power of the vision of tobacco unlimited, swedish matches, knives, gin and seidlitz powders, was no longer with him—peterson was on his back, worse than any black dog, and now he steered, his head began to toss from side to side and like a man exalted by drink he began to sing and chatter, whilst rantan, who knew the paumotuan mind and that in another minute the wheel would be dropped and the steersman loose and running amok, drew close.
then suddenly, and with all the force of his body behind the blow, he struck and sru fell like a poleaxed ox whilst the mate snapping at the spokes of the wheel steadied the vessel and stood, his eye on the binnacle cord holding the ship on her course.
sru lay where he fell, just as carlin lay where drink had struck him down; the fellows forward saw nothing, or if they did they made no movement, and the schooner, heeling deeper to the steadying breeze held on full south, whilst behind her the wake ran luminous with the gold of phosphorus and the silver of starlight.
presently sru sat up, then he rose to his feet. he remembered nothing, nothing of his terror or of the blow that had felled him; it seemed to him he must have fallen asleep at the wheel and that rantan had relieved him.
