if the sea had risen above the reef destroying the village and sweeping the population of karolin to ruin whilst leaving her untouched, le moan would have stood as she stood now, unmoved before the inevitable and the accomplished.
her world lay around her in ruins and the destroyers lay before her asleep.
she had feared death and dreaded separation, but she had never dreamed of this—for taori, in her mind, had always stood alone as the sun stands alone in the sky.
a spear stood against the tree bole and the pitiless hand that had killed carlin could have seized it and plunged it into the heart of katafa, but if the sea had destroyed her world as this girl had destroyed it, would she have cast a spear at the sea? the thing was done, accomplished, of old time. her woman’s instinct told her that.
done and accomplished, without any knowledge of her, in a world from which she had been excluded by fate.
moving from the doorway she passed them, almost touching their feet. to right and left of her lay the tumbling sea and the lit lagoon, before her the great white road of the beaches and the reef. she followed the leading of this road with little more volition than the wind-blown leaf or the drifting weed; with only one desire, to be alone.
it led to the great trees where the canoe-builders had been at work. here across the coral lay the trunks felled by aioma, filling the air with the fragrance of new-cut wood. one already had been partly shaped and hollowed, and resting on it for a moment, le moan followed its curves with her eyes, felt the ax marks with her hand, took in every detail of the work, saw it as, with outrigger affixed and sail spread to the wind, it would take the sea, sometime—sometime—sometime.
the ceaseless breakers casting their spindrift beneath the moon lulled her mind for a moment till trees, canoe, reef and sea all faded and dissolved in a world of sound, a voice-world through which came the chanting of stricken coral and, at last, pictures of the wind-blown southern beach.
the southern beach, sunlit and gull-flown, a beached canoe, a form—taori.
it was now and now only that the pain came, piercing soul and rending body, crushing her and breaking her till she fell on the coral, her face buried in her arms, as though cast there by the sea whose eternal thunder filled the night.
the night wind moved her hair. it was blowing from the village and as it came it brought with it a vague whisper from the bushes and trees and now and again a faint perfume of cassi. perfume, like music, is a voice speaking a language we have forgotten, telling tales we half understand, soothing us now with dreams, raising us now to action.
the cassi flowers were speaking to le moan. after a long, long while she moved, raised her head and, leaning on her elbow, seemed to listen.
close to her was a pond in the coral—a rock pool filled with fresh water such as existed on the southern beach and a fellow of which lay in the village close to the house of uta matu.
dragging herself towards it she leaned on her arms and looked deep down into the water just as she had been looking into the pool that day when raising her eyes she found herself first face to face with taori.
the cassi flowers were speaking to le moan, their perfume followed her mind as it sank like a diver into the pool’s moonlit, crystal heart. their voices said to her:
“taori is not dead. whilst he lives do not despair, for who can take his image from you and what woman’s love can equal yours? peace, le moan. watch and wait.”
presently she arose, returning by the way she came. she drew towards the house of uta matu and passed the figures on the mat without glancing at them. then in the house she lay down with her face to the wall. when the dawn aroused katafa, le moan had not moved; one might have fancied her asleep.
