rantan, when they cast him in the fishing canoe, could see nothing but the roughly shaped sides, bright here and there where the scale of a palu had stuck and dried, the after outrigger pole, the blue sky above the gunnel and the heads of the crowd by the waterside.
by raising himself a little he might have glimpsed the two dead children tied to the outrigger gratings, but he could not raise himself, nor had he any desire to do so.
he knew the islands, he had heard what passed between aioma and the women, and as they carried him from the boat to the canoe, he had seen the dead children tied on the gratings. what his fate was to be at the hands of ona and nanu he could not tell, nor did he try to imagine it.
all being ready, the stem of the canoe left the beach, the two women scrambling on board as it was waterborne. nanu sat aft and ona forward, trampling on rantan’s body with her naked feet as she got there. the paddles splashed and the spray came inboard striking rantan on the face, but he did not mind; neither did he mind the heat of the steadily rising sun, nor the heel of ona as she dropped her paddle for a moment and raised the sail.
sometimes he closed his eyes to shut out the sight of nanu, who was steering, her eyes fixed on the sail; sometimes on the beach ahead, never or scarcely ever on rantan.
sometimes he could hear ona’s voice. she was just behind his head holding on to the mast and trimming the canoe by moving now to the left or right—her voice came calling out some directions to the other and then sharp as the voice of ona came the cry of a seagull that flew with them for a moment, inspecting the dead children on the gratings till the flashing paddle and the shouts of nanu drove it away.
and now as the sun grew hotter, a vague odour of corruption filled the air, passed away with the back draught from the sail yet returned again, whilst the murmur of the northern beach that had died down behind them became merged in the wash of the waves on the southern coral.
then as the place of their revenge drew close to them and they could see the deserted shacks, the long line of empty beach and the coconut trees in their separate groups, nanu seemed to awake to the presence of rantan. she glanced at him and laughed, and steering all the time, with side flashes of the paddle pointed him out to ona whose laughter came from behind him, shrill, sharp and done with in a moment.
truly rantan wished that he had never embarked on this voyage, never seen peterson, never left him for dead away there on levua; bitterly did he repent his temerity in coming into karolin lagoon and his stupidity in trying to shoot it up.
sometimes, long ago, he had amused himself by imagining what might be the worst fate of a man at sea, shipwreck, slow starvation, death from thirst, from sharks, from fire. he had never imagined anything like his present position, never imagined himself in the hands of two women of the islands, whose children he had been instrumental in murdering, two women who were taking him off to a desolate beach to do with him as they pleased. he could tell the approach of the beach by the face of nanu and the outcries of ona. sometimes ona would give his body a kick to emphasize what she was saying, which was greek to rantan. so sharp was her voice, so run together the words, that her speech was like a sword inscribed with unintelligible threats.
now nanu was half standing up, ona was hauling the sail, the paddles were flashing, the sands close. they brought the stem of the canoe on to the shelving sand, and, on the bump and shudder, dropping their paddles, they jumped clear, seized gunnel and outrigger and beached her high and dry.
then seizing their victim by the feet and the shoulders, they lifted him from the canoe and threw him on to the sand. he fell on his face, they turned him on his back and then left him, running about here and there and making preparations for their work.
the tide was running out and the wind, that had slacked to due west, bent the coco palms and brought up from all along the beach the silky whisper of the sands, the rumour of twenty miles of sea beating on the southern coral and the smell of sun-smitten seaweeds and emptying rock pools.
rantan, who had closed his eyes, opened them, and turning his head slightly, watched the women; nanu who was collecting bits of stick and wood to light a fire and ona who was collecting oyster shells. there were many oyster shells lying about on the beach and ona, as she went, picked and chose, taking only the flat shells and testing their edges with her thumb.
rantan knew, and a shudder went through him as he watched her carrying them and placing them in a little heap by the place where nanu was building her fire.
a big brown bird with curved beak and bright eyes sweeping in the air above them would curve and drift on the wind and return, making a swoop towards the beached canoe and the objects on the outrigger gratings, and the women, busy at their work, would shout at the bird and sometimes threaten it with a paddle which ona ran and fetched from the canoe. not till vengeance had been assured would the dead children be cast to the sharks. the shark was the grave and burial-ground of karolin.
when everything was ready they turned from the fire and came running across the sand to their victim.
rantan, lying on his back with eyes closed and mouth open, had ceased to breathe.
never looked man more dead than rantan, and ona, dropping on her knees beside him with a cry, turned him on one side, turned him back, cried out to nanu who dashed off to the fire, seized a piece of burning stick, rushed back with it and pressed the red hot point of it against his foot. rantan did not move.
then furious, filling the air with their cries, with only one idea, to rub him and pound him and to bring back the precious life that had escaped or was escaping them, they began to strip him of his bonds, tearing off the coconut sennit strips, the sheet, unrolling him like a mummy from its bandages, till he lay naked beneath the sun—a corpse that suddenly sprang to life with a yell, bounded to its feet, seized the paddle and flung itself on nanu, felling her with a smashing blow on the neck, turned and pursuing ona chased her as she ran this way and that like a frightened duck.
few men had ever seen rantan. the silent, quiet, sunburnt man of ordinary times was not rantan. this was rantan, this mad figure yelling hatred, radiating revenge, mad to kill.
rantan robbed of his pearl lagoon, of his ship, of his prospect of wealth, ease, wine and women—by kanakas; rantan whom kanakas had bound with a sheet and dumped into a canoe; rantan whom two kanaka women—women!—women, mind you—had trodden on, and whom they had been preparing to scrape to death slowly inch by inch with oyster shells, and burn bit by bit with hot sticks.
this was the real rantan raised to his nth power by injuries, insults, and the escape from a terrible death.
ona dashed for the canoe, maybe with some blind idea to get hold of the other paddle to defend herself with, but he had the speed of her and headed her off; she made for the rough coral of the outer beach but he headed her off; time and again he could have closed with her and killed her, but the sight of her frizzy head, her face, her figure, and the fact that she was a woman, filled him with a counter rage that spared her for the moment. he could have chased her for ever, killing her a thousand times in his mind, had his strength been equal to his hatred; but he could not chase her for ever, and, suddenly, with a smashing blow he brought her to ground, beat the life out of her and stood gasping, satiated and satisfied.
only for a moment. the sight of nanu lying where he had felled her brought him running. she had fallen near the heap of oyster shells, the fire that she had built was still burning, the stick which she had pressed against his foot was close to her. she had recovered consciousness and as she lay, her eyes wide open, she saw him stand above her, the paddle uplifted, and that was the last thing she saw in this world.
he came down to the water’s edge and sat, squatting, the paddle beside him and his eyes fixed away over the water to where the schooner was visible, a toy ship no larger than the model of the rarotonga, swinging to the outgoing tide.
beyond the schooner the trees that hid the village were just visible.
he was free, free for the moment, but still in the trap of the lagoon.
free, but stripped of everything; absolutely naked, without even shoes.
he was thinking in pictures; pictures now vague, now clear ran through his mind, the shooting up of the lagoon, the figure of dick swimming off towards him and carlin as they were firing from the boat, the fight in the cabin, the killing of carlin—and again dick.
dick as he had come and stood looking at him (rantan) as he lay bound and helpless. his hatred of the kanakas and the whole business seemed focussed in dick, for in that bright figure and noble face lay expressed the antithesis of himself, something that he could not despise as he despised sru, the karolin people, even carlin.
he loathed this creature whom he had only seen twice and to whom he had never spoken—loathed him as hell loathes heaven.
then dick dropped from his mind.
he was still in the trap of the lagoon. he turned his head to where behind him on the sands lay the two dead women, then he turned his eyes to the beached canoe where lay the two dead children strapped to the gratings. the waves spoke and the wind on the sands, and the bo’sun bird returning with a mate swept by, casting its shadow close to him.
rantan shouted and picking up the paddle threatened the bird just as the women had done, then he sprang to his feet.
he must get out, get out with the canoe, clear off before the kanakas had any chance of coming across. they had no canoes, but they had the ship’s boats and if they came and caught him, it would be death; he could get drinking nuts from the trees, but first he must untie those cursed children from the gratings. he turned towards the canoe and as he turned something caught his eye away across the water.
the merry west wind had blown out a bunt of the schooner’s hastily stowed canvas in a white flicker against the blue. were they getting sail on the schooner?
he turned and ran towards the trees. he could climb like a monkey, and heedless of everything but drinking nuts and pandanus drupes, he set to work, collecting them. a mat lay doubled up near one of the deserted shacks; he used it as a basket and between the trees and the canoe he ran and ran, sweating, with scarcely a glance across the water—his only idea the thirst and hunger of the sea which he had to face, the terror of torture and death that lay behind him. there was a huge fig tree, the only one on karolin, and a tree bearing an unknown fruit in form and colour like a lemon. he raided them, tearing branches down and stripping the fruit off. before his last journey to the canoe he flung himself down by the little well, the same into which le moan had been gazing when she first saw taori, and drank and drank—raising his head only to drink again.
reaching the canoe for the last time he threw the fruit in and took a glance across the water to the schooner. the wind had taken advantage of the clumsy and careless work of the crew and the size of the bunt had increased. in his right senses he would have known the truth, but terror had him by the shoulder and seizing the gunnel he began to drive the canoe into the water. the falling tide had left her almost dry, the outrigger interfered with his efforts, getting half buried in the sand. he could not push her out and at the same time keep her level with the outrigger lifting. he had to run from side to side pushing and striving, till at last the idea came to him to spread the mat under the outrigger. that made things easier. he had her now nearly waterborne; throwing in the paddle he prepared to send her out with a last great push, and, running through the shallow water, scramble on board.
such was the state of his mind he had not recognized that the bodies of the two babies tied to the gratings were a main cause in the tilting of the canoe to port and his difficulty in keeping her on a level keel; nor did he now, but he recognized that he could not put to sea with those terrible bodies tied to him.
he set to work to untie them, but nanu and ona, as though previsioning this business, had done their work truly and well—the spray and the sun had shrunk the coconut sennit bindings and the knots were hard as bits of oak. he had no knife, and his hands were shaking and his fingers without power.
a gull swooped down as if to help him and he struck at it with his fist; the sweat poured from him and his knees were beginning to knock together.
the tide was still falling, threatening to leave the canoe dry again; he recognized that and, leaving the bodies untied, raced round to the starboard side, seized the gunnel and pushed her out. on board he paddled kneeling, and using the paddle now on one side, now on the other; making straight out, the lose sail flapping above him, his knees wet with crushed pandanus drupes, gulls following him swooping down and clanging off on the wind.
then, far enough out, he gave the sail to the breeze that was blowing steady for the break. he was free, nobody could stop him now. wind and tide were with him, so were the lagoon sharks, who guessed what was tied to the gratings and the gulls who saw.
a royal escort of gulls snowed the air above the flashing paddle and the bellying sail as the canoe, driving past the piers of the opening took the sea and the outer swell, steering dead before the wind for the east.
little by little the gulls fell astern, gave up the chase, swept back towards karolin, leaving the man and the dead children and the canoe to the blue sea and the wind that swept it.
rantan steered. he was used to the handling of a canoe and he knew that, alone as he was, he could do nothing but just keep the little craft before the wind. where the wind blew he must go and with him his cargo, the fruit at his feet and the forms tied to the grating.
once with a dangerous and desperate effort he tried to untie them, but his weight thrown to port nearly capsized him. then, giving the matter up and steeling his heart, he steered before a wind that had now shifted, blowing from the north.
at sunset it was blowing dead from the north and all night long it blew till the dawn rose and there before rantan, breaking the skyline, palm tops showed and the foam of a tiny atoll singing to the sunrise.
the break was towards the north and the wind brought him through it into the little lagoon, not a mile broad, and on to the beach.
springing on to the sand and looking wildly around him he saw nothing—only the trees, not a sign of life, only the trees in their beauty, the lagoon in its loveliness, the sky in its purity. blue and green and the white of coral sand, all in the fresh light of the forenoon paradise.
having looked around him, listened and swept the sea with a last glance, he turned to the trees, cast himself in their shadow and leaving the canoe to drift away or stick, fell into a sleep profound as the sleep of the just.
he was saved—for the moment. freed from karolin, he had not done with karolin yet. he had sailed for twenty hours before a five-knot breeze. karolin was just that distance away below the horizon to the nor’-nor’-west.a
