it was the ship’s bell.
tahuku had struck it in idleness, just as a child might, but the unaccustomed sound coming just then seemed to aioma a response to the words of the other. but he said nothing. taori had chosen his path and he must pursue it.
at noon the northern horizon still showed clear and unbroken by any sign of land, yet still the wind blew strong and still the schooner sped like a gull before it.
tahuku, who had been cook and who knew where the stores were kept, prepared a meal; and whilst the crew were eating, aioma took the place of the lookout in the bow. nothing—neither land gull nor trace of land. nothing but the never ending run of the swell bluer from the southern drift that showed still the contrast of the deeper blue.
a road leading nowhere.
the canoe-builder came up to where dick was standing in the bow.
“taori,” said aioma, “we have not lost our way, there runs the current and there karolin still shows us her light, we have come faster than the big canoes of forty paddles and so have we come since morning, yet marua is not in sight.”
it was late afternoon, and aioma as he spoke skimmed the sea line from west to east of north with eyes wrinkled against the light.
“no cloud hides it,” went on the old man like a child explaining a difficulty, “it is full day, yet it is not there—to our sight.”
dick, as perturbed as aioma, said nothing. he knew quite well that by now marua should have been high on the horizon. they had been travelling since morning, how swiftly he could not tell, but with great speed, seeing that they had with them the wind and the current; also the sky stain made by karolin was now very vague, vague as when he had viewed it from marua.
“where then is it gone?” went on the old fellow, “or how is it hidden? has uta matu cast a spell upon us or has marua been washed away?” then turning as if from a suddenly glimpsed vision: “taori—we may sail till the days and the nights are left behind us with the sun and the moon and the stars, but marua we shall not see again.”
dick still said nothing. he refused to believe that uta matu had the power to put a spell on them and he refused to believe that marua had been washed away by those waves that did little more than smash a few houses at karolin. all the same he was disturbed. where then was marua?
poni, who was standing near them with le moan who had heard what aioma said, suddenly struck in, in his sing-song voice.
“surely we passed an island when pete’son commanded this ship and we were running on this course, an island that would be about here, but is not here any more—and you remember the great waves that came to us at karolin and the gulls who sought a home? all these things have just come together in my head as it might be three persons meeting and conversing. well then, aioma, it is clear to me now that this island you seek is gone beneath the sea. at the time of the gulls and those great waves, i said to timan, that somewhere an island had gone under just as somaya which lay not far from soma went under in the time before i started to sail in the deep-sea ships. one day it was there and the next day it was not, and there were the big waves just like those that came to karolin. marua, you called this island; well, aioma, you may be sure that marua has gone under the sea.”
and now strangely enough aioma, so far from accepting the support of this statement, turned upon the unfortunate poni who had dared to bring experience and common-sense with him to the bar.
“gone under!” the scream of laughter with which aioma received this suggestion when it had percolated down into the basement of his intelligence made the faces of the others turn as they stood about near the foc’sle head discussing the same subject.
“gone under!” what did poni mean by such silly talk, did he not know that it was impossible for an island to sink in the sea? sink like a drowning man! no, the great waves had knocked marua to pieces, either that or uta matu had veiled it from their sight ... and so the talk went on and all the time the sun was falling towards the west and le moan’s palms were itching to feel again the spokes of the wheel and the kick of the rudder; for a plan had come into the mind of le moan, a plan put there maybe by uta matu, who can tell; or passion, who can tell? but a perfectly definite plan to take the wheel, steer through the night and put the schooner absolutely and fatally astray: put her away from karolin so far and so much to the east that the lagoon light would be no guide and a course to the south no road of return.
the plan had come to her, fallen into her head, only just now; it was indefinite, but cruelly straight like the flight of an arrow, and in one direction—away from karolin.
great love is an energy that, born in mind, has little to do with mind. it is a thing by itself, furiously alive, torturing the body it feeds on and the mind that holds it. hell is the place where lovers live. even when they escape from it to heaven as in the case of katafa, it is always waiting to receive them back, as also in her case.
to le moan, dumbly suffering, the message of the cassi flowers telling that taori was hers by virtue of the power of her passion for him, had suddenly lost all significance. he was here now by the power of the wheel of the ship over the rudder. she could take him away, now, to be always with him—take him away for ever from katafa, steer him into the unknown. and yet the knowledge of this physical power and the determination to use it brought her no ease. she would be close to him, but of what avail is it to a person suffering from the tortures of thirst if he is close to water yet may not drink. all the same she would be close to him.
as she watched the sun so near its setting she dwelt on this fact as a bird on the egg it is hatching, and brooding, she listened whilst aioma urged that they should turn back at once, and dick countered the suggestion asking for more time. he had it in his mind to hold on till sunset, till night came to cut them off in the quest. well knowing in his mind that marua was no more, that the reef and lagoon and hilltop, the tall trees and coloured birds had all vanished like a picture withdrawn, either gone beneath the sea as poni said or devoured by the waves as aioma held—well knowing this in his mind, his heart refused to turn from the quest till turned by darkness.
he would never see palm tree again. like grief for a person lost, the grief of this thing came on him now. he knew now how he loved the trees, the lagoon, the reef, and he recalled them as one recalls the features of the dead. he could not turn till darkness dropped the veil and said to him definitely, “go back.”
he was standing with this feeling in his mind when a sound made him turn to where aioma had suddenly taken his seat on the edge of the saloon skylight with body bent double and head protruding like the head of a tortoise. he seemed choking. he was laughing.
aioma, like sru, had a sense of humour, and a joke, if it were really a good joke, took him like the effect of a dose of strychnine. sure now that marua had been swallowed by the sea, the catastrophe, having made itself certain and obtained firm footing in his mind, suddenly presented its humorous side. he had remembered the “bad men.” they were swallowed with marua, he could see them in his imagination swimming like rats, screaming, bubbling—drowning—and the humour of the thing skewered him like a spear in the stomach.
