the sun touched the sea line, the blazing water leaping to meet him, and then in a west golden and desolate, in a sea whose water had turned to living light, he began to drown.
dick watched as the golden brow, almost submerged, showed a lingering crescent of fire and then sank, carrying the day with it as marua had sunk carrying with it his youth and the last visible threads connecting him with civilization.
he turned. le moan had taken the wheel.
the sails that had been golden were now ghost white and a topaz star had already pierced the pansy blue where in the west the new moon hung like a little tilted boat.
“to the south,” cried aioma. “e haya—to the south, le moan, to karolin now that we have seen there is nothing to be seen, to the south; to the south, for i am weary of these waters.”
le moan, dumb and dim in the starlight now flooding the world, spun the wheel; on the rattle of the rudder chain came the thrashing of canvas and the schooner bowing to the swell lay over on the port tack—due east.
aioma glanced towards the moon but le moan reassured him.
“the current is fighting us,” said she, “and i would get beyond it. have patience, aioma, the way is clear to me.”
he turned away satisfied and lay down on deck. dick, who had brought up some blankets from below to serve as a sleeping mat, lay down by him, and the kanakas, all but poni and tahuku, went to their bunks in the foc’sle.
aioma, lying on his face with his forehead on his arms, heard the rattle of the rudder chain and knew that le moan was edging now to the south. she would steer all night with the help of poni, and sure of her and sure of karolin showing before them at daybreak, he let his mind wander, now to the canoe-building, now to the spearing of great fish, till sleep took him as it had taken dick.
le moan, steering, could see their bodies in the starlight, and beyond them poni and tahuku seated close to the galley, their heads together talking and smoking, heedless of everything but the eternal chatter about nothing which they could keep up for hours together, whilst the schooner under the hands of the steersman was heading again due east.
an hour after midnight the wind shifted, blowing from the west of south. poni came aft to see if le moan wanted anything, food, water, a drinking nut—she wanted nothing; as she had steered all that night long ago towards karolin, she steered now, tireless, wrapt in herself, without effort.
as the dawn showed in the eastern sky she altered the course to full south and handed the wheel to poni.
she had done her work, e haya, steered they for ever now they would never raise karolin—so far to the west that even the lagoon light would be all but invisible.
the first sun ray brought aioma to his feet, he saw poni at the wheel and le moan lying near him fast asleep like a creature caught back into darkness now that her work was done. the sunrise to port told him that the ship was heading south, then he came forward and looked.
the southern sea showed no sign and the southern sky no hint of the great lagoon. not a bird’s wing appeared.
he roused dick, who came forward and they stood whilst the canoe-builder pointed to the south.
“there is nothing,” said aioma—“yet we have come all the night and she is never wrong—not even the light in the sky. yet by now the trees should have shown.”
dick, gazing into the remote south at the blue and perfect and pitiless sky, unbroken at the sea line, unstained above it, drew in his breath; a cold hand seemed placed on his heart. where then was karolin?
“who knows,” said aioma, “it may show when the sun is higher. let us wait.”
they waited and watched whilst the sun rose in the sky, but the sun revealed nothing that the dawn had not shown—nothing save away to the westward unseen by them and so faint as scarcely to be seen, a pale spot in the higher blue—the light of karolin.
aioma came running aft. he shook le moan and roused her from her sleep and she came forward and stood in the bow, sheltering her eyes against the light.
“it is not there,” said she; “i can see nothing with my eyes nor in my mind—the power has gone from me, aioma, it has been taken from me in my sleep.”
aioma struck his head with the flat of his hand, then he turned to her as she stood there with the lie on her lips, close to, almost touching dick, who stood, his hand on the rail, scarcely breathing.
“gone from you,” cried the canoe-builder, “taken in sleep, aie, what is this! we are adrift and astray, gone! and who could take it but uta matu. taori, we are lost, we are in the hands of the viewless ones; their nets have taken us. i told you this, yet you would not put back. never more shall we see karolin.”
dick did not move. he saw again the figure of katafa as she stood on the beach when they were leaving, that loved figure from which he had parted with scarcely a thought, so full was he of the schooner and the dream of sailing her on the outer sea. katafa who even then was watching for him away beneath that tiny stain on the western sky, grown so faint now as to be almost invisible.
even last night when sure of return, his heart had longed for her, he had dreamed of her; by a thousand little threads, each living, she had joined herself to his very being, and he would never see her again!
“never more shall we see karolin.” he turned to the desolate south, to the west, to the east; then, heedless of the others, a savage in his grief, he cast himself on the deck, his face on his arms as if to hide himself from the hateful sun.
