Le Moan had never known pity. She had lived amongst the pitiless,
and if any seed of the divine flower lay in her heart it had never
grown nor come to blossom. She had seen her tribe raided and
destroyed and the remnants chased to sea by the northern tribe under
Uta Matu, she had seen battle and murder and sudden death, storm and
destruction; she had seen swordfish at war and the madness and
blood-lust of fish, bow-head whales destroyed by orcas and tiger
sharks taking men—all these things had left her unmoved by pity as
they would have left Rantan. Yet between these two pitiless ones lay
a distance greater than that between star and star.
Le Moan had sacrificed herself for the sake of Taori; had faced what
was more terrible than death—the unknown, for the sake of the man
who had inspired her with passion; and had found what was more
terrible than death—separation.
To return and find Taori she would, if necessary, have destroyed the
_Kermadec_ and her crew without a second thought, just as to save
him she would have destroyed herself. Rantan could not have
understood this, even if it had been carefully explained to him with
diagrams exhibiting the savage soul of Le Moan, all dark, save where
at a point it blazed into flame.
All that day working out his black plan he reviewed his instruments,
Sru, Carlin, the crew, the ship, and last and least the kanaka girl
who would act as a compass and a navigator. A creature of no account
save the instinct she shared with the fish and the birds, so he
fancied.
The _Kermadec_ had loaded some turtle shell at Soma and at Levua she
was to pick up a cargo of sandalwood. San Francisco was the next
port of call, but to Rantan’s mind it did not seem probable that she
would ever reach San Francisco. It all depended on Carlin. Rantan
could not do the business alone even with the help of Sru; Carlin
was a beachcomber and to leave him with a full whiskey bottle would
have been fatal for the whiskey bottle, but he was a white man; he
would have been fired off any ship but the _Kermadec_, but he was a
white man. Rantan felt the necessity of having a white man with him
on the desperate venture which he had planned, and taking Carlin
aside that night he began to sound him.
“We’re due at Levua to-morrow,” said Rantan. “Ever been to Levua?”
“Don’t know it,” replied the other, “don’t want to neither; by all
accounts, listening to the old man, there’s nothing there but one
dam’ sandalwood trader and the kanakas he uses for cutting the wood.
I want to beach at Tahiti, that’s where I’m nosing for when I get to
’Frisco; there’s boats in plenty running down from ’Frisco to
Tahiti.”
“Maybe,” said Rantan, “but seems to me there’s not much doing at
Tahiti. Hasn’t it ever hit you that there’s money to be made in the
islands and better work to be done than bumming about on the beach?
I don’t mean hard work, handling cargo or running a ship—I mean
money to be picked up, easy money and plenty of it.”
The big red man laughed and spat over the rail.
“Not much,” said he, “not by the likes of me or you; clam shells is
all there’s to be picked up by the likes of me and you when the
other chaps have eaten the chowder.”
“How’d you like ten thousand dollars in your fist?” asked Rantan,
“twenty—thirty—there’s no knowing what it might come to, and all for
no work at all but just watching kanakas diving for pearls.”
Carlin glanced sideways at his companion.
“What are you getting at?” asked he.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Rantan, “I know of a pearl island and
it’s not far from here. It’s a sealed lagoon, never been worked, and
there’s enough there to make a dozen men rich, but to get there I’d
want a ship, but I haven’t got one nor the money to charter one; I’m
like you, see?”
“What are you getting at?” asked Carlin again, a new tone in his
voice.
“I’m just saying I haven’t a ship,” replied the other, “but I know
where to get one if I could find a chap to help me in the taking of
her.”
Carlin leaned further over the rail and spat again into the sea.
With terrible instinct he had taken up the full meaning of the
other.
“And how about the kanakas?” asked he, “kanakas are dam’ fools, but
get them into a court of law and they’re bilge pumps for turning up
the evidence. I’ve seen it,” he finished, wiping his mouth with the
back of his hand. “A sinking job it was, and the chap that did it
got ten years, on kanaka evidence.”
Rantan laughed. “Leave the kanakas to me,” said he, “I’m putting it
to you—if I’ve the sand to do the job, would you help?”
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t,” said Carlin, “but what about the
navigating? You aren’t much good on that job ... or are you? I’m
thinking maybe you’ve been holding it up your sleeve.”
“I’m good enough to get there,” replied Rantan. “Well, think it
over, we’ve time in our hands and no need to hurry. But remember
there’s no knowing the money in the business, and if it comes to
doing it, don’t you worry about risks; I’m not a man to take more
than ordinary risks and I’ll fix everything.”
Then he turned away and walked aft leaving Carlin leaning on the
rail.
Whatever Carlin’s start in life may have been, he was now beach-worn
like one of the old cans you find tossing about the reef flung away
by the kanakas—label gone, and nothing to indicate its past
contents. The best men in the world would wilt on the beach, and
that’s the truth; the beach, that is to say sun and little to do—the
sun kills or demoralizes more men than whiskey; to be born to the
sun, you must be born in the sun, like Katafa, like Dick, like Le
Moan; you must never have worn clothes.
Sometimes a white man is sun proof inside and out, but rarely.
Carlin was sun proof on the outside, his skin stood the pelting of
the terrible invisible rays; he throve on it; but internally he had
gone to pieces.
He had one ambition, whiskey—or rum, or gin, or even samshu, but
whiskey for choice.
There was whiskey on the _Kermadec_, but not for Carlin. Peterson,
as sober a man as Rantan, kept it, just as he kept the Viterli
rifles in the arms rack, for use in an emergency. It was under lock
and key, but Carlin had smelt it out.
Its presence on board was like the presence of an evil genius,
invisible, but there and exercising its power; it kept reminding him
of Rantan’s words at supper that night, and when he turned in and
even in his sleep its work went on; he saw in his dreams the vessel
heading for the unknown pearl island towards the golden light of
fortune and unlimited whiskey, he was on her deck with Rantan in
command and Peterson was not there.
The dream said nothing about Peterson, totally ignored him, and
Peterson, on deck at that moment, had no idea that the beachcomber
was dreaming of the _Kermadec_ off her course and without her
skipper.
Next day in the morning watch, Sru was at the wheel and Rantan, a
pipe in his mouth, stood by the weather rail, the sun had just risen
shattering the night and spreading gold across the breezed up blue
of the swell.
The sunrise came to the _Kermadec_ like the sudden clap of a hot
hand: Sru felt it on his back and Rantan on his cheek. From away to
windward came the cry of a gull, a gull passed overhead with domed
wings circled as if inspecting the schooner and drifted off on the
wind. Almost at the same moment, came the cry of the kanaka lookout.
“Land!”
Rantan walked forward. Right ahead, rosy above the brimming sea, lay
the cloud scarf of Levua.
Still a great way off, facing the blazing east, the island, clear of
any trace of morning bank, seemed to float between the blue of sea
and sky, remote, more lovely than any dream.
When Rantan turned aft again he found Le Moan standing by Sru at the
wheel. Sru was explaining to her how the wheel worked the “steering
paddle” in the stern. The _Kermadec_ was close hauled, every sail
drawing. Sru was explaining this matter and showing how the least
bit closer to the wind would set the sails shivering and take the
way off the ship. Le Moan understood. Sea craft was born in her, and
used now to the vast sail spaces of the schooner, she felt no
fear—the _Kermadec_ was only a canoe after all, of a larger build
and different make.
He let her hold the spokes for a moment, governing the wheel with a
guiding hand, then at the risk of the schooner being taken aback, he
stood aside and the girl had the helm.
The _Kermadec_ for a moment showed no sign that the wheel had
changed hands, then, suddenly, a little warning flutter passed
through the canvas from the luff of the mainsail, passed and ceased
and the sail became hard again. Le Moan had understood, understood
instinctively, that ceaseless pressure against the lee bow which
tends to push a vessel’s head up into the wind.
For a moment Taori, Karolin, the very presence of Sru were
forgotten, the words that Sru had spoken to her only a little while
before, “You will soon see Taori, little one, but first you must
learn to use the steering paddle.” Everything was forgotten in the
first new grip of the power that was in her to hold all those great
sail spaces filling, to play such a great game with the wind and the
sea.
Aioma had taught her to steer her fishing canoe, but so long ago
that she could not remember the first time she had the paddle to
herself; but this was different, different as the kiss of a lover
from the kiss of a friend—something that reached her soul; it was
different as the sight of Taori from the sight of other men, great,
thrilling, lifting her above herself, creative.
Utterly ignorant of the mechanism that moved the rudder as a man is
ignorant of the mechanism that moves his arm, after the first few
minutes of the great new experience she could not do wrong. She knew
nothing of the compass, she only knew that she was to keep the ship
close hauled as Sru had been keeping her, so close that a fraction
nearer the wind would spill the sails. Sru watched her and Rantan,
forgetting his pipe, stood with his eyes fixed on her. Both men
recognized that the ship was safe for the moment. One might have
thought them admiring the picture that she made against the blue sky
and the glory of morning, but the interest in their eyes was neither
the interest of the roused æsthetic sense, nor of love, nor of
passion, nor of seamanship.
As they stood, suddenly, and as though Tragedy had staged the scene
for some viewless audience, the head and shoulders of Peterson
appeared at the saloon hatch opening.
Rantan, his face mottled with white, stared at Peterson, Sru drawing
the back of his hand across his nose as if wiping it, stood on one
foot, then on the other, confused, looking like a dog that has been
misbehaving itself. Le Moan saw nothing.
Without losing its alertness on the touch of the wheel her mind had
gone off for a momentary flight. She saw herself steering the
_Kermadec_ towards Karolin, she saw in imagination the distant reef,
the gulls and the thrilling blue of the great lagoon beyond the reef
opening.
Peterson, without coming further on deck, watched her for a moment
without comprehending anything but the fact that the girl had been
allowed to take the wheel. Then as Sru took the spokes from her and
pushed her forward, the captain of the _Kermadec_ turned on Rantan,
but the abuse on his lips was half shrivelled by the face of the
mate.
“Don’t you never do a thing like that again,” said Peterson. “Dam’
tomfoolery.” He snorted and went forward, kicked a kanaka out of his
way and then stood, his eyes fixed on the distant vision of Levua
opal tinted in the blue, blue north.