Then from the shore you might have seen the _Kermadec_ like a
frightened bird unfolding her wings as the boat came on board and
the anchor came home, mainsail, foresail and jib filling to the
steady wind coming like an accomplice out of the west, the forefoot
cutting a ripple in the starlit waters of the lagoon and the stern
swinging slowly towards Levua, where two white men lay dead in the
trader’s house and where in the village by the sandal grove Tahuku
and his men lay asleep, unconscious of what civilization had done in
their name.
Rantan, steering, brought the ship through the broad passage in the
reefs where the starlight lit the spray of the breaking swell, the
vessel lifting to the heave of the sea caught a stronger flow of
wind and with the main boom swung to port headed due south.
Rantan handed the wheel to Sru and turned to a bundle lying in the
port scuppers. It was Carlin sound asleep and snoring; the mate
touched the beachcomber with his foot and then turning, went below.
He saw the locker smashed open and the whiskey bottle in the bunk,
he opened a porthole and flung the bottle out and then turning to
the locker, searched it. There were two more bottles in the locker
and having sent them after the first, he closed the port and sat
down at the table under the swinging lamp.
_Kermadec_, cargo, crew and ship’s money were his; the crew knew
nothing except that Tahuku had killed Pete’son and the white trader;
there was no man to speak except Sru, who dared not speak, and
Carlin who knew nothing definite. In time and at a proper season it
was possible that these might be rendered dumb and out of count, and
this would be the story of the _Kermadec_.
* * * * *
Without her captain, murdered by the natives of Levua, and navigated
by her mate, who knew little or nothing of navigation, she had
attempted to make back to Soma; had missed Soma and found a big
lagoon island, Karolin, which was not on the charts. There Sru, the
bo’sun, and Carolin, a white man, had died of fish poisoning, and
there she had lain for a year—doing what...?
“And what were you doing all that time, Mr. Rantan?” The question
was being put to him before an imaginary Admiralty court, and the
answer “Pearling” could not be given.
It was only now, with everything done and the ship his, that the
final moves in the game were asking to be solved; up to this the
first moves had claimed all his mental energy.
The _Kermadec_ could be lost on some civilized coast quite easily,
everything would be quite easy but the accounting for that infernal
year—and it would take a year at least to make good in a pearl
lagoon.
No, the _Kermadec_ must never come within touch of civilization
again, once he was sure of the pearl ground being worth working; the
vessel must go; with the longboat he might get at last back to Soma
or some of the Paumotuan islands—might.
The fact of his ignorance of navigation that had helped his story so
far, hit him now on the other side, the fact so useful before a
Board of Trade enquiry would help him little with the winds and
tides and to the winds and tides he had committed himself in the
long run.
He came on deck. The crew, all but the watch, had crowded down into
the foc’sle where all danger over and well at sea, they had turned
in. Sru was still at the wheel and Le Moan, who had been talking to
him, vanished forward as the mate appeared in the starlight and
stood watching for a moment the far-off loom of the land.
Carlin still slept. He had rolled over on his back and was lying,
mouth open and one hand stretched out on the deck planking, his
snores mixed with the sound of the bow wash and the creaking of the
gaff jaws and cordage.
Rantan looked into the binnacle, then with a glance at Carlin he
turned to Sru.
The Paumotuan did not speak, he did not seem to see the mate or
recognize his presence on deck, the whites of his eyeballs showed in
the starlight; and as he steered, true as a hair to the course, his
lips kept working as he muttered to himself.
He looked like a man scared, and steering, alone, out of some
imminent danger, that appearance of being isolated was the strangest
thing. It made Rantan feel for a moment as though he were not there,
as though the _Kermadec_ were a ship deserted by all but the
steersman.
Sru was scared. Steering true as an automaton, his mind was far away
in the land of vacancy and pursued by white feller Mas’r Pete’son.
It had come on him like a stroke when Le Moan, approaching him, had
asked where the bearded man was who had gone ashore and not
returned. He had no fear of Le Moan or her question, but out of it
Peterson had come, the white man whom he had always feared yet whom
he had dared to kill. The appalling power that had strengthened his
arm and mind, the power of the vision of tobacco unlimited, Swedish
matches, knives, gin and seidlitz powders, was no longer with
him—Peterson was on his back, worse than any black dog, and now he
steered, his head began to toss from side to side and like a man
exalted by drink he began to sing and chatter, whilst Rantan, who
knew the Paumotuan mind and that in another minute the wheel would
be dropped and the steersman loose and running amok, drew close.
Then suddenly, and with all the force of his body behind the blow,
he struck and Sru fell like a poleaxed ox whilst the mate snapping
at the spokes of the wheel steadied the vessel and stood, his eye on
the binnacle cord holding the ship on her course.
Sru lay where he fell, just as Carlin lay where drink had struck him
down; the fellows forward saw nothing, or if they did they made no
movement, and the schooner, heeling deeper to the steadying breeze
held on full south, whilst behind her the wake ran luminous with the
gold of phosphorus and the silver of starlight.
Presently Sru sat up, then he rose to his feet. He remembered
nothing, nothing of his terror or of the blow that had felled him;
it seemed to him he must have fallen asleep at the wheel and that
Rantan had relieved him.