A FIRE ON THE REEF
Kearney had put shelves in the house to hold the ships so that they did
not interfere with the floor space where he slept with Dick.
The shack behind the house where the provisions had been stored still
held, though the roof had gone pretty much to pieces, and here the
sailor had fixed the sleeping quarters of Katafa.
Blankets had been given to them by the wreck, supplementing those left
behind by Stanistreet, and, getting along for sundown, Kearney, with
three blankets on his arm, two for a bed and one for a quilt, beckoned
the girl to follow him.
She stopped short at the entrance to the shack and then took a step
backwards, standing and watching him at his work.
Then, when he came out, he pointed to the blankets.
“There ain’t no pilla,” said Kearney, “but you won’t be mindin’ that.
Now then, Kanaka girl, there’s your bunk. Ain’t you likin’ the look of
it?”
She had drawn back another step.
“I’m with you,” said Kearney, pointing to the couch.
She shook her head. Ask a fox to enter a trap.
“Well, then, you can just sleep in the trees,” said he, and off he went
round the house, leaving her to her choice.
Dick, tired out with the day, was in the house and sound asleep, and the
sailor, who had a fishing line to overhaul, sat down by the door and set
to work on it. As he sat, busy with his fingers and reviewing with his
mind Kanakas and their unaccountable ways, he saw the girl coming out
from the trees. She had fished two of the blankets out of the shack, and
she was crossing the sward with them towards the canoe that was tied to
the bank. She got into the canoe with them and vanished from sight—all
but her head, visible in the sunset light above the bank.
Now Kearney had old-fashioned ideas as to how young people should behave
towards their elders, and Dick had received many a “clip” from him for
disobedience. He was starting to “go after” the girl, when he saw two
hands go up to her head; she was arranging her hair. One might have
fancied her before a mirror.
This sight checked him. He finished his work, put the line away, and
retired to the house. During their ten years of residence the house had
almost been destroyed by a big blow from the northwest and Kearney, in
rebuilding, had enlarged it.
There was plenty of room for him and Dick, and to-night, as he lay
there, the four ships on their shelves above him and Dick sound asleep
by the wall, he could see through the open doorway a new picture: the
mat sail of the canoe still unfurled, and, just distinguishable in the
fast-rising twilight, the head of the girl above the bank.
Kearney was worried. Living in ease and quietude, one might fancy worry
his last visitant, but that was not so; quite small things, things he
would never have given a second thought to on shipboard, had the power
to upset him here, and though he would not have changed his mode of life
for worlds, a broken fishing line or a leak in the dinghy would make him
grumpy for hours, cursing his fate and wondering what was going to
happen next.
Katafa was worrying him now; she was unlike any Kanaka he had ever seen.
Where had she come from? Was it from that island he guessed to be lying
down south there? And if so, might she not bring others of her kind
after her? Then the way she had slipped from under his hand, and those
eyes of hers which she kept fixed on him—she wasn’t right.
He dropped off to sleep with this conviction in his mind and dreamt
troublous dreams, awaking about two in the morning to wonder what she
was doing and whether everything was secure. Then, sleep driven away, he
came out into the windless, starry night, where a six days’ old moon was
lolling above the trees.
Away out to sea a red flicker met his gaze. A fire was burning on the
reef. Trumpets blowing in the night could not have astonished him more.
He watched for a moment as the flame waxed and waned, now casting a
trail of red light on the lagoon water, now dying down only to leap up
again. Then he came running to the canoe. The girl was not there and the
dinghy was gone; the paddle was gone from the canoe also; she must have
taken it to paddle herself over to the reef, not being able to use the
sculls.
There was plenty of dried weed and bits of wreckage on the reef to make
a fire with, but how had she got a light? He came back to the house and
searched for the box of matches on the little shelf outside, where it
was always put when done with. It was gone.
She must have come “smelling round” when they were asleep. She must have
noticed where the matches had been put and treasured up the fact in her
dark mind!
“But what in the nation’s she done it for?” asked Kearney of himself, as
he stood scratching his head. “What’s she up to, anyway?”
The night made no reply—only the rumble of the reef, now loud, now low,
and the mysterious light of the fire, now waxing, now waning, flaring up
only to die down again.
He came to the trees on the other side of the sward and watched for an
hour, till at last the fire died to a spark and the spark vanished.
Then came the sound of the paddle as the dinghy stole like a beetle
across the star-shot lagoon water and tied up at the bank. A figure
passed along the bank towards the house. She was putting the matchbox
back; then she came along towards the canoe, slipped into it and
vanished from sight.
Kearney waited ten minutes. Then he stole back to the house and turned
in again.
“You wait till the mornin’, and I’ll l’arn you,” said he to himself as
he closed his eyes, composing his mind to slumber with the thought of
the whacking in store for the Kanaka girl.