SOUTH
When the squall took Katafa’s canoe that night, sweeping Taiofa
overboard, he was not drowned, but the sea killed him all the same.
The canoe, driving north free of its anchor rope and towed by the fish,
left him far behind, and without a moment’s hesitation he struck due
west, swimming for his life.
He was making for the water to leeward of the atoll, where the current
would be broken in its force, and the waves. Here he landed after hours
of swimming and with his left leg gone below the knee. The sea is full
of hungry mouths and to leeward of Karolin that night there were many
sharks. He had just time to reach his people and tell his story before
he died.
A great wind had struck the canoe and capsised it. He and Katafa had
been thrown into the water. A shark had taken her. He had struck out for
the reef. That was the story he told and he had told it in all good
faith. He had seen Katafa pulled to pieces by sharks, though how he had
seen it Heaven and the Kanaka imagination alone could tell.
When Dick struck Sru dead on the beach, Talia, Manua and Leopa, paddling
off across the lagoon, had with equal imagination seen the island alive
with Dicks, potential Dicks, stirring amidst the trees. The canoe men
had yelled their war cry and, once clear of the lagoon, the potential
Dicks became real figures thronging the beaches of their imaginations.
Nan’s head waggling on its stick became the size of a house full of
speech and proclaiming to high heaven that his deityship had taken up
forced residence on Palm Tree, that his power and protection had been
filched from Karolin, the fecundity of whose women, cocoanut trees and
puraka plants would be now a thing of the past.
Beyond the reef and heading south, the wind changed, blowing gently at
first, and then steadily and strongly from the north, a favourable wind
and a good omen.
The paddles dashed the water to spray and the great sail bellied to the
breeze. Evening came, the dusk rose and the stars broke out, and
southward still they flew, tireless as the wind, taking no heed of the
current. All night long they paddled, whilst the turning dome of stars
rotated above them, the Cross and Canopus and the great streak of the
Milky Way all moving mysteriously in one piece till suddenly, in the
east, like a dropped rose-leaf, came the dawn.
Away ahead lay Karolin, and the paddle men, who had taken a spell of
rest, leaving all the work to the wind, resumed their paddles.
As they came through the reef opening, the sun was behind them and broad
on the lagoon, lighting the white beach that swept curving away to
invisibility, the cocoanut trees, the canoe houses, and the houses of
the village; and scarcely had they passed the reef opening than the
sands began to swarm, for eager eyes had reported that they had lost a
man, and that of the four who had started three only were returning.
Now this canoe was in no wise of importance except for the fact that
Sru, the son of the king’s son, was on board of it. Still, it was only
one of the fishing canoes of which several that had put out in search of
floating turtle were due to put in that morning. It flew no signal of
disaster, yet instantly the news was known by this little nation of
fishers and hunters of the sea to whom sight was life and swift
deduction bread.
Before beaching, it was known that Sru was the missing man, and Laminai
himself was standing to meet them as the keel took the sand.
It was Laminai who had tried to dash Katafa to death on board of the
Spanish ship; it was Laminai who had killed her mother with the blow of
a coral-headed club. Better for him and his sons had he killed the child
as well, for Taiofa had gone with her to his death and Sru would never
have fallen but for the image of Nan which she had erected to bring the
big fish to the lagoon.
Laminai was tall and slight and subtle and exceedingly strong, with a
forthright and ferocious expression and a permanent hard double wrinkle
between the eyes, eyes that seemed always skimming great distances in
search of prey.
Talia, Manua and Leopa, when they saw Laminai standing there with his
shark-tooth necklace on his breast, were hit of a sudden by the
forgotten fact that this terrible man would most likely visit on them
the death of Sru. Visions of being staked out on the reef for sharks to
devour drove them half crazy with fright, but not crazy enough to forget
Nan as a stand-by.
“Nan! Nan! Nan!” they yelled as the keel drove ashore. “He has been
taken from us by a new people who have slain thy son, O Laminai. For
half a day we fought with them, but Sru was slain and Nan stands on the
reef of Marua [Palm Tree], and never will our crops flourish again.”
This news, delivered so convincingly, hit the whole beach dumb. Laminai,
at a stroke, seemed to have forgotten Sru. The people automatically drew
back, making a semi-circle, and in this arena the three survivors of the
great fight stood facing Laminai and his last son, Ma, a youth of some
nineteen years.
He questioned them with a word or two and then, turning, led the way to
the great house of the village where, in the shadow of the door, Uta
Matu was lying on a mat with his back to the sun.
Uta was an old man now, very different from the man who years ago had
led the attack on the Spanish ship. He was so fat and indolent that he
had to be turned by his women like a feather bed, and there he lay
puffing out his cheeks whilst the three canoe men stood before him and
one told their tale of the ravishing of Nan, the great fight and the
death of Sru.
Having heard them out, Uta did an astonishing thing. He sat up.
This old gentleman, despite his fat, his indolence, the blood-lust that
still clung to him amidst the other lusts, and the fact that his only
dress was a gee string, was a statesman of a sort. It was quite easy to
call for revenge, to set the village buzzing like a beehive, sharpening
spears, and rolling the long canoes out of the canoe houses; yet when
the murmur that marked the conclusion of the canoe men’s story began to
swell and spread and threatened to break into a roar, Uta Matu raised
his hand and cut it off as one cuts off water at the main.
He had to do two things: consult the priestess of Nanawa to see if the
war gods were propitious, and consult Ma, admiral-in-chief and dockyard
superintendent of the Karolin navy. Being what he was, Uta decided not
to worry the gods till he was sure of the navy. He called Ma, and the
son of Laminai came and stood before his grandfather and king.
The fleet was ready. That was the report of Ma. The four great canoes,
each capable of holding thirty men, were safe in the canoe houses,
seaworthy and only recently caulked; the paddles were in their places
and the masts and mat sails in readiness.
Now, these canoes were useless for fishing, or at least never used. They
were too large and cumbersome and were kept for war. They had been used
for the attack on the Spanish ship, and they had been used when the
present northern ruling tribe of Karolin had fought the southern tribe
living across the lagoon, nearly exterminating it, and chasing the
remnants to the beach of Palm Tree[2]. Long before that, the navy of
Karolin had resisted an attack from a fleet that broke the waters one
pink and pearly dawn, a fleet of dusk-sailed canoes from the Paumotus
that had vanished for ever, sunk and burnt before the crimson sunset
died.
Karolin was a sea power ever ready for eventualities.
Having received the report, Uta, to confirm it, caused himself to be
carried to the canoe houses. Not content with hearing, he must see, and
he saw, as he sat facing the open doorways of the houses, that Ma was no
liar. In the gloomy interiors beneath thatched roofs supported by ridge
poles, the great canoes slewed on their rollers, ready for the sea.
Even here on land they were moored by innumerable shore fasts in case of
accident. Twice had hurricanes blown the houses to fragments, leaving
the canoes unharmed.
Uta, having seen that all was right, ordered himself to be carried back
to the door of his palace, but the order for war did not come yet. Le
Juan had to be consulted.
“Call Le Juan,” commanded Uta.
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Footnote 2:
See “Blue Lagoon”