THE SHADOWS AND THE ECHOES
The wind had changed and was blowing now dead from the south, and as
they passed the break the mat sails went up and the four great canoes
shot away to the north, urged by wind, current and paddles, like hawks
released on their prey.
An hour after the start the wind failed them, but still the paddles kept
on. They passed turtles asleep on the ceaseless swell and great belts of
fucus carried by the current, the outriggers tangling and lifting kelp
fish and fathom-long ribbons of kelp gemmed with sea growths and clung
to by crabs.
The drinking nuts secured to the outrigger gratings were passed round
under the blazing sun of noon, and as the fleet drifted for a moment, it
was saluted by the thunder of a school of giant whip-rays playing away
across the blue. Warriors saluting warriors. The whip-rays were a good
omen, Karolin being one of their haunts, and Ma, seizing the great conch
shell, returned the salute. Then, before sunset, the paddle men ceased
work for a moment to shout and wave their paddles at Palm Tree, far off
still, but clearly to be seen on the northern horizon.
Half an hour later the landward flying gulls began to take the light of
sunset on their wings, and the sun to dip towards a sea blazing with
light, and now, as the sun vanished and the dusk brimmed over from the
east, a wind rose, blowing towards the land, and the paddle men, at the
command of Laminai, ceased work.
Silence fell almost complete, broken only by the wash of the canoe bows,
the straining of a rope to the tug of a sail and the shifting of a
steering paddle, and now in the pauses of the wind could be heard the
surf on the reef, like the breathing of the far-off island in its sleep.
The moon would not rise yet, but the stars gave them light—light enough
to see, as they closed with the land, the breakers on the outer beach
and the head of Nan on its post. Keeping away to the east, they sought
the reef opening where the palm tree stood bowed like a sentinel fallen
asleep, and as it came in view, Laminai giving an order, the sails were
taken in and the paddles flashed into work.
At that moment the brow of the moon broke the sea.
The tide was just at the slack after full, and on the long river of
light from the moon the canoes came like dark drifting leaves; past the
break, the paddles working with scarcely a sound, across the lagoon,
moving ever more slowly, till again came an order from Laminai and, the
stone anchors going over without a splash, the fleet rode at its
moorings, silent as the moon that now stood above the reef.
They were brave with a courage that nothing could destroy but defeat or
superstition, that nothing could dent but the unknown.
Had they been attacking a known tribe they would have beached the
canoes, shouting defiance. As it was, they anchored, feeling their
courage and their shark-tooth spears, listening, looking, whilst the
moon rose higher, lighting more fully the fairyland they were about to
attack, whose only defenders were a youth fast asleep, and a girl the
prisoner of illusion, and the trees.
Then, of a sudden, the lagoon became dotted with heads. The whole army
of Karolin had disembarked. Swimming like otters, they made for the
shore and, leaving the canoes with a man apiece for anchor watch, formed
on the beach.
Nothing but their long shadows, drawn on the salt-white beach by the
moon, opposed them, shadows that swung clubs and brandished spears,
threatening who knows what in shadow-land.
The silent woods stood firm; the reef beyond the lagoon sent the
selfsame whisper; the wind lifting the foliage failed and died. Nature,
before the terrific threat of Karolin, seemed to have fallen asleep till
Ma, like the knight before the enchanted castle, seizing the great
conch, blew the signal for war, blew with one mighty and prolonged
breath till the whorls of the conch nearly split asunder, till the
howling, bubbling echoes came back from strand and hill-top and wind and
sea.
Like the response of the shadows came the response of the echoes—nothing
more.