THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL
Katafa, amidst the trees, pausing half dazed from the pursuit, and
released for a moment from the spell that had made her fly, stood
listening.
She had taken the upward way towards the hill-top. The great sward,
moon-stricken and surmounted by the rock, gleamed at her through the
trees on her right; below, and to her left, the green gloom of the woods
showed in luminous depths marked vaguely by the outlines of trees and
sagging lianas.
The glass-house atmosphere of the woods rose around her like an incense.
Coco-palm, artu, bread-fruit and pandanus, vanilla and hoya, husk, bark,
foliage and flower all blent their perfumes undisturbed by any wind.
Then, as she stood listening, just at the moment when Ma, bursting from
the trees, stood face to face with Dick, she heard a sudden loudening of
the surf on the reef.
The sound of a single great tumbling wave heaving up from the glacial
sea to burst on the coral in foam. Silence, and then through the heat of
the night another sound far away and vague, the chanting of gulls
disturbed from their sleep and made uneasy by some voice or sign they
alone could interpret.
Then, shattering the silence of the woods, came the yell of Laminai as
he sprang after Dick, the voices of Talia, Manua and Leopa, and then the
tongue of the whole pack in full cry, the sound of branches broken and
leaves cast aside, footfalls, all rising towards her like a tide, and
breaking through the trees so close to her that she could see the
parting of the leaves and the forms of the pursuers and pursued.
Dick, reaching the sward, made one last effort. Breaking from the rock,
he would have reached it and rounded it and dived into the thickness of
the woods beyond, where the bog land lay and where he might have found
refuge, but the uphill path was treacherous as the moss on the sward. He
slipped, fell on one knee, and was surrounded and lost.
A spearman raised his spear to pierce him but Laminai dashed him aside.
Sure now of his vengeance, the son of Uta Matu wished to taste it alone,
and, waving the others off with a sweep of his arm, and standing with
his back to the trees, signed to his enemy to rise.
Dick sprang to his feet and stood facing the other with folded arms. He
was lost and he knew it. He had no ideas about death. He only knew that
as the speared fish was, so he would be, and that at once. He heard
without at least heeding the words pouring out of the mouth of the
other, and his gaze never flinched when Laminai, reaching with the
spear, touched him on the left breast with the sharp brown point.
On the left breast, just below the nipple, Laminai laid the point of the
spear. Just there the point would enter, piercing the beating heart.
Then, swift as light, the father of Ma flung his arm back from the
thrust and fell, struggling, with Katafa about his neck.