THE RACE TO MOTUTABU.
Cheung's schooner arrived from Levuka early the next morning, mooring
in the stream at first, then, as the tide served, going to a wharf
remote from the main one where the Lehua still lay. Stanton did not
go near her, but stayed at Cheung's house after breakfast, at the
latter's suggestion, talking with Lucy Haines. From behind the tatties
of split bamboo they saw Loo Fong pass by and glance up, later to
return again.
Stanton said nothing of what had happened the night before. It did
not seem necessary. Cheung had gone to see about getting the schooner
ready. Tiki was in his shed, waiting to be called for, smoking his new
pipe, a stray no longer.
Stanton and the girl told each other something of their early life.
Mention of the impending trip made her grave, brought worry to her
eyes. He could tell that she was fighting off doubts of finding her
father. Several times they sat silent, but not out of accord.
Cheung came back at noon and said they would leave on the ebb after
nightfall. He too had seen Loo Fong. A scout he had sent out reported
that they were taking stores aboard the Lehua. The skipper had gone to
the hospital, Johnson was in command, and the cook had left.
"They savvy Fahine, my ship," said Cheung. "They savvy she come in.
They watch all same we watch along of them. Maybe we get staht. Long
way to Motutabu; Fahine mo' fast than Lehua. My captain good man.
Suppose wind blow light, you leach island befo' them."
It was dark when they went on board. The Chinese skipper talked
"pidgin" that was comprehensible. He found a few words of dialect that
Tiki understood, to the black's delight, and sent him forward. The
Chinese sailors, naked above the waist, their feet bare, their heads
bound with bright bandannas, were a piratical-looking lot though their
ordinary occupation was peaceful trading. But they were efficient,
getting the schooner under way to singsong orders from mate and
boatswain, with his whistle, as the captain showed the girl and Stanton
to their quarters.
The schooner was plainly fitted up, and it smelled of ancient cargoes
of copra, of _bêche-de-mer_, sharks' fins, turtle shell and pearl
shell, but Cheung had evidently been at some pains to make them
comfortable. There were two cabins aft for them, and the girl's,
especially, had been brightened with rugs and cushions.
In the main cabin there was a rack for rifles, filled with well oiled
weapons. Stanton had noted appreciatively the tall masts, the narrow
beam, the clean entry and fine lines of the ship. Speed evidently
counted in Cheung's business. In a rush for competitive trade or to be
the first at a new pearling ground, the Fahine would not be a laggard.
She was well-found, decks clear and clean of litter, ropes coiled, the
ends seized and the rigging well set up. He could hear the quick tread
of the yellow-skinned sailors as they went about the familiar tasks.
Soon she was under way, the wharf sliding past, the lights of Suva
gleaming through the ports.
The captain came below, deferential.
"Suppose you likee go topside?" he said. "Can do."
He was in Chinese clothes, his feet shod; a muscular man with a
typically Mongolian face, sure of himself and authoritative, but
plainly considering them as allies, friends of Cheung Li.
The wind was fresh from the land, striking them a little abaft the
beam, and they slipped fast through the water, with sheets well
started. Stanton, watching the way she answered helm, surmised that
her bottom was clean. She showed no lights anywhere. The captain took
night-glasses from a hook in the companionway and surveyed the reach
behind them. They were well out of the shipping.
"No one come," he said laconically. "You like look-see?"
Stanton took the binoculars, focused them, swept the water between them
and the land. There was nothing moving there. They had got a start, at
least.
He wondered if the Chinese skipper had been to Motutabu before.
Probably not. But he would have its position, and the Lehua's previous
trip would not advantage them much.
Their direct course was southeast, the distance something over six
hundred miles. It might take them anywhere from a week to a fortnight
to cover it, for the winds were variable, there were tantalizing calms
and strong currents set up by the action of the tides over the varying
depths and contour of the bottom, where vast expanses of shallows
suddenly changed to vast abysses cleft by submarine peaks and ranges.
Neither schooner had an engine. Luck or fate was going to enter largely
into the affair.
They lost the land wind and ran into a calm inside of two hours,
working through it at last to strike the southeast trade. The Fahine
was close-hauled and clawed into it, making eight knots, slogging
along at a lively clip with the sheer bows buried at every plunge. It
stiffened to a squall, and the schooner leaned against it, the mainsail
reefed two points, and only a small staysail forward.
Stanton was a good sailor, and the next morning proved Lucy Haines
was another. All that day they sailed fast under a bright sky, the
crested seas dark sapphires, save where the foam creamed or was blown
in spindrift, and the sun flashed back golden from the facets of the
waves. All day the horizon stayed clear of smoke or sail. The girl's
spirits rose. It began to look as if the Lehua had not got away. Flying
fish rose from the brine, pursued by rushing dolphins; frigate birds
soared free.
* * * * *
The trade set them down, and they regained their easting with short
legs. They had crossed the Kadavu Passage north of the Astrolabe Reefs,
passing between Totoya and Matuku. Now there was no land in sight,
would not be if they kept anywhere near their true course until they
sighted the island of their quest. The Tongas were far to the north
as they headed to cross the Tropic of Capricorn. The wide expanse of
ocean, the run of sparkling water, the clean wind blowing between sea
and sky--it was all physically exhilarating, mentally stimulating, a
tonic for doubt, strengthened by the lonely horizon.
The two of them had their own mess. The rest ate Chinese food, but they
were served a menu to suit their occidental tastes. Cheung's orders, no
doubt. It was excellently cooked and served. Things aboard the Fahine
ran like clockwork. There was never any confusion. The yellow men went
about their tasks with a will the moment an order was given, without
fumbling, knowing what was wanted.
It blew harder, the seas mounted, still under the blue sky and bright
sun. They had to lower the mainsail at last and mount a storm staysail
between the two masts, balanced by a rag of a jib. They made more
leeway now. The wind remained southeast, blowing from the quarter they
sought to penetrate as if it was determined to hold them off. It might
have been the breath of the great gray god defending his _tabu_. But
any wind was better than no wind, unless they had to run before it, and
it did not come to that.
The weather modified swiftly with a blazing sunset. Stanton came on
deck at midnight to find a heavy swell running, the schooner under
full sail but with only a few flaws of wind that sent her forward
spasmodically. The captain was aft by the starboard rail, motionless.
Stanton offered him one of the cheroots with which Cheung had supplied
him, and the other took it silently.
He lit it before he spoke.
"Lil time ago we see ship," he said. "All same this. Gone now. Long way
off."
"You think it was the Lehua?"
"No can tell. Maybe. _Maskee._"
It was not indifference. Only the tacit acceptance of conditions, the
Oriental touch of fatalism. He pointed to where a new moon hung like a
nail-paring.
"Wind go soon. Maybe they get, maybe we catch. _Maskee._"
The word summed up Chinese philosophy. The equivalent of the Russian
_nitchevo_. It was not the time for direct action, save for the
handling of the ship, which was the plaything of the weather. But later
in the night Stanton, restless, unable to share the _maskee_-ism of the
skipper, smelled incense. The captain was burning punk sticks before
the joss in the gilded shrine in the cabin. He had his superstitions,
or his faiths.
The next three days saw them almost motionless. The sea had gone down
and was like glass, reflecting the fiery glare of the sun. Now and then
they saw distant squalls, bursts of rain, ruffled patches of sea, but
they got no breath of wind.
The horizon was clear again. The Lehua--Stanton held no doubt that the
vessel they had sighted was that schooner, with Loo Fong aboard--might
be experiencing the same conditions, or she might be bowling along out
of the baffling strip.
A current was steadily setting them east. He envied the
imperturbability of the Chinese; they were used to the vagaries of
the sea, and accepted what they could not alter; but he chafed with
impatience. Lucy Haines kept to her cabin, her meals served there.
Stanton did not disturb her. She was sick, not of body, but of heart.
The punk sticks burned constantly.
On the fourth morning trade clouds appeared aft, in the northwest. It
was the time of the monsoon changes of wind caused by the difference
in temperature between air and water. There was wind in those vaporous
heights. It revealed itself in a dark line on the water that came fast
toward them as the skipper gave an order and they swung out the booms
in readiness. The breeze caught them, urged them on, sailing wing and
wing, the canvas bellying taut as drums, the lively sea seething all
about them, a broad wake behind, on their course once more, headed
straight for Motutabu.
* * * * *
Stanton noticed Tiki at his usual post, far forward, his eyes always
turned south. He was a different looking savage from the sick creature
curled up on the bale. His skin was glossy and his eyes were bright.
His broad nostrils dilated as if he smelled familiar odors. Stanton
wondered what he was thinking about. If the cook of the Lehua had
spoken truly, his own island held peril for him, but there was no fear
in his eyes. Whenever they looked at Stanton they held gratitude, but
there was a difference, a measure of pride.
That afternoon the captain cast a light on Tiki.
"I speak with Tiki," he said, "No savvy too much, but he say one time
he live along Motutabu. His father _tahunga_, all same wiza'd. Tiki all
same _tahunga_ himself. He speak Motutabu velly bad place stop along.
All time too much bad magic along of big god live that place."
There was more than that that the skipper had found out by signs and
certain words they both understood. Stanton retailed it later to the
girl, who was again on deck.
Apparently Tiki's father had run the tribe. Tiki seemed to have been
trained to take his place. Then the god had turned malignant. It was
one of the deities of the South Sea pantheon that had to be placated,
and the sacrifices had failed. There had been an earthquake--"Velly
much shake that island," was the way the captain interpreted it. The
top of a mountain had fallen off and a cape had slid into the sea. The
wizard was blamed. The population escaped in canoes, after killing the
man whose magic had gone wrong. Tiki had been spared for some reason
which was obscure, perhaps because of his youth or because the women
hid him.
On the tribe's new home he had been suffered to live. A new wizard
manifested himself. There was no god on this island. All went well
save that Tiki was in bad odor. He was an hereditary _tahunga_, of an
ancient line of wizards, and the new one feared him. Tiki had lived by
himself in the bush, periodically hunted and sought for a sacrifice,
blamed by the new _tahunga_ for every sickness and death. So Tiki had
stolen aboard the Lehua, hoping to escape to some friendlier place at
which they might touch, not knowing what sort of man was in command or
what kind of men were on the ship.
The curious thing was that he did not seem alarmed because they were
going to Motutabu. The god was an evil god, but he believed fully in
the magic of his dead father. It was the plotting of the man who later
set himself up as _tahunga_ that had annoyed the deity. His father had
understood the god, had taught Tiki secrets concerning it. None but the
ancient line of wizards dared approach it. Its shadow was death to all
others.
Stanton could see no particular bearing in all this concerning the
finding of Haines and the pearls. But he remembered the warnings of
Cheung not to meddle with the god, and it was evident that the skipper
had gone to much pains to talk with Tiki. Tiki seemed to be acquiring
importance, a card whose value Stanton could not judge, though he
sensed that he might have done something far more significant than
he guessed when he rescued him from the cruelty of the mate. He had
much to learn about Motutabu, much to learn about the god. Even now he
could not quite shake off the feeling that Cheung had not spoken idly.
Strange things happened in the South Seas.
He understood it a little better with his first close glimpse of
Motutabu.