A month had gone by since the day that Sralik had driven away the
“Christ ship,” as the people called the _Morning Star_, and then word
came over from Sralik to Ruvani, his granddaughter, to come over and
take her part in a night-dance and feast to the rain-god, for the year
had been a good one and the cocoanut trees were loaded with nuts. For
this was the dancing and feasting.
All that day the eight people of Takai were busied in making ready their
gifts of food for the feast which was to take place in two days' time.
In the afternoon, when the sun had lost its strength, the three girls
launched their canoe and set out for a place on the northern point
of Pingelap, where grew in great profusion the sweet-smelling _nudu_
flower. These would they get to make garlands and necklets to wear at
the great dance, in which they were all to take part.
In an hour or two they had gathered all the _nudu_ flowers they desired,
and then little Tarita looking up saw that the sky was overcast and
blackening, and presently some heavy drops of rain fell.
“Haste, haste,” she cried to the others, “let us away ere the strong
wind which is behind the black clouds overtakes us on the lagoon.”
Night comes on quickly in the South Seas, and by the time they had
seated themselves in the canoe it was dark. In a little while a sharp
rain-squall swept down from the northward, and they heard the wind
rattling and crashing through the branches, of the palms on Tugulu.
Ninia, who was steering, boldly headed the canoe across the lagoon for
Takai, and laughed when Ruvani and Tarita, who were wet and shivering
with the cold rain, urged that they should put in at the beach on Tugulu
and walk home.
“Paddle, paddle strongly,” she cried, “what mattereth a little rain and
wind! And sing, so that our mother will hear us and make ready something
to eat. Look, I can already see the blaze of her fire.”
Striking their paddles into the water in unison, they commenced to sing,
but suddenly their voices died away in terror as a strange, droning hum
was borne down to them from the black line of Tugulu shore; and then the
droning deepened into a hoarse roaring noise as the wild storm of wind
and fierce, stinging rain tore through the groves of cocoanuts and
stripped them of leaves and branches.
Brave Ninia, leaning her lithe figure well over the side of the canoe,
plunged her paddle deep down and tried to bring the canoe head to
wind to meet the danger, and Ruvani, in the bow, with long hair
flying straight out behind her, answered her effort with a cry of
encouragement, and put forth all her strength to aid.
But almost ere the cry had left her lips, the full fury of the squall
had struck them; the canoe was caught in its savage breath, twirled
round and round, and then filled.
“Keep thou in the canoe, little one, and bale,” cried Ninia to Tarita,
as she and Ruvani leaped into the water.
For some minutes the two girls clung with one hand each to the gunwale,
and Tarita, holding the large wooden _ahu_ or baler, in both hands,
dashed the water out. Then she gave a trembling cry--the baler struck
against the side of the canoe and dropped overboard.
Ninia dared not leave the canoe to seek for it in the intense darkness,
and so clinging to the little craft, which soon filled again, they
drifted about. The waters of the lagoon were now white with the breaking
seas, and the wind blew with fierce, cruel, steadiness, and although
they knew it not, they were being swept quickly away from the land
towards the passage in the reef.
The rain had ceased now, and the water being warm none of them felt
cold, but the noise of the wind and sea was so great that they had to
shout loudly to each other to make their voices heard.