CHAPTER IV
THE MIND OF KANOA AND THE RISING MOON
THE crew, numbering now only six, and deprived of the leadership of Sru, watched Rantan go aft and disappear down the saloon hatch, then they fell to discussing the fate of Sru and his companions. The lost men were from Soma, of the remainder two were from Nanuti in the Gilberts, the rest were Paumotuans hailing from Vana Vana and Haraikai. The loss of the others did not affect them much, nor did they speculate as to the possibility of their own destruction at the hands of the natives of Karolin; they had little imagination and big belief in Rantan, and, having talked for a while and chosen a man to keep watch, they dived below. Then dark came and the stars.
Kanoa was the man chosen, a pure Polynesian from Vana Vana, not more than eighteen, slim and straight as a dart, and with lustrous eyes that shone now in the dusk as he turned them on Le Moan, the only living creature on deck beside himself.
He had been watching Le Moan for days, for weeks, with an ever-increasing interest. She had repelled him at first despite her beauty, and owing to her strange ways. He had never seen a girl like her at Vana Vana nor at Tuta Kotu, and to his simple mind, she was something more than a girl, maybe something less, a creature that loved to brood alone and live alone, perchance spirit; who could tell, for it was well known at Vana Vana that spirits of men and women were sometimes met with at sea on desolate reefs and atolls, ghosts of drowned people who would even light fires to attract ships and canoes and be taken off just as Le Moan had been taken off by Pete’son, and who always brought disaster to the ship or canoe foolish enough to rescue them.
Sru had kicked him for speaking like this in the foc’sle. After Pete’son had been left behind at Levua, supposedly killed by Tahuku and his followers, Kanoa, leaning on his side in his bunk and pipe in mouth had said: “It is the girl or she that looks like a girl but is maybe the spirit of some woman lost at sea. She was alone on that island and Pete’son brought her on board and now, look—what has become of Pete’son?” Upon which Sru had pulled him out of his bunk and kicked him. All the same Kanoa’s mind did not leave hold of the idea. He was convinced that there was more to come in the way of disaster, and now, look, Sru gone and three men with him!
But Kanoa was only eighteen and Le Moan for all her dark beauty and brooding ways and mysterious habits was, at all events, fashioned in the form of a girl, and once in a roll of the ship Le Moan slipping on the spray-wet deck would have fallen, only for Kanoa who caught her, almost naked as she was, in his arms, and she was delicious.
Ghost or not there began to grow in him a desire for her that was held in check only by his fear of her. A strange condition of mind brought about by the conflict of two passions.
To-night close to her on the deserted deck, the warm air bringing her perfume to him and her body outlined against the starlit lagoon, he was only prevented from seizing her in his arms by the thought of Sru and his companions dead on the reef over there; dead as Pete’son, dead as he—Kanoa—might be to-morrow, and through the wiles of this girl so like a spirit, this spirit so like a girl.
He felt like a man swimming against the warm current that sweeps round the shoulder of Haraikai, swimming bravely and seeming to make good way, yet all the time being swept steadily out to sea to drown and die.
Suddenly—and just as he was about to fling out his hands, seize her and capture her in a burning embrace, mouth to mouth, breast to breast, and arms locked round her body—suddenly the initiative was taken from him and Le Moan, gliding up to him, placed a hand upon his shoulder.
Next moment she had pressed him down to the deck and he was squatting opposite to her, almost knee to knee, love for the moment forgotten.
Forgotten even though, leaning forward and placing her hand on his shoulder, she brought her face almost in touch with his.
“Kanoa,” said Le Moan, in a voice just audible to him above the rumble of the reef, “Sru and the men who were with him have been slain by Rantan, and the big red man, not by the men of Karolin. To-morrow you will die, I heard him say so to the big man, you and Timau and Tahuku and Poni and Nauta and Tirai.” She told this lie with steady eyes fixed upon him, eyes that saw nothing but Taori, the man whose life she was trying to save. No wonder that love dropped out of the heart of Kanoa and that the sweat showed on his face in the starlight. It was the first time that she had spoken to him more than a word or two, and what she said in that swift clear whisper passed through him like a sword. He believed her. His fear of her was the basis of his belief. He was listening to the voice of a spirit, not the voice of a girl.
He who a moment ago had been filled with passionate desire, felt now that he was sitting knee to knee with Death.
Such was the conviction carried by her words and voice that he would have risen up and run away and hidden, only that he could not move.
“Unless,” said Le Moan, “we strike them to-night, to-morrow we will all be killed.”
Kanoa’s teeth began to chatter. His frightened mind flew back to Vana Vana and the happy days of his youth. He wished that he had never embarked on this voyage that had led him to so many strange passes. Strike them! It was easy to say that, but who would dare to strike Ra’tan?
He was seated facing aft and he could see the vague glow of the saloon skylight golden in the silver of the star-shine. Down below there in the lamplight Ra’tan and the red bearded one were no doubt talking and making their plans. Strike them! That was easily said.
Then, all at once, he stopped shivering and his teeth came together with a click. The light from the saloon had gone out.
He touched Le Moan and told her and she turned her head to the long sweep of the deck, empty, and deserted by the vanished light. It was as though the power of the after guard had suffered eclipse. Rantan and the other would be soon asleep, if they were not asleep now, helpless and at the mercy of the man who would be brave enough to strike.
Le Moan turned again and seizing Kanoa by the shoulder whispered close to his ear.
“Go,” said she; “tell the others what I have said, bring them up, softly, Mayana, softly so that they may not hear, they need lift no hand in the business. I will strike; go!”
He rose up and passed towards the foc’sle hatch whilst Le Moan, going into the galley, fetched something she had hidden there—the head of the spear which she had broken off from the shaft, the spear Carlin had brought on board as a trophy, and the snap of which he had heard as he lay in his bunk whilst Rantan had been lighting his pipe.
She sat down on the deck with the deadly thing on her knee, poisoned with argora. A scratch from it would be sufficient to destroy life almost instantaneously, and as she sat brooding and waiting, her eyes saw neither the deck nor the starlight, but the vision of a sunlit beach and a form, Taori. Taori for whom she would have destroyed the world.
The sea spoke on the great reef loud to windward, low to leeward; you could hear within the long rumble and roar of the nearby breakers the diminuendo of the rollers that smoked beneath the stars, ringing with a forty-mile mist the placid ocean of the lagoon.
The moon was rising. She could see the gleam of its light on the binnacle where the Godling lived that had always pointed away from Karolin, on the port rail and on the brass-work of the skylight. Then, roused by a sound soft as the sifting of leaves on a lawn, she turned and behind her the deck was crowded.
The crew had come on deck led by Kanoa, and the stern of the schooner swinging towards the break with the tide, the level light of the moon was on their faces.