It was on the twenty-third day out from Apia, bearing, as far as she could discover, in a north-westerly direction, that she first noted the approach of land. Nothing could be seen from her side of the ship, but she heard the long, excited cries of the island crew, and the thundering of their feet, as they began putting the ship about with unwonted vigour, to a chorus of native songs. She strained her eyes eagerly when the ship came about on the other tack, but the line of the horizon was unbroken; and it was not for another hour that she saw, from her low elevation, what the look-out in the crow's nest had sighted long before—a line of small black bristles pricking the edge of the horizon several miles away.
Vaiti knew the sight at once for the palms of a low atoll island—evidently some barren, sun-smitten spot close up to the line—and a ready solution of the whole puzzling affair at once sprang into her mind.
Marooning!
Most people know the meaning of this term; nearly every one has heard of sailors captured by pirates in old days, and left on lonely islands, or even deserted by their own comrades on some isolated spot, with just enough food and water to save the marooners' consciences from the guilt of actual murder. Vaiti knew both the word and the thing very well-indeed, and she was almost certain that the Ikurangi had gone off the course on the way to some South American port with the view of hiding her where she would not easily be found again. There are many islands in the wastes of the vast Pacific where a ship may not pass once in half a century, and these—unlike the typical "desert" island of stories—are almost always barren, hungry, shadeless spots, where Crusoe himself would have been hard put to it to make a decent living. The fertile, mountainous, well-watered isle is never without a native population, permanent or occasional, and is very seldom indeed, in these days, without a trader as well, and a regularly calling schooner. As for the breadfruit, oranges, pineapples, the pigs and goats, the sugarcane and maize of uninhabited islands as known to fiction, they have no counterpart in real life. All the valuable food plants and all useful animals are the product of importation and cultivation, ancient or modern. It follows, that where there are no people and no ships, there is nothing worth having.
Vaiti knew this very well, and decided that if she was going to be marooned, she might as well make such provision as circumstances allowed. She had hunted over every inch of the cabin—which seemed to belong to the mate—during the long days of the voyage, and she knew exactly what it contained. From the stores put away under the bunk she selected a large new sheet, which she concealed under her dress; a small stock of needles and thread, a box or two of matches, some hooks and line, and a stick of dynamite, evidently meant for some forgotten fishing purpose. There was nothing in the shape of a knife, much to her regret; and there was a good deal of clothing that she would have liked to carry away; but it would not do to take more than she could easily conceal. So she made an end of her preparations, and sat down to wait once more.
There was no moon that night until very late, and darkness came down so close on the stroke of four bells that Vaiti felt sure they were very near the equator. No one came near her, and tea seemed to be unusually late. The anchor-chain roared home soon after dark, the ship lay very still, and there was a good deal of running about on deck. Vaiti was confirmed in her anticipations of an uninhabited island by the fact that no boat was to be heard coming off from shore. Not a sound of any kind, indeed, came from the island, and there were no lights on the beach. Some one handed her in her tea by-and-by, and a little later her door was flung open again by the mate.
"Come on out," he said.
Vaiti followed the mate out of the cabin at once, rather to his surprise. She had made up her mind that anything was better than the Ikurangi, and she was looking out sharply for a chance—any chance—of turning the tables.
It did not look at first as if she were to have one. The dinghy had been swung out when she got on deck, and a couple of men were standing ready to lower away. They were islanders, and she knew that they would befriend her if they could—indeed, their glances showed as much—yet what could they do?
Donahue was nowhere visible. He had planned this business with some forethought, and he wanted to have a chance of casting blame on his subordinate if any inquisitive Government official should incline to look the matter up later on. So he stayed down in his own cabin, pretending to be asleep, and the mate, rather against his will, had to carry out orders alone.