*****
Hua Manu was right! he walked out of the sea an hour later and stood on a mound of coarse sand in the middle of the ocean, with my miserable, water-logged body lying in a heap at his feet.
The place was as smooth and shiny and desolate as anybody's bald head. That's a nice spot to be merry in, isn't it? Yet he tried to make me open my eyes and be glad.
He said he knew the Great Western would be coming down that way shortly; she'd pick us off the shoal, and water and feed us.
Perhaps she might! Meantime we hungered and thirsted as many a poor castaway had before us. That was a good hour for Christian fortitude: beached in the middle of the ocean; shelterless under a sun that blistered Hua's tough skin; eyes blinded with the glare of sun and sea; the sand glowing like brass and burning into flesh already irritated with salt water; a tongue of leather cleaving to the roof of the mouth, and no food within reach, nor so much as a drop of fresh water for Christ's sake!
Down went my face into the burning sand that made the very air hop above it.... Another night, cool and grateful; a bird or two flapped wearily overhead, looking like spirits in the moonlight. Hua scanned earnestly our narrow horizon, noting every inflection in the voices of the wind and waves,—voices audible to him, but worse than dumb to me,—mocking monotones reiterated through an agonizing eternity.
A wise monitor was Hua Manu, shaming me to silence in our cursed banishment. Toward the morning after our arrival at the shoal, an owl fluttered out of the sky and fell at our feet quite exhausted. It might have been blown from Motu Hilo, and seemed ominous of something, I scarcely knew what. When it had recovered from its fatigue, it sat regarding us curiously. I wanted to wring its short, thick neck, and eat it, feathers and all. Hua objected; there was a superstition that gave that bland bird its life. It might continue to ogle us with one eye as long as it liked. How the lopsided thing smirked! how that stupid owl-face, like a rosette with three buttons in it, haunted me! It was enough to craze any one; and, having duly cursed him and his race, I went stark mad and hoped I was dying forever....
There are plenty of stars in this narrative. Stars, and plenty of them, cannot account for the oblivious intervals, suspended animation, or whatever it was, that came to my relief from time to time. I cannot account for them myself. Perhaps Hua Manu might; he seemed always awake, always on the lookout, and ever so patient and painful. A dream came to me after that owl had stared me into stone,—a dream of an island in a sea of glass; soft ripples lapping on the silver shores; sweet airs sighing in a star-lit grove; some one gathering me in his arms, hugging me close with infinite tenderness; I was consumed with thirst, speechless with hunger; like an infant I lay in the embrace of my deliverer, who moistened my parched lips and burning throat with delicious and copious draughts. It was an elixir of life; I drank health and strength in every drop; sweeter than mother's milk flowed the warm tide unchecked, till I was satisfied and sank into a deep and dreamless sleep....
The Great Western was plunging in her old style, and I swashed in my bunk as of yore. The captain sat by me with a bottle in his hand and anxiety in his countenance.
"Where are we?" I asked.