"To make a net to catch shrimps with," he answered. "The little shrimp is better than the mussels we have been eating so long."
Loa acquiesced. She was tired of shell fish. So she helped carry the rushes back to the cave, in the long walk through the night.
The next day Hawai spent fashioning the shrimp net. Loa amused herself making festoons of brilliant flowers and garlanding them around his neck. That gave her an idea. She gathered a large quantity of fleshy, fibrous leaves, and began weaving them together.
"Why can't I make clothing out of these?" she queried.
Hawai glanced at her. Their clothing was rent in strips, and sadly in need of repair, and Loa had a skin averse to the sun. He watched her amusedly, until she got tired and threw them aside.
"I believe I could make better things out of feathers." She glanced at a squawking sea-bird that sailed overhead. "I could make you a headpiece that would crown a chief."
He smiled at the woman's vanity that would think first of adorning the head, but humored her by saying gently, "If you will lend me some of your tresses, I shall try and snare some birds."
She shook out her mane, for she firmly believed him capable of anything. When she went over to help him tie the net, she voiced the thought that had haunted both of them.
"If we are the only persons living on this island, how long must we stay before others come?"
"Perhaps forever." It was no use deceiving her. She might as well know. "Some of the ships may have reached one of those bodies of land over there; for owing to the warm current all of Hagoth's crafts came in the same direction. If some of our compatriots are alive, sooner or later they may visit this island."