“Nan! Nan! Nan!” they yelled as the keel drove ashore. “He has been taken from us by a new people who have slain thy son, O Laminai. For half a day we fought with them, but Sru was slain and Nan stands on the reef of Marua [Palm Tree], and never will our crops flourish again.”
This news, delivered so convincingly, hit the whole beach dumb. Laminai, at a stroke, seemed to have forgotten Sru. The people automatically drew back, making a semi-circle, and in this arena the three survivors of the great fight stood facing Laminai and his last son, Ma, a youth of some nineteen years.
He questioned them with a word or two and then, turning, led the way to the great house of the village where, in the shadow of the door, Uta Matu was lying on a mat with his back to the sun.
Uta was an old man now, very different from the man who years ago had led the attack on the Spanish ship. He was so fat and indolent that he had to be turned by his women like a feather bed, and there he lay puffing out his cheeks whilst the three canoe men stood before him and one told their tale of the ravishing of Nan, the great fight and the death of Sru.
Having heard them out, Uta did an astonishing thing. He sat up.
This old gentleman, despite his fat, his indolence, the blood-lust that still clung to him amidst the other lusts, and the fact that his only dress was a gee string, was a statesman of a sort. It was quite easy to call for revenge, to set the village buzzing like a beehive, sharpening spears, and rolling the long canoes out of the canoe houses; yet when the murmur that marked the conclusion of the canoe men’s story began to swell and spread and threatened to break into a roar, Uta Matu raised his hand and cut it off as one cuts off water at the main.
He had to do two things: consult the priestess of Nanawa to see if the war gods were propitious, and consult Ma, admiral-in-chief and dockyard superintendent of the Karolin navy. Being what he was, Uta decided not to worry the gods till he was sure of the navy. He called Ma, and the son of Laminai came and stood before his grandfather and king.
The fleet was ready. That was the report of Ma. The four great canoes, each capable of holding thirty men, were safe in the canoe houses, seaworthy and only recently caulked; the paddles were in their places and the masts and mat sails in readiness.
Now, these canoes were useless for fishing, or at least never used. They were too large and cumbersome and were kept for war. They had been used for the attack on the Spanish ship, and they had been used when the present northern ruling tribe of Karolin had fought the southern tribe living across the lagoon, nearly exterminating it, and chasing the remnants to the beach of Palm Tree[[2]]. Long before that, the navy of Karolin had resisted an attack from a fleet that broke the waters one pink and pearly dawn, a fleet of dusk-sailed canoes from the Paumotus that had vanished for ever, sunk and burnt before the crimson sunset died.
Karolin was a sea power ever ready for eventualities.