The dinghy of the Ranatonga was an outsized boat of her type, carvel-built, broad of beam and with plenty of space for their wants. They brought nearly everything down—Nan and the little ships, which they placed in the bow, the two mats on which they slept, the axe and saw, a knife, and a huge bunch of bananas that Dick had cut two days before. Everything they treasured they took away, leaving everything else—the plates, the cooking utensils and all the stuff in the shack behind the house. Then, when they had finished, they got in and Dick, taking the sculls, brought the boat to the cape, where the wild cocoanut and arita bushes spread out over the water. Then, taking in the sculls and seizing the branches, he dragged the boat in, far in, till the branches and bushes covered her entirely and tied up to a root. Then, avoiding the house, they made their bed amidst the trees where Katafa had slept once.
Neither of them spoke of the thing that had been in the depths of their minds since, standing on the hilltop yesterday morning, Dick had pointed to the stain on the southern sky—Karolin. The call that had come to them had remained unspoken of; mysterious as the call of the south to the northern swallow, the call of the great lagoon island would have fetched them at last, as the suck of the whirlpool fetches flotsam remote from it and seemingly beyond attraction, but the scene on the eastern beach to-night had brought them leagues closer to their goal. The instinct to seek Karolin had been joined to the desire for flight. The Morning Light and her crew had acted as the touch of cold that intensifies the swallow’s vision of the palm trees and the south. It was only when, the dinghy loaded and securely hidden, they laid themselves down in the nest of fern that Dick spoke.
“If they stay,” said Dick, “we will go there.”
“Karolin?” said Katafa. “But if the big canoe is not gone, how can we pass it?”
“We will pass it,” said Dick.
He had brought some bananas from the dinghy for their supper. He divided them, and as they ate he sketched the plan that had formulated itself in his mind.
If the new people left to-morrow, it would make no difference—they would start for Karolin; if the new people remained, it would make no difference—they would start all the same. With the slack of the tide to-morrow night, late, when the newcomers were asleep, they would put down the lagoon and make past the big canoe for the break; the big canoe would not stop them.
He spoke with the assurance of daring and power, but quietly, as though he were speaking of some ordinary matter.
They would sail for the south, “é Naya.” The wind from the north that had been dying and waking again all day was blowing strong again. It would last like that for days; it was the prevailing wind of the year and the moon was a fair-weather moon.
Then he went calmly to sleep, with Katafa’s arm across him, but she could not sleep.