Uta lost touch with life. For days he would neither speak nor eat. Then, one morning, he called for Le Juan, and she came, her knees knocking together.
“Well,” said Uta in a voice suddenly grown strong again, “what have you done with my men? What have you done with Laminai, my son, with his son and the men who went with him? Speak!”
The wretched creature stood without a word. She had been honest; born of a priestess to Nanawa, and brought up in the faith, she had always served faithfully her belief and her god.
She knew his trickery, his capriciousness; how sometimes he would answer a wish favourably and sometimes he would do exactly the reverse of what was desired. He had let her down now once and for all. She could tell that by the light in Uta’s eye, which meant death to her.
But though honest, her heart was wicked, and her wicked heart came now to her assistance and she found her voice.
“It is not my fault, O Uta,” said Le Juan, “nor the fault of him who speaks through me. Last night in my dreams he revealed his form, and his voice was like the voice of the reef when the great waves come in. The men of Karolin are held by Nanawa, the shark-toothed one, nor will he let them go till a woman of Karolin is given to him, O Kai O fai kanaka [to be staked out on the reef for the sharks to eat].”
“And the name of the woman?” asked Uta.
“It has not been told to me yet,” replied the wretched creature, fighting for time in the presence of imminent death.
But Uta had suddenly failed and lost interest. The spurt of energy had passed and the light of rage had faded from his eyes. Perhaps in his inmost heart he knew that nothing availed, that his men had gone where the dead men go, and that all the women of Karolin staked out on the reef for the servants of the shark-toothed one to devour would be a sacrifice offered in vain.
He moved his hand as if dismissing Le Juan. “To-morrow,” said Uta. Then, turning on his side, he seemed to forget things, and Le Juan took her departure, saved for the moment.