Dick, listening, with Katafa’s arm about him, knew what had happened, but he did not know all, or how that the red-bearded man, the owner of the schooner and the terrible personality that had dominated the expedition, being put out of count, the New Hebrideans, armed with their tree-cutting axes, had risen in revolt. That of the four white men and the dozen Polynesian sailors of the schooner, not one man remained alive; that a hundred and forty Nahanesians held the island in their grasp, the schooner and the trade goods and rum on board of her.
At one stroke the club of Ma had done this work of magic with no magic to help it but that of its own perfect balance and the personality of its wielder.
Safe-hidden in the bushes, they heard the sounds from the sward die down. Then came silence, broken only by the old tune of the reef, the whisper of the wind and the sounds of the birds in the branches.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE FÊTE OF DEATH
It was close on midnight and the ebb, running strong, showed through the branches an occasional lazy swirl on the moonlit lagoon water.
At the break it was racing strong, but here the water seemed hardly to move. The wind still held from the north, and as Dick untied from the tree roots, it parted and closed the branches above, showering Katafa with moonlight and shadow. He pushed off with a scull and before he could take his seat again, the current, lazy though it looked, had slewed the bow of the little boat right round.
They had settled to get away when the schooner people were asleep, but sleep was far from the island that night, to judge by the vague sounds that came from the east between the breathings of the wind.
But the tide was outrunning and the hour was come, and Dick was not of the order that waits for a better opportunity.
Stepping the mast with the sail lightly brailed and ready to break out, he took the sculls, and the moonlit glade and the cape of wild cocoanuts passed behind them out of sight for ever.