They passed the palm tree in the northern pier of the break as an arrow passes the mark, tossed to the meeting of current and flood, and with sail filling again headed south against the long heave of the Pacific. Behind them lay the glow of the still burning wreck, which was seen that night at Karolin.
CHAPTER XXXIX
FROM GARDEN TO GARDEN LIKE SEEDS ON THE WIND
Here there was peace. The great dark swell coming up and passing in the moonlight, the following wind, the stars—nothing remained but these, these and the whisper of the reef far astern, and the far glow of the burning ship.
Katafa steered, the great bunch of bananas up against her legs, Nan on his stick beside her, the head of Nan hanging over the transom like the head of a person contemplating seasickness.
They had never thought of dishonouring him by taking him off his stick. He was something real to them, and, without thinking back and putting things together, they felt that he was an influence in their lives.
He was. Only for him Sru would not have landed to be killed, the army and navy of Karolin would never have sailed to break the charm of taminan. Only for him the idea of making a mast for the dinghy would never have occurred to Dick, for it was the cut sapling that gave him the idea. Only for the mast the idea of journeying to Karolin would never have arisen.
Nan had literally put the club of Ma into the hands of Dick; the blazing schooner, the dread white men, the revolt of the Melanesians, all these were part of the work of Nan, who seemed only a cocoanut, but was yet an idea. The fish, the bread-fruit, the water beaker, and all the odds and ends they had brought away were stowed some in the stern sheets and some amidships, whilst in the bow reposed the little ships, like the toys of these children who had never learned to play with toys, but with men and events and with Destiny itself.
The wind blew steady and strong from the north.
Palm Tree had never depended on the trades. Owing to the influence of the Low Archipelago, the Trade Law did not hold either here or at Karolin; neither could the strength of the northern-runnning current be depended on—south winds increased its rate of flow. North winds decreased it. To-night the dinghy had to face only a knot-and-a-half current.