Stanistreet had taken the wheel, Bowers the lookout, and the Ranatonga, no longer dead before the wind, was travelling on a bow line that would take her a mile to eastward of the land. The break in the reef lay to the east.
They held on. The breeze still freshened, and the splendour of the day and the blueness of the sea took on an extraordinary freshness and gaiety. Under the lash of the wind and the sun, the diamond dash and sparkle of northern summer seas lent a heart-catching subtlety to the vision of the island with its coral reef and far trembling palms; and now, across the foam-broken swell, came a sound like the voices of voyage-weary sailor men howling in chorus—it was the gulls of the reef, and another sound like the hush of a mother to her child—the voice of the reef itself.
It was near high tide and the sleeting foam could be seen racing on the coral, as now, with the island almost on the starboard beam, the break came slowly to view, with the palm tree on its northern pier.
A moment more the Ranatonga held on, then, as the wheel went over to the rattle of the rudder chains, the main boom swung, hung for a moment supported by the topping lifts, and then lashed out to port, the bowsprit pointing straight for the break.
Lestrange, his hand on the starboard rail, stood with his eyes fixed on the vision before him—the home of his children. He had never dreamed of anything like this, all his visions of paradise fell to dust before what he saw, what he heard, what he felt, as the schooner, heeling to the wind, made like an arrow for the break.
Gulls raced them and the foam roared aft, rail-high and dashing the decks with spray. Wind, flood, sun and sea, gulls and the waving palm trees—all, with the shifting of the helm, had broken into new life. The glass-green rollers on the outer beach were breaking now to port and starboard, and now, in one miraculous moment, the break was passed and the great sea was gone—transformed into a silent lake of azure.
CHAPTER V
THE GARDEN OF GOD
The Ranatonga on a level keel, and spilling the wind from her sails, came round in a great curve on the dazzling water, her great shadow following her across the coral gardens of the lagoon floor. Then the rumble of the anchor chain echoed and passed away in the woods, and ship and shadow swung slowly to the tide and came to rest.
To port lay the reef booming to the blue and to starboard the island beach of white coral sand, answering the reef with a thudding song, whilst north and south the two arms of the lagoon, curving, lost themselves beyond capes where the banyans and palms trooped to the very water.