As I have said, the lagoon here was very broad and broken by coral ridges that made navigation difficult; great ponds and narrow passages of diamond-bright water showed a floor ablaze with live or dingy dead and rotten coral. Coloured fish, haliotis shells, crabs and jellyfish showed as clearly as seen through air, and as they rowed, Lestrange, leaning over, gazed as interested as a child.
“Oh, them,” said Jim, his attention being called to a school of jellyfish, disc-shaped, adorned with purple buttons and projecting themselves through the water by the simple act of opening and closing like umbrellas. “Them’s pikers, seen ’em as big as a ship’s tops’l in the waters over by Howland—Howland, sir, it’s one of them line islands, east of the Gilberts.—Yes, sir, there’s fish to feed the fleet in this lagoon and I’ll be getting busy with the lines to-morrow. Fond o’ fishin’, are you, sir? Well, you’ll have your choice and plenty when we get the lines rigged. Step careful.”
He held the boat up to the reef coral whilst Lestrange got out. Then, having fastened her by tying the painter to a spike of rock, they stood looking.
The sound of the surf had been loudening as they crossed from the land. Here, facing the fresh sea breeze, the full roar of the breakers came to them, whilst to right and left the great low-tide outer beach lay bombarded by the ocean, flown across by gulls and showing in the golden light of early evening the rock pools left like bits of mirror by the retreating sea. Coral sings, and mixed with the voices of the waves the inner voice of the reef could be heard, a vague, chanting sound, remote and bell-like.
Here, standing with the sound of the sea and the reef in one’s ears, the island world took a new colour and a new atmosphere, altering according to the time of day from the gaiety of morning to the loneliness of evening.
“Look!” cried the sailor. “That’s her.”
He pointed away to where far at sea the white sails of the Ranatonga showed the sun full on them. There was a lump of coral worn smooth by weather just here. Lestrange took his seat on it and whilst Kearney pottered about examining the contents of the rock pools, the cuttle-fish bones and reef debris, he sat, his eyes fixed on the distant sail and his thoughts travelling far beyond.
A long time passed till footsteps roused him from his reverie. It was Kearney, a vast and edible crab—its claws bound with seaweed—in one hand, a crawfish in the other.
“Look!” said Lestrange, as he rose to his feet. “She is nearly gone.”
The sailor looked. Hull down, almost washed from sight by evening and distance, the Ranatonga showed her canvas to the sunset like a flake of golden spar. Less and less it grew, till at last the eye that chanced to lose it failed to find it again.