The absurdity of this idea never struck him; he just “had it in his mind” as an easy way of accounting for the matter, and to-night, in face of this second offence, his wrath rose up against the girl as it had never risen before. Everything conspired—the heat, the want of sleep, the quarrel with Dick, and the long hump-backed antagonism she had constructed against herself by snatching Dick away into Kanaka land and making him talk her lingo—her very youth was against her to-night. It was her youth that had made her companion with Dick. Kearney had killed men in his time, and the years of soft island life, the companionship of the child, the absence of drink, whilst softening him, had not destroyed the fierce something which was not Kearney and which could wake under stimulus to strike, regardless of consequences.
Guiding the dinghy across the water, he was steering straight for murder. Not intentional murder, but the murder we come on in the slums when men of Kearney’s type, urged to the deed by a nagging wife or gone-wrong daughter, and assisted maybe by alcohol, suddenly give loose to themselves and maim or kill.
His project was to land unobserved if possible, and then go for her with a scull, bowl her over, and then beat the devil out of her once and for all with his fists. He’d “l’arn” her this time, sure.
Less than half-way across, he drew in his sculls and then, with a single scull at the stern, began working the boat almost noiselessly towards the reef. He could see her now standing by the fire and feeding it, the cairngorm light of the flames upon her face and arms. It was a big fire and lit the reef, the lagoon water and the foam of the gently curling waves. Great fish, attracted by the light, were swimming in the waters of the lagoon, nosing about the reef. The news had gone far and wide that something was doing, and could Nature, who has her own methods of warning men and beasts, have expressed herself in writing, with fire for ink, above the breaking foam would have appeared the words: “The Reef Is Dangerous To-night.”
Then, as Kearney drew closer, the girl, who had suddenly turned and sighted him, broke away from the fire and ran.
He drew in the scull, took his seat, and, seizing the other scull, rowed as if rowing a race. The nose of the dinghy crashed against the coral. He sprang out, secured her, and turned, scull in hand.
The girl was gone.
Beyond the fire-glow he thought he saw her for a moment, but the light dazzled his eyes, and when he put it behind him he could see nothing but the starlit coral, its humps and dips and pools, the foam of the waves and the tranquil mirror of the lagoon.
He knew quite well what had become of her—she had dipped into one of the reef pools; they were the only possible places of concealment. She had not taken to the lagoon—he could see that at a glance—for the water lay unrippled and a swimmer’s head would have shown even more clearly than by day. He came along, grasping the scull, with the anger of the balked hunter now at his heart. He looked into the first great pool—nothing, only a trapped fish flitting like a ghost here and there, its shadow ghost following it across the white coral sand of the bottom.
He rose and was moving on, when a great undulation came in the lagoon water, flowing from behind him and spreading to the west.