“They are still on Marua; they have no canoes but they will build them, and surely they will come.”
Neither of Aioma’s companions said a word whilst Aioma stood looking at the ground as if consulting it, then his eyes rose to Dick’s face. Age and war had made Aioma wise, he knew men and he knew Truth when he saw her.
“I will do your bidding, Taori,” said he quite simply, then he turned to the others, spoke some words to them, giving directions what to do till his return, and led the way to the canoe.
Le Moan, still crouching by the well, said nothing. Her eyes were fixed on Dick, this creature so new, so different from any one she had ever seen. Perhaps the race spirit was telling her that here was a being of her father’s race miraculously come to Karolin, perhaps she was held simply by the grace and youth of the newcomer—who knows?
Dick, as he turned, noticed her fully for the first time and as their eyes met, he paused, held by her gaze and the strangeness of her appearance, so different from that of the other natives. For a moment his mind seemed trapped, then as his eyes fell he passed on and taking the steering paddle pushed off, the wind from the reef-break filling the sail of the canoe.
Le Moan, rising and shading her eyes, stood watching as the sail grew less across the sparkling water, watching as the canoe rose and fell on the swell setting in from the break, watching as it reached the far white line of the northern beach where Katafa was waiting for the return of her lover.
CHAPTER III—THE LITTLE SHIPS
The primitive canoe of the Pacific is a dugout—the trunk of a tree hollowed and shaped into the form of a boat, so narrow in proportion to its length as to be absolutely unstable but for the outrigger.
The outrigger, a long skate-shaped piece of wood fixed to port—always to port—by poles on a central bridge, is an apology to the sea for want of beam, and the sea accepts it—on conditions. But for the outrigger, no canoe of any size would dare the sea, but for it the islands would have been sealed as between themselves, war made impossible, and the drift of people between island and island and between island and continent.
Far away in the remote past some man once stood, the father of this daring invention; little dreaming of the vast consequences of the work to which he had put his hand.