The canoe-builder glanced back along the deck past the sleeping figure of Dick to the figure of Poni at the wheel, then he turned his eyes again upon the far-off ship, and now in the sky to the north above and beyond the ship lay something for which he had been on the lookout—the lagoon light of Karolin, almost imperceptible, but there just in the position where Le Moan had said it would be.
The something he had waited and longed for, but spoiled, almost threatened, by this apparition of a ship.
Aioma wanted to have nothing more to do with ships; this traverse in the schooner had turned him clean back towards canoes; for days past, though he had said no word on the matter, all his ancestors had been hammering at the door of his mind shouting, “Aioma, you are a fool, you have forsaken the canoes of your forefathers for this ayat, and see how it has betrayed you, and why? Because it is the invention of the white men, the cursed papalagi who have always brought trouble to Karolin. If we could get at you, Aioma, we would stake you out on the reef for the sharks to eat. You deserve it.”
He had said nothing of this because Aioma never confessed to a fault.
Well there was another ayat, blocking the way to Karolin and sure to bring trouble.
Civilization and trouble had come to be convertible ideas in the mind of this old gentleman who although he did not know the English word that represents greed, brutality, disease, drink, and robbery dressed in self-righteousness, had sensed the fact that the white man always brought trouble.
Well, there it was straight before him heading her off from Karolin. What should he do? Turn and run away from it? Oh, no. Aioma, who had fought the big rays and who was never happier than when at grips with a conger, was not the person to turn his back on danger or threat, especially now with Karolin in view.
This thing lay straight in his path, as if daring him, and he accepted the challenge; they had the speak sticks, there were eight of them not including Le Moan and if it came to a fight—well, he was ready.
Without rousing Dick, he called the fellows up from below, pointed out the ship and then stood watching as she grew.
Now she stood on the water plainly to be seen, a brig with canvas stowed as if in preparation for a blow. If any canvas had been set it must have been blown away by the wind, for she showed nothing but her sticks as she lay rolling gently to the swell.