But Tahuku saw nothing. The reef was solid as of old and the sun was shining on it and he said so.
The canoe-builder shut his eyes and when he opened them again the reef had ceased to lift, but he was weary. Bells rang in his ears and his hands were hot and dry and now after a while and towards midday one of the papalagi—so it seemed to him—had seized him from behind and tied a band round his head, screwing it so tight that he would have screamed had he been an ordinary man.
He lay on the ground, and as he lay a woman, one of the wives of Poni, came running, panting as she ran.
“I burn, I burn!” cried the woman. “Aioma, my sight is going from me; I burn, I burn!” She fell on the ground and Katafa running to her raised her head.
Aioma turning on his side tried to rise but could not, then he laughed.
Then he began to sing. He was fighting the papalagi and killing them, the Spaniards of long ago and the whale men and Carlin and Rantan; his song was a song of victory, yet he was defeated. The white men had got him with the white man’s disease. Measles stood on the beach of Karolin, for the green ship with its cargo of labour had fallen to measles and Aioma in boarding it had sealed his doom.
It was Poni who guessed the truth. He had seen measles before—and now, remembering the ship, he cried out that they were undone, that the devils from the green ship had seized them and that they must die.
He had no need to say that.
Aioma lasted only a day, and the lagoon took him; by then the whole population was down, all but Taori, Katafa, Le Moan and Kanoa.
Kanoa had taken the disease at Vana Vana many years ago and was immune; the others, saved, perhaps, by the European blood in their veins, still resisted the disease.