The people died on the coral or cast themselves burning into the lagoon and were seized by the sharks, who knew.
And to Le Moan as she watched them, it was not the green sickness that did the work, but she herself.
She had brought this curse on Karolin. She had brought the schooner and the white men, she had taken the schooner to meet the green ship; it was the mother of her mother, Le Juan, who was reaching through her to slay and slay. Aioma in a lucid interval before he died had seized her by the hands and told her this, but she had no need of the telling of Aioma. She knew. And she watched, helpless and uncaring. She could do nothing, and the people passed, vanished like ghosts, died like flies, whilst the wind blew gently and the sun shone and the gulls fished and dawn came ever beautiful as of old through the Gates of Morning.
CHAPTER XII—THE RELEASE OF LE MOAN
One night, when the disease seemed past and only ten people were left of all those who had watched the burning of the schooner, Le Moan, sleeping by Kanoa, was awakened by Katafa.
Katafa was weeping.
She seized Le Moan by the hands and raising her without waking Kanoa, led her to the house above which Nan still stood frizzy-headed in the moonlight.
In the house on a mat Dick was lying tossing his head from side to side and talking in a strange tongue.
Talking the language of his early childhood, calling out to Kearney whom he had long forgotten, but whom he remembered now.
The green sickness had seized Dick—resisted for days and days it had him at last.