Le Jennabon had given it to her daughter as a protection against drowning and mischance. More than that it was a love amulet, making sure for the girl a happy married life with a man who would not misuse her. Love amulet or not Le Jennabon had given to her daughter a talisman of extraordinary power. Exposed by the wind for a moment, it had spoken to Sru. It said clearly as tongue could speak, “Karolin is a pearl lagoon.” Then as Le Moan raised her hand and tucked the hair back behind her ear, Sru, who had paused in his eating, went on with his food, his dark eyes fixed beyond Peroii, beyond the vision of deck and mast and standing rigging, beyond all things visible, upon wealth: cases of tobacco and rum in many bottles, girls, clay pipes, a gun, and boxes of Swedish matches to strike at pleasure. Karolin lagoon held all these things, the pearl behind Le Moan’s ear told him that for a certainty, but Karolin was far astern and he would never see it again, that also was a certainty and before it the heart of Sru became filled with bitterness. A few minutes ago he had been happy and free of care, now his soul was dark as the sea becomes dark with a squall suddenly rising and blowing up out of a clear sky. He had discovered a pearl lagoon—too late. Leaving the others to finish their meal, he rose up and dropped below into the foc’sle, there curled up in his bunk in the gloom he lay to consider this matter.
It was useless to speak of it to Peterson, he would never put the ship back; even if he did he, Sru, would profit little by the matter. He would maybe get a few sticks of tobacco for telling of it, or a knife. Peterson, though kind-hearted enough to rescue Le Moan, was a hard man where bargaining with natives was concerned. Sru had an intimate knowledge of white men, or at least white traders and their ways, and Peterson was a white man to the core.
Then as he lay facing this fact, the idea of Rantan came before him.
Rantan who could talk to him in his own tongue like a brother, who was half a native as far as language and ideas went, and yet was a white man.
Though Rantan had no power to put the ship back, it came into Sru’s mind that somehow or in some way this man, clever as all the papalagi were, might be able to do something in the matter. Eased by this idea he turned out of the bunk and came on deck.
The sunset was just vanishing from the sky where in the pansy dusk the constellations were sketching themselves above the vague violet of the sea. Then, suddenly, like the closing of a door, the west went dark and the stars blazed out and bloomed in full sight. The wind, moist, and warm, blew steadily, and Sru, standing in the draught from the head sails, looked about him, forward at the bowsprit rising and falling against the sea stars and aft where the white decks showed, the man at the wheel clearly visible and someone leaning on the weather rail, Carlin to judge by his bulk.
Rantan was nowhere to be seen.
Close to Sru and hunched against some rope coiled by the windlass he saw a figure. It was Le Moan. She was seated with her knees up and her hands round her knees, and she seemed asleep—but she was not asleep, for as Sru’s eyes fell on her, her face lifted and he saw the glint of her eyes in the starlight. Those mournful eyes that ever since her departure from Karolin seemed like the eyes of a person in trance, of a dreamer who was yet conscious of some great and real disaster.
Sru instantly forgot Rantan. It seemed that somewhere deep in his shadowy mind something had linked Le Moan with the pearl lagoon and any chance of success in finding it again, raiding it, and turning milk-white chatoyant pearls into sticks of tobacco, bottles of rum, clay pipes and beads to buy love with.
She had given him the indication of what was there, but it seemed to him that she could do more than that.