“I’m good enough to get there,” replied Rantan. “Well, think it over, we’ve time in our hands and no need to hurry. But remember there’s no knowing the money in the business, and if it comes to doing it, don’t you worry about risks; I’m not a man to take more than ordinary risks and I’ll fix everything.”
Then he turned away and walked aft leaving Carlin leaning on the rail.
Whatever Carlin’s start in life may have been, he was now beach-worn like one of the old cans you find tossing about the reef flung away by the kanakas—label gone, and nothing to indicate its past contents. The best men in the world would wilt on the beach, and that’s the truth; the beach, that is to say sun and little to do—the sun kills or demoralizes more men than whiskey; to be born to the sun, you must be born in the sun, like Katafa, like Dick, like Le Moan; you must never have worn clothes.
Sometimes a white man is sun proof inside and out, but rarely. Carlin was sun proof on the outside, his skin stood the pelting of the terrible invisible rays; he throve on it; but internally he had gone to pieces.
He had one ambition, whiskey—or rum, or gin, or even samshu, but whiskey for choice.
There was whiskey on the Kermadec, but not for Carlin. Peterson, as sober a man as Rantan, kept it, just as he kept the Viterli rifles in the arms rack, for use in an emergency. It was under lock and key, but Carlin had smelt it out.
Its presence on board was like the presence of an evil genius, invisible, but there and exercising its power; it kept reminding him of Rantan’s words at supper that night, and when he turned in and even in his sleep its work went on; he saw in his dreams the vessel heading for the unknown pearl island towards the golden light of fortune and unlimited whiskey, he was on her deck with Rantan in command and Peterson was not there.
The dream said nothing about Peterson, totally ignored him, and Peterson, on deck at that moment, had no idea that the beachcomber was dreaming of the Kermadec off her course and without her skipper.
Next day in the morning watch, Sru was at the wheel and Rantan, a pipe in his mouth, stood by the weather rail, the sun had just risen shattering the night and spreading gold across the breezed up blue of the swell.
The sunrise came to the Kermadec like the sudden clap of a hot hand: Sru felt it on his back and Rantan on his cheek. From away to windward came the cry of a gull, a gull passed overhead with domed wings circled as if inspecting the schooner and drifted off on the wind. Almost at the same moment, came the cry of the kanaka lookout. “Land!”