Rantan walked forward. Right ahead, rosy above the brimming sea, lay the cloud scarf of Levua.
Still a great way off, facing the blazing east, the island, clear of any trace of morning bank, seemed to float between the blue of sea and sky, remote, more lovely than any dream.
When Rantan turned aft again he found Le Moan standing by Sru at the wheel. Sru was explaining to her how the wheel worked the “steering paddle” in the stern. The Kermadec was close hauled, every sail drawing. Sru was explaining this matter and showing how the least bit closer to the wind would set the sails shivering and take the way off the ship. Le Moan understood. Sea craft was born in her, and used now to the vast sail spaces of the schooner, she felt no fear—the Kermadec was only a canoe after all, of a larger build and different make.
He let her hold the spokes for a moment, governing the wheel with a guiding hand, then at the risk of the schooner being taken aback, he stood aside and the girl had the helm.
The Kermadec for a moment showed no sign that the wheel had changed hands, then, suddenly, a little warning flutter passed through the canvas from the luff of the mainsail, passed and ceased and the sail became hard again. Le Moan had understood, understood instinctively, that ceaseless pressure against the lee bow which tends to push a vessel’s head up into the wind.
For a moment Taori, Karolin, the very presence of Sru were forgotten, the words that Sru had spoken to her only a little while before, “You will soon see Taori, little one, but first you must learn to use the steering paddle.” Everything was forgotten in the first new grip of the power that was in her to hold all those great sail spaces filling, to play such a great game with the wind and the sea.
Aioma had taught her to steer her fishing canoe, but so long ago that she could not remember the first time she had the paddle to herself; but this was different, different as the kiss of a lover from the kiss of a friend—something that reached her soul; it was different as the sight of Taori from the sight of other men, great, thrilling, lifting her above herself, creative.
Utterly ignorant of the mechanism that moved the rudder as a man is ignorant of the mechanism that moves his arm, after the first few minutes of the great new experience she could not do wrong. She knew nothing of the compass, she only knew that she was to keep the ship close hauled as Sru had been keeping her, so close that a fraction nearer the wind would spill the sails. Sru watched her and Rantan, forgetting his pipe, stood with his eyes fixed on her. Both men recognized that the ship was safe for the moment. One might have thought them admiring the picture that she made against the blue sky and the glory of morning, but the interest in their eyes was neither the interest of the roused æsthetic sense, nor of love, nor of passion, nor of seamanship.
As they stood, suddenly, and as though Tragedy had staged the scene for some viewless audience, the head and shoulders of Peterson appeared at the saloon hatch opening.
Rantan, his face mottled with white, stared at Peterson, Sru drawing the back of his hand across his nose as if wiping it, stood on one foot, then on the other, confused, looking like a dog that has been misbehaving itself. Le Moan saw nothing.