She could not make his figure out amongst the crowd, it was too far, and yet he was surely there.
She watched.
The boat drew on towards the beach. Then at the distance of a couple of hundred yards the oarsmen ceased rowing and she floated idly and scarcely drifting—for it was slack water, the flood having ceased. One might have thought the men on board of her were fishing or just lazing in the sun—anything but the truth.
Then Le Moan saw a tiny puff of smoke from the boat’s side, a figure amongst the crowd on the beach sprang into the air and fell, and on the still air came the far-off crack of a rifle.
Carlin had got his man. He was an indifferent shot but he could scarcely have missed as he fired into the brown of the crowd. Rantan, no better a shot, fired immediately after and by some miracle nobody was hit.
Then as Le Moan watched, she saw the crowd break to pieces and vanish amongst the trees, leaving only two figures on the beach, one lying on the sands and one standing erect and seeming to threaten the boat with upflung arm. It was Taori. Her sight as though it had gained telescopic power told her at once that it was Taori.
She saw him bend and catch up the fallen figure in his arms and as he turned to the trees with it, the boat fired again, but missed him. Another shot rang out before he reached the trees, but he vanished unscathed, and quiet fell on the beach and lagoon, broken only by the clamour of gulls disturbed by the firing.
Le Moan changed her place, the ebb was beginning to run and the schooner to swing with it. She came forward and took her position near the foc’sle head, her eyes still fixed on the boat and beach. From the foc’sle came the sound of an occasional snore from the kanakas who had turned in and were sleeping like dogs.
Four fishing canoes lay on the sands near the trees, and now as she watched, she saw the boat under way again pulling in to the beach. The rowers tumbled out and the boat pushed off a few yards with only the two white men in her whilst the landing party made for the canoes and began to smash them up.
Sru—she could tell him by his size—wielded the ax, two others helped in the business with great lumps of loose coral, whilst the fourth stood watch.