“Aioma,” said Nanu, “there is one little canoe which is yet whole, it lies in the further canoe-house, so far in that it has been forgotten; it belonged to my man, the father of my child, he who went with the others but did not return. I have never spoken of it and no one has seen it, for no one goes into the canoe-houses now that the great canoes are gone.”
“Then let it be fetched,” said Aioma. He stood whilst a dozen of the crowd broke away and racing towards the trees disappeared in the direction of the canoe-houses. Presently the canoe, a fishing outrigger, showed on the water of the lagoon, two boys at the paddles. They beached it close to the boat, the dead children were lashed to the gratings with strips of coconut sennit, Rantan, raised by half a dozen pairs of hands, was lifted and placed in the bottom of the little craft, and the women, pushing off, got on board, and raised the sail.
The steering paddle flashed and the crowd stood watching as the canoe grew less on the surface of the water, less and less, making for the southern beach, till now it was no larger than a midge in the lagoon dazzle that, striking back at the sun, roofed Karolin with a forty-mile dome of radiance.
CHAPTER VII—THE VISION
Now when Katafa led Le Moan away into the shelter of the trees, Le Moan, with the kiss of Katafa warm upon her forehead, knew nothing, nothing of the fact that Katafa was Taori’s, the dream and treasure of his life, beside whom all other living things were shadows.
And Katafa knew nothing, nothing of the fact that Taori was Le Moan’s—was Le Moan; for Le Moan had so dreamed him into herself that the vision of him had become part of herself inseparable for ever.
Ringed and ringed with ignorance, ignorance of their own race, and the affinity between them, of the fact that they and Taori formed amongst the people of Karolin a little colony alien in blood and soul, of the fact that Taori was their common desire, they went between the trees, Katafa leading the way towards the house of Uta Matu, above which Nan on his pole still grinned towards the schooner, grinned without nodding, maybe because the wind that had moved him had ceased.
Katafa, taking the sleeping mat used by her and Taori, spread it on the floor of the house, then she offered food, but Le Moan refused, she only wanted sleep. For nights she had not slept and the kiss that Katafa again pressed upon her brow seemed to her the kiss of a phantom in a dream as she sank down and died to the world on the bed of the lover who knew nothing of her love.
It was still morning.
Outside in the blazing sun the people of Karolin went about their business, mending the wall of the house that had been broken, preparing food for the newcomers, rejoicing in the new life that had come back to them. Whilst in the lagoon the anchored schooner swung to her moorings, deserted and without sign of life, for Dick had decided that no one should board her till he and Aioma led the way, that is till the morrow, for there were many things to be attended to first.