The Gates of Morning

by H. De Vere Stacpoole

Rantan, when they cast him in the fishing canoe, could see nothing but the roughly shaped sides, bright here and there where the scale of a palu had stuck and dried, the after outrigger pole, the blue sky above the gunnel and the heads of the crowd by the waterside.

By raising himself a little he might have glimpsed the two dead children tied to the outrigger gratings, but he could not raise himself, nor had he any desire to do so.

He knew the islands, he had heard what passed between Aioma and the women, and as they carried him from the boat to the canoe, he had seen the dead children tied on the gratings. What his fate was to be at the hands of Ona and Nanu he could not tell, nor did he try to imagine it.

All being ready, the stem of the canoe left the beach, the two women scrambling on board as it was waterborne. Nanu sat aft and Ona forward, trampling on Rantan’s body with her naked feet as she got there. The paddles splashed and the spray came inboard striking Rantan on the face, but he did not mind; neither did he mind the heat of the steadily rising sun, nor the heel of Ona as she dropped her paddle for a moment and raised the sail.

Sometimes he closed his eyes to shut out the sight of Nanu, who was steering, her eyes fixed on the sail; sometimes on the beach ahead, never or scarcely ever on Rantan.

Sometimes he could hear Ona’s voice. She was just behind his head holding on to the mast and trimming the canoe by moving now to the left or right—her voice came calling out some directions to the other and then sharp as the voice of Ona came the cry of a seagull that flew with them for a moment, inspecting the dead children on the gratings till the flashing paddle and the shouts of Nanu drove it away.

And now as the sun grew hotter, a vague odour of corruption filled the air, passed away with the back draught from the sail yet returned again, whilst the murmur of the northern beach that had died down behind them became merged in the wash of the waves on the southern coral.

Then as the place of their revenge drew close to them and they could see the deserted shacks, the long line of empty beach and the coconut trees in their separate groups, Nanu seemed to awake to the presence of Rantan. She glanced at him and laughed, and steering all the time, with side flashes of the paddle pointed him out to Ona whose laughter came from behind him, shrill, sharp and done with in a moment.

Truly Rantan wished that he had never embarked on this voyage, never seen Peterson, never left him for dead away there on Levua; bitterly did he repent his temerity in coming into Karolin lagoon and his stupidity in trying to shoot it up.

Sometimes, long ago, he had amused himself by imagining what might be the worst fate of a man at sea, shipwreck, slow starvation, death from thirst, from sharks, from fire. He had never imagined anything like his present position, never imagined himself in the hands of two women of the Islands, whose children he had been instrumental in murdering, two women who were taking him off to a desolate beach to do with him as they pleased. He could tell the approach of the beach by the face of Nanu and the outcries of Ona. Sometimes Ona would give his body a kick to emphasize what she was saying, which was Greek to Rantan. So sharp was her voice, so run together the words, that her speech was like a sword inscribed with unintelligible threats.