Few men had ever seen Rantan. The silent, quiet, sunburnt man of ordinary times was not Rantan. This was Rantan, this mad figure yelling hatred, radiating revenge, mad to kill.
Rantan robbed of his pearl lagoon, of his ship, of his prospect of wealth, ease, wine and women—by kanakas; Rantan whom kanakas had bound with a sheet and dumped into a canoe; Rantan whom two kanaka women—women!—women, mind you—had trodden on, and whom they had been preparing to scrape to death slowly inch by inch with oyster shells, and burn bit by bit with hot sticks.
This was the real Rantan raised to his nth power by injuries, insults, and the escape from a terrible death.
Ona dashed for the canoe, maybe with some blind idea to get hold of the other paddle to defend herself with, but he had the speed of her and headed her off; she made for the rough coral of the outer beach but he headed her off; time and again he could have closed with her and killed her, but the sight of her frizzy head, her face, her figure, and the fact that she was a woman, filled him with a counter rage that spared her for the moment. He could have chased her for ever, killing her a thousand times in his mind, had his strength been equal to his hatred; but he could not chase her for ever, and, suddenly, with a smashing blow he brought her to ground, beat the life out of her and stood gasping, satiated and satisfied.
Only for a moment. The sight of Nanu lying where he had felled her brought him running. She had fallen near the heap of oyster shells, the fire that she had built was still burning, the stick which she had pressed against his foot was close to her. She had recovered consciousness and as she lay, her eyes wide open, she saw him stand above her, the paddle uplifted, and that was the last thing she saw in this world.
He came down to the water’s edge and sat, squatting, the paddle beside him and his eyes fixed away over the water to where the schooner was visible, a toy ship no larger than the model of the Rarotonga, swinging to the outgoing tide.
Beyond the schooner the trees that hid the village were just visible.
He was free, free for the moment, but still in the trap of the lagoon.
Free, but stripped of everything; absolutely naked, without even shoes.
He was thinking in pictures; pictures now vague, now clear ran through his mind, the shooting up of the lagoon, the figure of Dick swimming off towards him and Carlin as they were firing from the boat, the fight in the cabin, the killing of Carlin—and again Dick.