They were his earliest recollection, they were his toys; they had never ceased to be his toys, he who could kill so well and fight so bravely had never tired of them as playthings, playthings sometimes used in play, sometimes forgotten, but always remembered again. Then they were more than that; who can tell how much more, for who can see into the subliminal mind or tell what dim ghosts hiding in the under mind of Dick were connected with these things—Kearney surely, Lestrange and the men of the Rarotonga, perhaps. Palm Tree and his life on that enchanted island, certainly.
It was as though Fate, in taking his toys, had cut a cord attaching him to his past and the last remnant of civilization. How completely the hand of Fate had done its work he was yet to know.
The stars showed through the momentary gauze of dusk, and then blazed out over a world of night.
Le Moan, who had refused a mat, was nowhere to be seen. She had slunk away into the tree shadows, where, sitting with her back to a tree bole, she could, unobserved, see the reef and the figure of Dick seated brooding, Katafa’s form on the mat where she had lain down to wait for Dick, the foam lifting in the starlight and the sea stars beyond the foam.
What the cassi flowers had said still lingered in the mind of Le Moan.
In that mind so simple, so subtle, so indefinite, so wildly strong, had grown since the night before an energy, calm, patient, sure of itself: a power so large and certain that the thought of Katafa did not even stir jealousy; a passion that could not reason but yet could say, “He is mine, beside me all things are nothing—I want only time.”
Katafa had ruined her imaginary world only to create from the ruins this giant whose heart was determination.
Amidst the trees Kanoa, resting on his elbow, could see Le Moan as she sat, her head just outlined in the starlight.
The mind of Kanoa formed a strange contrast to that of the girl. In his mind there was no surety, no calm. Though he had rescued Le Moan, his heart told him that her heart was far from him, she had no eyes for him and though she did not avoid him, he might have been a tree or a rock, so little did his presence move her—and yet, if only she would look at him once, give him recognition by even the lifting of a finger, all his weakness would be turned to strength, his longing to fire.
Presently as the moon rose high, Le Moan’s head sank from sight. She had lain herself down and the lovesick one, turning on his side, closed his eyes.