Isbel, who never ate with them now by any chance, and who had voluntarily debased herself from the position of companion to the condition of servant, went off and left them to their food. The sun sank behind the reef, and in a sky of pansy blue the first vague sketch of the constellation began to show itself to the darkening sea. Then almost as though touched off by a taper, the stars blazed out, crusting with light the whole dome from the sea line to the zenith. It was the night before the new moon, and always on these nights when the whole lighting of the world was left to the stars a deeper peace seemed to pervade the island and the ocean and the sky. The voice of the reef seemed to sink lower, and the night wind to blow warmer, and the lagoon to hold in its depths a profounder calm.
The wind to-night brought faint odors of vanilla and frangipanni from the trees of the grove, and across the lagoon a trace of song from the camping place by the fishing ground. The natives were amusing themselves, and the light of their camp fire showed like a red spark across the starlit water.
The two men on the beach sat smoking and watching the schooner as she rode to her anchor, with a single light showing. The Kanaka crew, whom Schumer had always kept apart from the labor men, were on deck, and their forms could be seen indistinctly in the starlight as they lounged about, smoking and yarning. A fellow was fishing over the after rail, and now and then one could see a splash in the water and a streak of silver, as a groper was hauled up.
Faint and far away and coming, no doubt, from the fo'c'sle could be heard the strains of a concertina playing a thready and wandering air, while occasionally across the lagoon from the deep soundings came the splash of a great fish jumping, while the ring of it spread in a circle of silver on the water.
CHAPTER XVI
SCHUMER GOES AWAY
They got the water on board next day, and the day following they were up before dawn to catch the slack of the tide which was due an hour after sunrise. It would then be still water at the break in the reef.
Schumer had made all his last preparations the night before. He would breakfast on board the schooner when she was free of the lagoon, and as Floyd rowed him across in the dinghy, the sky over the eastern reef was paling, and the stars above, that had been leaping all night like hearts of fire, showed signs of the coming day.
When Schumer was on board, Floyd pushed off again, having wished him good luck, and then hung on his oars half a cable length away, watching the preparations for departure.