It was the hour of dawn, and the native at the tiller sang, as the stars began to pale before the red flush that tinged the sky to windward, a low chant of farewell to Fetuaho, the star of the morning, and then he called to Brantley, who to all his crew was always "Paranili," and never "Kapeni [Captain]," and pointed with his naked, tattooed arm away to leeward, where the low outlines of an island began to show.
"Look, Paranili, that is Tatakoto, the place I have told thee of, where the turtle makes the white beach to look black. Would it not be well for us to take some home to Vahitahi?"
"Thou glutton!" said Brantley, good-humouredly, "dost thou think I am like to lose a day so that thou and thy friends may fill thy stomachs with turtle meat?"
Rua Manu laughed, and showed his white, even teeth. "Nay, Paranili, not for that alone; but it is a great place, that Tatakoto, and thou hast never landed there to look, and Luita hath said that some day she would ask thee to take her there; for, though she was born at Vahitahi, her blood is that of the people of Tatakoto, who have long since lain silent in the MARAES."
Brantley had often heard her speak of it, this solitary spot in the wide Pacific, and now, as he looked at the pretty, verdure-clad island against the weather shore of which the thundering rollers burst with a muffled roar, he was surprised at its length and extent, and decided to pay it a visit some day.
"Not now, Rua," he said to the steersman, "but it shall be soon. Are there many coconuts there?"
"Many? May I perish, but the trees are as the sand of the sea, and the nuts lie thick upon the ground. AI-E-EH! and the robber crabs are in thousands, and fat; and the sea-birds' eggs!"
"Glutton again! Be content. In a little while we and as many of the people of Vahitahi as the schooner will carry will go there and stay for the turtle season."