CHAPTER IX
All that day over a gently heaving sea the boat sped steadily onward before the soft breath of the dying trade wind, and when night fell Harvey and Atkins reckoned that they could not be more than twenty miles from Pikirami. About midnight, therefore, the sail was lowered, and the boat allowed to drift, as otherwise she might have run past the island in the darkness. Two of the natives were placed on the look-out for indications of the land, and the rest of the people, except Harvey, laid down and slept, for after one or two rain squalls early in the evening the night had turned out fine and dry.
Poor Morrison's body had been covered up and placed under the for'ard thwarts; amidships lay Atkins, who had fallen asleep with his pipe in his mouth and his head pillowed on the naked chest of one of the native sailors; aft, in the stern sheets, Tessa and Maoni slept with their arms around each other, Tessa's pale cheek lying upon the soft, rounded bosom of the native girl. Still further aft, on the whale-back, Harvey sat, cross-legged, contentedly smoking a stumpy clay pipe lent to him by Huka, and looking, now at the glorious, myriad-starred sky above, and now at the beautiful face just beneath him, and musing upon the events of the past few days. Then as his eye rested for a moment or two on the stiffened form of the dead engineer, his face hardened, and he thought of Chard and the captain. Where were they now? Making for Ponapé, no doubt, with all possible speed, so that they might escape in some passing whale-ship or vessel bound China-wards. But where could they go? What civilised country would afford protection to such fiendish and cruel murderers? Neither of them dare dream of ever putting foot on Australian soil again if a single one of the survivors of the Motutapu reached there before them. Then he thought of Hendry's wife and three fair daughters.
“Poor things,” he muttered, “the story of their father's crime will break their hearts, and make life desolate to them. Better for them if the Almighty, in His mercy, took them before this frightful tale is told to wreck their lives.”
An hour passed, and then Roka, who was one of the look-outs, came aft, stepping softly so as not to awaken the sleepers.
“What is it, Roka?”
“Listen,” whispered the native, “dost hear the call of the kanapu? There be many of them about us in the air; so this land of Pikirami must be near.”
Harvey nodded and listened, and though his ear was not so quick as that of the sailor, he soon caught the low, hoarse notes of the kanapu, a large bird of the booby species, which among the islands of the North-West Pacific fishes at night-time and sleeps most of the day; its principal food being flying-fish and atulti or young bonito, which, always swimming on the surface, fall an easy prey to the keen-eyed, sharp, blue-beaked bird.
“Ay, Roka,” said the trader, “we be near the land, for the kanapu never wandereth far from the shore.”
Low as he spoke, Tessa heard him, for she slumbered but lightly. She rose and sat up, deftly winding her loosened hair about her head.