“Is it land, Harvey?”
“Land is near, Tessa. We can hear the kanapu calling to each other.”
“I am so glad, Harvey; for it would be terribly hard upon the men if we missed Pikirami and had to make for New Britain.”
“Ay, it would indeed. So far we have been very lucky, however, yet, even if we had missed it, we should have no cause to fear. We have a fine boat, provisions and water, a good crew, and one of the best sailor men that ever trod a deck in command,” and he pointed to the sleeping second mate.
Then as they sat together, listening to the cries of the sea-birds, and waiting for the dawn, Harvey re-told to Tessa, for Roka's benefit, the story of that dreadful boat voyage sixteen years before, in which his father and five others had perished from hunger and thirst.
“I was but fourteen years of age then, and people wondered how a boy like me survived when strong men had died. They did not know that every one of those thirteen men, unasked by my father, had put aside some portion of their miserable allowance for me, and I, God forgive me for doing so, took it. One man, a big Norwegian, was so fearful of going mad with the agonies of thirst, that he knelt down and offered up a prayer, then he shook hands with us all—my father was already dead—and jumped overboard. We were all too weak to try and save him. And less than an hour afterwards God's rain came, as my father had said it would come just before he died.”
Atkins, with a last mighty snore, awoke, sat up, and filled his pipe again.
“What, awake, miss!” he said with rough good-humour to Tessa. “How goes it, Mr. Carr?”
“Bully, old man. We're near the land; we can hear some kanapu about us, so we can't be more than five or six miles away.”
“The land is there,” said Roka to Harvey, pointing to a dark shadow abeam of the boat, “and we could see it but for the rain-clouds which hide it from us.”