“Nay, we are safer here, Ruvani, And how could we tell my mother that the canoe is lost? Let us wait a little and then the wind will die away.”
Canoes are valuable property on Pingelap, where suitable wood for building them is scarce, and this was in Ninia's mind.
They still kept hold of their paddles, and although afraid of the sharks, waited patiently for the storm to cease, little thinking that at that moment the ebbing tide and wind together had swept them into the passage, and that they were quickly drifting away from their island home.
All that night Ninia the widow and her four slaves sought along the beach of Tugulu for the three girls, who they felt sure had landed there. And when the day broke at last, and they saw that the gale had not ceased and that the canoe had vanished, they ran all the way over to the village, and Ninia threw herself at Sralik's feet.
“Thy granddaughter and my children have perished, O chief.”
The chief came to the door of his house and looked out upon the wild turmoil of waters.
“It is the will of the gods,” he said, “else had not my whaleboat been crushed in the night,” and he pointed to the ruins of the boat-shed upon which a huge cocoanut tree had fallen and smashed the boat.
Then he went back into his house and covered his face, for Ruvani was dear to his savage old heart.
And Ninia went back to her lonely house and wept and mourned for her lost ones as only mothers weep and mourn, be they of white skins or brown.