He took her in his arms and carried her down to the boats. He was gentle with her. Love for her had entered his heart when he uncovered her face. And Kolite looked among the other prisoners to see if her husband was there. But he was not. Then she lay down and it was as if her life went from her. Kweetchel was dead, and she was the slave to the Haida chief, Annoish-Haung.
But Kweetchel was not dead.
In the brief fight with the Haida, he was wounded and pitched into the sea. Swimming as instinctively as a wounded seal, he travelled under water while his breath held. He came up, gasping and half-dead, in the lee of a reef that sheltered him from sight.
He clung here a long while, too much hurt to have any clear thought of what was happening. Later, he recovered enough to swim back to shore. This took all his strength. He crawled dripping above tide-mark, and dropped, lying all night with other men, more still and silent than he, under the light of the vast Pacific moon.
The moon set. The sun climbed. Kweetchel woke and stood up.
He looked at the dead. He looked at the ruins of the burning houses. He saw the crows gathering from the woods, and the fierce herring-gulls swooping inshore. He knew then what had happened.
He ran up and down the beach, calling, “Kolite, Kolite!” But none answered him.
He ran into the forest, calling “Kolite!” There was no reply.
He walked two and fro among the burning boards of cedar, crying on “Kolite!” A huge totem-pole, charred through at the base, fell with a crash, scattering him with flakes of painted wood. That was the only response. He made his way to the smouldering ruin of his own house and lay down in the hot black ash, waiting to die.
His hands, beating about as his sorrow hurt him, touched wood that was not burned, and closed on it. He drew from the ashes the hutch that the compass lived in. “Spirit of the bright box,” groaned Kweetchel, “where is Kolite?”