kanoa, dreading another voyage in the schooner and hating to be parted from le moan, hid himself amongst the trees of the canoe-builders.
he was nothing to le moan. though he had saved her from rantan, he was less to her than the ground she trod on, the sea that washed the reef, the gulls that flew in the air; for these she at least felt, gazed at, followed with her eyes.
when she looked at kanoa, her gaze passed through him as though he were clear as a rock pool. not only did she not care for him but she did not know that he cared for her.
worse than that, she cared for the sun-like taori. this knowledge had come to kanoa only the other day.
sitting beneath a tree, reason had stood before him and said, “le moan does not see you, neither does she see poni nor aioma, nor any of the others— le moan only sees taori, her face turns to him always.”
as he lay now by the half-shaped logs waiting for the daylight that would take away the schooner, reason sat with him telling him the same story, the sea helping in the tale and the night wind in the branches above.
it was night with kanoa, black night, pierced by only one star—the fact that taori was going away, if even for only a little time. the perfume of the cassi flowers came to him, and now, with the perfume, a far-away voice calling his name.
it was the voice of poni. the men were going on board the schooner and poni was collecting the crew.
again and again came the call, and then the voice ceased and the night resumed its silence, broken only by the wash of the reef and the wind in the trees.
“they will think i have gone fishing,” said kanoa to himself, “or that i have gone on a journey along the reef, or perhaps, that the sea has taken me, but i will not go with them. i will not leave this place that is warm with her footsteps, and on all of which her eyes have rested; the place, moreover, where she is.”
he closed his eyes and presently, being young and full of health, he fell asleep.
dawn roused him.
he could see the light on the early morning sea. the sea grew luminous and the gulls were talking on the wind, the stars were gone, and the ghost of distance stood in the northern sky blue and gauzy above the travelling sea that now showed the first sun rays level on the swell.
then kanoa rose up and came towards the village beyond whose trees the day was burning.
a woman met him and asked where he had been.
“i have been fishing,” said kanoa, “and fell asleep.” he came through the trees till the beach tending towards the break lay before him and the lagoon. the schooner under all plane sail was moving up towards the village and turning in a great curve, but so far out that he could not distinguish the people on deck. he watched her as she came up into the wind and lay over on the port tack. he watched her as she steered, now, close-hauled and straight, for the gates of morning, and then he saw her meet the outer sea.
she was gone. gone for a little time at least; gone and he was left behind, free in the place le moan had warmed with her feet, on every part of which her eyes had gazed, and where, moreover, she was living and breathing.
the women had parted with their new husbands the night before. there was no crowd to watch the vessel go out, only katafa, a few boys and a couple of women who were dragging in a short net which they had put out during the night, using the smaller of the schooner’s boats which aioma had left behind. the women stood for a moment with their eyes sheltered against the sun, then they returned to their work whilst katafa, leaving the beach, came on to the high coral and to the very point of rock where aioma, standing, had seen the approach of the giant waves.
she had scarcely slept during the night. taori was going away from her, nor far or for any time, but he was going beyond the reef. to the atoll dweller the reef is the boundary of the world—all beyond is undecided and vague and fraught with danger; the comparative peace of the lagoon waters gives the outer sea an appearance of menace which becomes fixed in the mind of the islander and even a short trip away from the harbour of refuge is a thing to be undertaken with precaution.
but she had said nothing that might disturb dick’s mind on her account or spoil his pleasure or mar his manhood. even had the business been visibly dangerous and had dick chosen to face it, she would not have held out a hand to prevent him. this was a man’s business with which womenfolk had nothing to do. so she ate her heart out all the night and stood waving to him as the boat pushed off and watched the kermadec leave the lagoon just as she was watching it now out on the sea, sails bellying to the wind and bow pointing north.
she watched it grow smaller, more gull-like and more forlorn in the vast wastes of water and beneath the vast blue sky. on its deck le moan was watching karolin and its sinking reef just as on the reef katafa was watching the ship and its disappearing hull, dreaming of wreck, of disaster, of thirst for her beloved one, dreaming nothing of le moan.
she watched whilst the morning passed, and the schooner still held her course. “she will soon turn and come back,” said katafa, as the distance widened and the sails grew less, and as the hull sank from sight she strained her eyes thinking that she saw the sails broaden as the ship, tired from going so great a distance and remembering, turned to come back to katafa.
but the mark on the sky did not broaden. vaguely triangular and like a fly’s wing it stood undecided in the sea dazzle, it seemed to wabble and change in shape and change back again, but it did not increase, and one moment it would be gone and the next it would say “here i am again, but see how much smaller i have grown!” then it vanished, vanished for a long time, only to reappear by some trick and again to vanish and not to return.
the sea had taken the schooner and its masts and spars, its sails, its boat; everything that was mirrored only last evening in the lagoon the sea had taken and dissolved and made nothing of. the sea had taken poni and timau and tahuku the strange kanakas; the sea had taken aioma, and—the sea had taken taori.
oh, the grief! the pain that like a knife cut her heart as she gazed on the sea, on the far horizon line above which the speechless sky stood crystal pale sweeping up to azure. he had gone only a little way, soon to return, storms would not come nor would the wind change, nor would it matter if it did change.
nothing could keep him from coming back. he had food with him in plenty, water in abundance, he had poni and timau and tahuku and nanta and tirai; he had aioma the wise and he had le moan—le moan the pathfinder.
nothing could keep him from coming back and yet the heart of katafa failed her before that speechless sky and that deserted sea whose meeting lips had closed like the lips of silence upon her lover. her happiness, so great, perhaps too great, had been cut apart from her for the moment; it stood aside from her never to join her again till taori came back from what the gods might be doing to him beyond that deserted sea, beneath that speechless sky.
the waters that from all those desert distances drew the voice of indifference and fate that she heard at her feet in the thunder of the breakers, the sky, robbed of speech, yet filled with the ever-lasting complaint of the questing gull.
someone drew near her. it was kanoa.
katafa, who was a friend of all the world, was a friend to kanoa. she had watched him as he sat apart from the others, noticed his melancholy and spoken to him, asking the reason.
“i am thinking of my home at vana vana,” had lied kanoa, “of the tall trees and the village and the reef, of my young days and my people.” his young days! he who was still a boy!
“but you will return,” said katafa.
“i do not wish to return,” said kanoa, “i am as one lost at sea, who has become a ghost, and whose foot may no more be set in a canoe and whose hand may no more hold the paddle.” then katafa knew that he was in love, but with whom she could not tell, nor had she time to watch and find out, being busy.
as he drew near her now, she turned to him, and for a moment almost forgot dick in her anger.
“kanoa,” said she, “where have you been in hiding? they have gone without you; they called for you and you did not come, and they could not wait. you were wanted to help them in the raising of the sails and the work with the ropes—where have you been in hiding?”
“i have been fishing,” said kanoa.
“and where are the fish?” asked katafa.
“oh, katafa,” replied kanoa, “i hid because i could not leave le moan, who is to me as the sun that lights me, who is my heart and the pain in my heart, my eyes and the darkness that blinds them when they see her not. i go to find her now to say to her what i have never said and to die if she turns her face from me.”
“and how will you go to find her now?” asked katafa. “have you then the wings of the gull and know you not that she has gone with the others?”
“she has gone with the others!”
“she has gone with the others.”
kanoa said nothing. he seemed to wither, his face turned grey, and his eyes sought the distant sea. he, too, had watched the schooner disappear, rejoicing in the fact that she was gone with taori leaving him (kanoa) to find his love. and now le moan was gone—and with taori. but he said nothing.
he turned away and lay down with his face hidden in his arms and as katafa stood watching him, her anger turned to pity.
she came and sat beside him.
“she will return, kanoa; they will return: he whom i love and she whom you love. they are gone but a little way. it is because they have gone from our sight that we grieve for them. aioma said they would go but a little way—aie, but my heart is pierced as i talk, kanoa, my breast is torn; they have gone from our sight and all is darkness. i will see him no more. i will see him no more.”
then, as on the night of the killing of carlin, the man in kanoa rose up and cast the boy away; saying not a word about his suspicions of the passion of le moan for taori, he turned to comfort the wildly weeping katafa.
“they will return,” said he, “aioma is with them and they can come to no harm—they will return before the sun has found the sea or maybe when he rises from it we will see them sailing towards karolin. peace, katafa, we will watch for them, you and i. go now and sleep and i will wait and watch, and if i see them i will come running to you, and when i sleep you can wait and watch and so with our eyes we will draw them back to us.”
katafa, whose tears had ceased, heaved a deep sigh. she rose and stood, her eyes fixed on the coral at her feet. weary from want of sleep, she listened to the words of kanoa as a child might listen, then, without looking once towards the sea, she passed away towards the trees.
kanoa stood, his gaze fixed on the sea line, and from then through the hours and the days the eyes of the lovers watched and waited for the return of those who had gone “but a little way.”
