something beside curiosity and the spirit of adventure had made dick decide to push on towards marua (palm tree).
the truth is marua was calling to him. he wished to see it again if only for a moment. the hilltop and the groves and the coloured birds sent their voices across the sea to karolin just as karolin had sent its appeal across the sea to katafa when katafa had lived at palm tree.
as a matter of fact those two islands were for ever at war in the battle ground of the human mind. in the old days natives of karolin had gone to live on marua, and karolin had pursued them and brought them back, filling their minds with regret and longing and pictures of the great sea spaces and free sea beaches of karolin. in the same way natives of marua had gone to live on karolin and marua had pursued them and brought them back, filling their minds with regret for the trees, the hilltop and the blue ring of the lagoon.
between dick and katafa there was only one faint suspicion of a dividing line, something that might increase with the years and make unhappiness the difference between marua and karolin: the pull of the two environments so vastly different, the call of the high island and the call of the atoll, of the land of dick’s youth and the land of the youth of katafa.
it is extraordinary how the soul of man can be pulled this way and that way by things and forms that seem inanimate and yet can talk—aye, and express themselves in the most beautiful poetry, strike in their own defence through the arms of men, follow without moving though the pursued be half a world away, and inspire a love as lasting as the love that a man or woman can inspire.
the love of a range of hills, what battles has it not won, and the view of a distant cloud, to what lengths may it not raise the soul of man—heights far above the plain where philosophy crawls, heights beyond the reach of thought.
with the suggestion of aioma, the concealed longing in the mind of dick began to show itself. he forgot katafa; he forgot the bad men who had taken possession of marua, old days began to speak again and the sound of the reef, so different from the voice of karolin reef, began to be heard.
he watched le moan at the wheel, and noticed how her eyes followed the almost imperceptible track far to starboard where the water colours changed. she was steering by the current as well as by the sense of direction that told her that karolin lay behind. he did not know the speed of the schooner, but he had travelled the road when coming to karolin with katafa and he knew that soon, very soon, the hilltop of marua must show.
he went forward and gazed ahead—nothing. the land gulls had been left behind and in all that sea to the north there was nothing. he came aft to find poni again at the wheel, and as he came he crossed le moan who was going forward; she did not look at him and he scarcely looked at her. le moan, for dick, was the girl who had saved them by killing carlin and fighting with rantan till he was overcome; but to him, personally, she was nothing. so cunningly had she hidden her heart and mind that not by a glance or the least shade of expression had she betrayed her secret to him. kanoa only suspected—but he was her lover.
aioma was squatted on the deck near the steersman, eating bananas and flinging the skins over his shoulder and the rail.
“aioma,” said dick, “there is no sight of marua yet, but soon we will see it lifted to the sky, with the trees—it calls to my heart. you have seen it?”
“i was one of those who chased makara and his men to marua,” said aioma, “we fought with them and slew them on the beach; aie, those were good times when uta matu led us and laminai beat the drum—taromba—that is only beaten for victory, and will never be beaten again, since it went away with laminai and has never returned. tell me one thing, taori. when you came to karolin with katafa, you made friends with the women and children, and katafa told them a tale, how the canoes of laminai had been broken by a storm, and all his men lost, and how the club of matu was found by you on the reef of marua and the gods had declared you were to be our chief. i was on the southern beach at that time and did not hear the tale, but the women and children took it without any talk, glad to have a man to lead them.
“tell me, taori, was that all the tale? i never asked you before and i know not why i ask you now.”
“aioma,” said dick, “there was more than that. laminai and his men came through the woods of marua and there was a great fight between them and me. i slew with my own hands laminai and another man. then, taking fright, all his men ran away and they fought with each other in the woods—many were killed, and then came the big wind from the south and the men who were trying to leave marua were dashed on the reef, not one being left.”
aioma forgot his bananas. some instinct had told him that there was more in the story of katafa than revealed by her to the women, but he had not expected this.
so laminai, the son of uta matu, had been slain by taori, and his men put to flight; the storm had destroyed them before they could put away, but it would not have destroyed them only for taori.
he looked up at taori, standing against the line of the rail, his red-gold head against the patient blue of the sky, and to aioma it seemed that this journey they had embarked on was no trip to view the outer beach of marua—that they had been deluded by the guardians of karolin and the ghosts of the ancient, drawn to sea to meet the vengeance of the dead uta matu, of his son, and the men slain by the hand and will of taori.
that thunder from the heart of the sea, those waves from nowhere, the prodigy of the gulls, all these were portents.
“taori,” said he, “now that you have told me, i would go back. my heart misgives me and if i had known that laminai fell by your hand i would not have come; i love you as a son, taori, you fought for the women and children of karolin against the white men, but you do not know uta matu the king, whose son you killed, whose men you put to flight.”
“but uta matu is dead,” said dick, “he has no power.”
“you do not know uta matu,” said aioma, “nor the length of his arm, nor the power of his blow. you have not seen his eyes or you would not say those words. let us return, taori, before he draws us too far into his grasp.”
“when i have seen what i wish to see, i will return,” said dick. he had no fear of dead men, nor of living men either, and for the first time his respect for aioma was dimmed. “i will return when i have seen what we came to see. i am not afraid.”
aioma rose and straightened himself.
“i have never known fear,” said he, “and i do not know it now. it was for you i spoke. go forward then, but this i tell you, taori, there are those against us who being viewless we cannot strike, whose nets are spread for us, whose spears are prepared.”
“aioma,” said dick, “no net can hold me such as you speak of. nets spread by the viewless ones are for the spirit—ananda—not the body. my spirit is with katafa, safe in her keeping, how then can uta matu seize it?”
“who knows?” said aioma. “he is artful as he is strong, and le juan who is dead with him is more artful still, and, look, we have the child of le juan’s daughter with us—le moan. aie! had i thought of all this i never would have brought her.”
“how can she hurt us?”
“it is not she. it is le juan, the wicked one, whose blood is in her.”
to aioma, as i have said before, people were not dead as they are with us, only removed to a distance, and though he might speak of spirits, he spoke of people removed out of sight, yet still potent.
he did not believe that uta matu could use a real net or spear against dick, but he did believe that the dead king of karolin and his witch woman could, in some way, stretch through the distance to lay nets and strike with spears. ghostly spears and nets not meant for the body, but the man.
if you could have pierced deeper into the mind of aioma you would have found the belief—never formulated in words—that a man’s body was just like the shell of a hermit crab, a thing that could be thrown off, crept out of, discarded. uta matu when called into the distance had discarded his shell, but the man and his power remained—at a distance.
“i fear neither le juan nor uta matu,” said dick, and as he spoke the air suddenly vibrated to the clang of a bell.
