Coral Sands/Chapter 16

HEN, yielding to a sudden impulse, he made a sign that he was coming over to speak to her.

A fishing canoe lay close to him on the sands. It belonged to Sru, the son of Lipi, and it was waiting for its owner. Fernand pushed it off and got into it and paddled toward the yacht. Canoes were often borrowed like this on the beach, and Sru would not mind so long as it was brought back quickly.

But Fernand was not thinking of that. He had come to a sudden decision. The girl must be warned about Yakoff and the danger to Cyrus. It was a prompting of the heart, not of the head. Even if Cyrus were frightened into action of some sort against Yakoff, what could he do? Yakoff had not yet declared himself, and when he did, it would be secretly in the presence of Cyrus and with no witnesses. Then there was Chales. Chales was in the business and ready to carry on if anything happened to the other.

Even if Cyrus were to put out and tun away from the island, would not these men be able to follow him at their leisure, go to San Francisco and blackmail him there? The owner of the California would be a man of mark in Frisco; the very wharf rats would know his address.

No, Cyrus was held by what he had done in the past. These wretches alone knew the fact. Unless they were destroyed they would use their knowledge, and Fernand could not destroy them. Any warning would be useless.

Absolutely Ona's advice to let them alone to work their plan, trusting in the Dark People to trip them up, seemed the best advice possible—the Dark People, maybe, being her symbol of their own wickedness.

But Fernand, having made up his mind, was not to be stopped.

He brought the canoe up to the stage that had been lowered. June, seeing him putting off, had come down the steps and was standing on the grating as he came alongside.

“Yesterday,” said Fernand, after he had given her greeting, “when I told you of the rock pools on the outer beach and when you said you would like to see them, I did not tell you the best time. The best time is just when the tide is half out. That would be this afternoon, at three o'clock.”

“Oh,” said June, “I'll see if I can come.”

“I wish very much for you to come,” said he. “It is important. It has to do with your ship.”

June saw at once that Fernand was holding something back, also that whatever his object was it had little to do with her, personally. Something to do with the ship—what could that be? Some instinct told her that whatever it might be, it was important; it seemed to her for a moment as though danger were hiding somewhere, danger to the California and Cyrus and herself, danger behind that veil of sapphire sky, that picture of blue water, white beach and waving palm trees.

“What is it?” she asked.

“There are bad men at Araffura. I cannot tell you more here in this place.” He glanced up at the yacht's side. A quartermaster was leaning on the rail, and a fellow in a bos'n's chair had been lowered to touch up some paint at the bow. From below came the sound of metal striking metal; the auxiliary engine had been taken down and was being repaired, and from the galley came the clatter of pots and pans. No, it was not the place for a confidential conversation.

“Shall I bring father?' she asked—she always called Cyrus “father.”

Fernand shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I cannot tell what I have to tell if there is more than you. It is another man's secret I am dealing with.”

This happy flash of inspiration saved the situation. June saw that under those circumstances it would not do to press any inquiries. She nodded.

“Yes, I'll come. I will row ashore at three.”

“At three,” said Fernand. He saluted her and pushed off with the paddle, making for the beach.

June followed him with her eyes. She knew that he loved her; that glance up at her last night as he pushed off had told her not of love but of sudden adoration. Just so. Well, why was he changed this morning—all his brightness gone, no smile for her, almost abrupt in his departure? He seemed like a man under some heavy weight of care. What could have happened to change him so?

Something had happened and it had to do with the California and with “bad men,” or, rather, something was going to happen. If there was any meaning in what Fernand had said, there was danger to be countered. Yet why did he ask her not to bring Cyrus to the meeting?

Ought she to tell Cyrus, right away?

No. Of one thing she was quite sure—she could trust Fernand. He told her to come alone and he had, no doubt, his reason. She could trust him; she who had let him take her heart could give him also her confidence in this matter.

All the same, she was disturbed in mind. It seemed to her that ever since coming to this place it had been disclosing itself to her, always bringing the unexpected to match the unexpected and death and terror into contrast with beauty and peace.

She never could have dreamed of this great lake of water so full of color, of peace and of loveliness. Neither could she have dreamed of the blinded shark, that revelation of ferocity mutilated by ferocity.

Leaning on the rail now and looking over she could see sand patches and brain coral and flights of colored fish.

Such a pretty sea garden, the fish shadows flitting from flower to path—yet there, tilted and agape, she could see a vast shellfish, the twin brother of the great clam Fernand had showed her on the pearling grounds, an iron trap that could take a man by the foot or by the hand and hold him till he was drowned.

Then there was the circular current, another trap for the canoe man who should lose his paddle or his sail. And now there was this hinted warning of Fernand's about bad men, a whisper from that beach so placid looking and sunny, with the children playing in the morning light, the cooking fires sending their smoke to the flower-blue sky and the palms waving to their shadows on the sand.

All these things seen and hinted at and remembered were belonging to Araffura, a complex and terrible little world that yet at sight seemed only just a small ring of coral and a strew of trees.

At breakfast she spoke little, in contrast with Cyrus. She had never seen him more bright of mind, more filled with the joy of life. He seemed fey. He had been ashore for a while yesterday morning and he talked of the possibilities of the place. He said he would like to buy it, buy it for a bathing beach, put up a big hotel and run a special steamer to connect it with San Francisco and Santa Barbara.

June shuddered at the thought.

“You would only want sky signs and advertisements of chewing gum and cigarettes to complete it,” said she. “Dad, how can you say such things?”

“It wouldn't be worse than what it is,” replied he. “This is nothing now to what it will be in a few weeks' time when the pearling season is fully open; that beach will be like a fair then, with half the scalawags and ruffians of Europe and America come to bicker for the pearls these chaps will be having for sale.”

June thought of the bad man mentioned by Fernand.

“Does that sort of person come here?” she asked.

“Come here? Of course they come here. Wherever there's easy money you'll find them—pearls or gold or diamonds, it's all the same—or phosphates,” he finished with a laugh.

It was out of phosphates he had made his own fortune, and June knew it, and somehow now the mention of the word and the laugh which came with it jarred on her. He seemed to be connecting himself mentally with those scalawags of Europe and America who were to be found always where money was easy and to be had for the handling of gold or pearls or diamonds—or phosphates.

But she said nothing.