Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/127

 whilst Carlin, who had picked up one of the rifles, sat with it across his knees, his face turned shoreward where on the beach lay the four dead men, and save for the gulls not a sign of life. The boat on the ebb tide was drifting slowly back in the direction of the schooner.

“We’ve just got to row up along,” went on Rantan, “and get level with the trees. Those trees don’t give much shelter across the reef. Their houses wouldn’t stop a bullet from a popgun. Take your oar, when we’ve got our position we can anchor and take things quiet.”

Carlin, putting his gun down, took his oar and they began pulling the heavy boat against the current till they got opposite the village and the trees.

Then within rifle shot, but beyond the reach of arrow flight, they dropped the anchor and the boat swung to the current and broadside to the shore.

Rantan was right—the trees though dense enough in patches were not a sufficient cover for a crowd of people, and the houses were death traps. From where they lay they could see the little houses clear marked against the sky beyond and the house of Uta Matu with the post beside it on top of which was the head of Nan, god of the coconut trees, Nan the benign watching over his people, the puraka beds and the pandanus palms.

Of old there had been two gods of Karolin, Nan the benign and Naniwa the ferocious.

Le Moan’s mother had been Le Jennabon, daughter