Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/141

 something more than a girl, maybe something less, a creature that loved to brood alone and live alone, perchance spirit; who could tell, for it was well known at Vana Vana that spirits of men and women were sometimes met with at sea on desolate reefs and atolls, ghosts of drowned people who would even light fires to attract ships and canoes and be taken off just as Le Moan had been taken off by Pete’son, and who always brought disaster to the ship or canoe foolish enough to rescue them.

Sru had kicked him for speaking like this in the foc’sle. After Pete’son had been left behind at Levua, supposedly killed by Tahuku and his followers, Kanoa, leaning on his side in his bunk and pipe in mouth had said: “It is the girl or she that looks like a girl but is maybe the spirit of some woman lost at sea. She was alone on that island and Pete’son brought her on board and now, look—what has become of Pete’son?” Upon which Sru had pulled him out of his bunk and kicked him. All the same Kanoa’s mind did not leave hold of the idea. He was convinced that there was more to come in the way of disaster, and now, look, Sru gone and three men with him!

But Kanoa was only eighteen and Le Moan for all her dark beauty and brooding ways and mysterious habits was, at all events, fashioned in the form of a girl, and once in a roll of the ship Le Moan slipping on the spray-wet deck would have fallen, only for Kanoa who caught her, almost naked as she was, in his arms, and she was delicious.