Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/144

 He was seated facing aft and he could see the vague glow of the saloon skylight golden in the silver of the star-shine. Down below there in the lamplight Ra’tan and the red bearded one were no doubt talking and making their plans. Strike them! That was easily said.

Then, all at once, he stopped shivering and his teeth came together with a click. The light from the saloon had gone out.

He touched Le Moan and told her and she turned her head to the long sweep of the deck, empty, and deserted by the vanished light. It was as though the power of the after guard had suffered eclipse. Rantan and the other would be soon asleep, if they were not asleep now, helpless and at the mercy of the man who would be brave enough to strike.

Le Moan turned again and seizing Kanoa by the shoulder whispered close to his ear.

“Go,” said she; “tell the others what I have said, bring them up, softly, Mayana, softly so that they may not hear, they need lift no hand in the business. I will strike; go!”

He rose up and passed towards the foc’sle hatch whilst Le Moan, going into the galley, fetched something she had hidden there—the head of the spear which she had broken off from the shaft, the spear Carlin had brought on board as a trophy, and the snap of which he had heard as he lay in his bunk whilst Rantan had been lighting his pipe.

She sat down on the deck with the deadly thing on