Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/171

 slacked to due west, bent the coco palms and brought up from all along the beach the silky whisper of the sands, the rumour of twenty miles of sea beating on the southern coral and the smell of sun-smitten seaweeds and emptying rock pools.

Rantan, who had closed his eyes, opened them, and turning his head slightly, watched the women; Nanu who was collecting bits of stick and wood to light a fire and Ona who was collecting oyster shells. There were many oyster shells lying about on the beach and Ona, as she went, picked and chose, taking only the flat shells and testing their edges with her thumb.

Rantan knew, and a shudder went through him as he watched her carrying them and placing them in a little heap by the place where Nanu was building her fire.

A big brown bird with curved beak and bright eyes sweeping in the air above them would curve and drift on the wind and return, making a swoop towards the beached canoe and the objects on the outrigger gratings, and the women, busy at their work, would shout at the bird and sometimes threaten it with a paddle which Ona ran and fetched from the canoe. Not till vengeance had been assured would the dead children be cast to the sharks. The shark was the grave and burial-ground of Karolin.

When everything was ready they turned from the fire and came running across the sand to their victim.

Rantan, lying on his back with eyes closed and mouth open, had ceased to breathe.

Never looked man more dead than Rantan, and