Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/182

 also have been fun had not the women claimed the victim to torture him as they pleased.

Aioma, in fact, was as young as he ever had been and as potent in all fields except those of war and love. He came to the water's edge and stood looking at the schooner. He had dreamt that, walking on the sands of the beach with Taori they had looked for the schooner and found her gone. But she was there right enough, her spars showing against the blaze in the east.

The gulls knew that she was deserted, they flew above her in the golden morning and lighted on her rails and spars whilst the ripple of the tide past her anchor chain showed the living brilliancy of light on moving water.

The canoes and dinghy being destroyed they would have to get off to her in the boat.

For a moment the old man stood looking at the bones of the broken canoes and the planks of the poor old dinghy; the fishing fleet of Karolin had gone just as the fighting fleet had gone, yet the gods had made compensation, for there lay the schooner, a thing more potent than all the fleets of Karolin combined, and there lay her boat, a fine four-oared double-ender, carvel built, white painted, a joy to the eye.

Yesterday at odd times he had examined her outside and in; this morning as his eyes swept over her again, new thoughts came to him and a new vision.

Canoes, what were they beside these things, and why build canoes any more, why hollow and shape those