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 whose voice brought Poni from the mammee apple.

In a minute the village was awake and watching this new prodigy, wondering, doubting, the women calling one to the other till the voice of a man rang out:

“Gulls.”

A murmur of relief went up from the women.

Gulls, only gulls. Thousands of gulls flying in line formation—and then the murmur checked and died out.

What was driving the gulls?

A storm coming from the north? No, the sky to the north was stainless and to these people who could smell and feel weather, there was no sign of storm.

“Look!” cried Kanoa.

The formation had altered; sweeping round from the east in a grand curve, the great moonlit line was shortening moment by moment till now it had contracted, showing only the van of the oncomers, who were heading for Karolin through the night sky like a spear towards a target.

The sound of them could now be heard, a steady winnowing sound, the pulse-like beat of ten thousand wings, whilst all along the reef from windward and leeward came the crying of the gulls of Karolin.

The crying of the burgomasters and skuas, the frigate birds and the great southern gannets, the laughing gulls and the Brandt's cormorants, all rising like a challenge to the newcomers from whom came no response other than the steady throbbing of the wings.