Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/207

 Meanwhile in his mind there lay side by side and growing daily, a great curiosity and a great ambition.

The curiosity had been born of the battle of the gulls.

“What,” asked he of himself, “has happened to the reef of Marua (Palm Tree)?” He knew Marua, he had been one of the fighters in the great battle of long years ago when the men of the north of Karolin had pursued the men of the south and slain them on Palm Tree beach. He had seen the reef and instinct told him that the invading gulls of three weeks ago had come from there.

They were seeking a new home. Why? What had happened to the reef, or what had driven them from the reef?

Had the great waves of the same day, those three great waves that he still beheld scintillating in his mind, had they destroyed the reef? But how could that be, since they had not destroyed Karolin reef? The whole thing was a mystery and beside the curiosity that it excited, there lay in his mind the great Ambition, to take the schooner into the open sea and sail her there.

The lagoon, great as it was, was too small for him, besides, it was dangerous to the west with shoals and banks.

No, the outer sea was the place for him and there came the rub—Katafa.

Katafa had a horror of the vessel. She would not go on board it and well he knew that Taori would not