Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/221

 sea helping in the tale and the night wind in the branches above.

It was night with Kanoa, black night, pierced by only one star—the fact that Taori was going away, if even for only a little time. The perfume of the cassi flowers came to him, and now, with the perfume, a far-away voice calling his name.

It was the voice of Poni. The men were going on board the schooner and Poni was collecting the crew.

Again and again came the call, and then the voice ceased and the night resumed its silence, broken only by the wash of the reef and the wind in the trees.

“They will think I have gone fishing,” said Kanoa to himself, “or that I have gone on a journey along the reef, or perhaps, that the sea has taken me, but I will not go with them. I will not leave this place that is warm with her footsteps, and on all of which her eyes have rested; the place, moreover, where she is.”

He closed his eyes and presently, being young and full of health, he fell asleep.

Dawn roused him.

He could see the light on the early morning sea. The sea grew luminous and the gulls were talking on the wind, the stars were gone, and the ghost of Distance stood in the northern sky blue and gauzy above the travelling sea that now showed the first sun rays level on the swell.

Then Kanoa rose up and came towards the village beyond whose trees the day was burning.

A woman met him and asked where he had been.