Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/224

 a distance and remembering, turned to come back to Katafa.

But the mark on the sky did not broaden. Vaguely triangular and like a fly’s wing it stood undecided in the sea dazzle, it seemed to wabble and change in shape and change back again, but it did not increase, and one moment it would be gone and the next it would say “Here I am again, but see how much smaller I have grown!” Then it vanished, vanished for a long time, only to reappear by some trick and again to vanish and not to return.

The sea had taken the schooner and its masts and spars, its sails, its boat; everything that was mirrored only last evening in the lagoon the sea had taken and dissolved and made nothing of. The sea had taken Poni and Timau and Tahuku the strange kanakas; the sea had taken Aioma, and—the sea had taken Taori.

Oh, the grief! The pain that like a knife cut her heart as she gazed on the sea, on the far horizon line above which the speechless sky stood crystal pale sweeping up to azure. He had gone only a little way, soon to return, storms would not come nor would the wind change, nor would it matter if it did change.

Nothing could keep him from coming back. He had food with him in plenty, water in abundance, he had Poni and Timau and Tahuku and Nanta and Tirai; he had Aioma the wise and he had Le Moan—Le Moan the pathfinder.

Nothing could keep him from coming back and yet the heart of Katafa failed her before that speech-