Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/237

 It was late afternoon, and Aioma as he spoke skimmed the sea line from west to east of north with eyes wrinkled against the light.

“No cloud hides it,” went on the old man like a child explaining a difficulty, “it is full day, yet it is not there—to our sight.”

Dick, as perturbed as Aioma, said nothing. He knew quite well that by now Marua should have been high on the horizon. They had been travelling since morning, how swiftly he could not tell, but with great speed, seeing that they had with them the wind and the current; also the sky stain made by Karolin was now very vague, vague as when he had viewed it from Marua.

“Where then is it gone?” went on the old fellow, “or how is it hidden? Has Uta Matu cast a spell upon us or has Marua been washed away?” Then turning as if from a suddenly glimpsed vision: “Taori—we may sail till the days and the nights are left behind us with the sun and the moon and the stars, but Marua we shall not see again.”

Dick still said nothing. He refused to believe that Uta Matu had the power to put a spell on them and he refused to believe that Marua had been washed away by those waves that did little more than smash a few houses at Karolin. All the same he was disturbed. Where then was Marua?

Poni, who was standing near them with Le Moan who had heard what Aioma said, suddenly struck in, in his sing-song voice.