Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/250



EVER more shall we see Karolin.”

The words of Aioma were repeated by the sky, by the sun, and the sea. Never more would he see Katafa, hear her voice, feel her arms about him. The hard hot deck beneath him, the sun beating on his back, the sounds of the sea on the planking and the groaning of the timbers all were part of his misery, of the awful hunger that fed on his heart.

He loved her as a man loves a woman, as a child loves a mother, as a mother loves a child. He who had killed men and dared death was, in fact, still a child; passionate, loving, ignorant of the terrors that life holds for the heart of man, of the grief that kills and the separation that annihilates. He had never met grief before.

Le Moan watched him as he lay. She knew. He was lying like that because of Katafa, she had lain like that on the coral because of him.

By declaring that vision had returned to her, by seizing the wheel and steering for Karolin, she could have brought him to his feet a well man—only to hand him over to Katafa.

She could not do that.