Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/254

 measured it, and knew that it was great. Great and enduring because of its extent, complete and flawless as a block of crystal placed by the gods on the face of ten thousand square miles of sea.

He remembered how he had cursed the wind, and turning to speak to Le Moan, found her gone.

Le Moan following Dick to the saloon hatch had stood for a moment listening.

Unable to hear anything below, she waited till Aioma’s back was turned and then cautiously began to descend the steps of the companion-way; cautiously, just as she had come down those steps that night to attack the white men single-handed and save, at the risk of her life, the life of Taori.

Reaching the door of the saloon, she saw him half seated on the bunk’s edge, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands whilst above him, now on the ceiling, now on the wall, glimmered and glittered and danced the same water shimmer that had danced above the sleeping Carlin. Only now it was a butterfly of gold.

The ripples sent out by the roll of the schooner on the sea surface gave it its tremor, the roll its extent of flight, the sunlight its gold.

It fluttered now, sweeping down as if to light on Dick, and now it was flying on the ceiling above him. It seemed a portent, but of what she could not tell, nor did she heed it after the first glance.

Crossing the floor, she came to him, sat down beside him, and rested her hand on his shoulder.