Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/281



AFE hidden amongst the bushes he listened. It would take a full hour yet before the schooner could make the break, yet he listened as he lay, his rope beside him, his mind active as a squirrel in its cage.

They would search the atoll, they would hunt amongst the bushes—yet they might miss him.

Should they find him! His dark mind took fire at the thought, wild ideas came to him of escaping into the lagoon, boarding the schooner, seizing a rifle and turning the situation. He was a white man, a match for a hundred kanakas if only he could get a foothold above them, a rifle in his hands. In this he was right, as he had slain the women who had him safely bound, so had he the possibility in him to meet this last attack of fate, free himself, and dominating and destroying, make good at last.

Time passed, the reef spoke and the wind in the trees, but from the outer sea came nothing. He peeped through the bushes, getting a view of the reef line to northward. By now surely the topmasts of the schooner ought to show close in as she must be, yet there was nothing.

He came out of the bushes like a lizard, stood erect