Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/301

 And despite his happiness in her and his love for her and his embraces, despite the joy of new life that filled Karolin and the beauty of the nights in which Taori and Katafa walked together on the reef, never once did the desire come to Le Moan to destroy herself—all that was nothing to her now.

She had torn out her heart and nothing else mattered, even life.

“And to-morrow or next day,” one morning said Aioma, “the canoe will be ready and we will burn the lesser ayat as we burned the greater. Ah hai, what is this, the reef is lifting before my eyes—Look you, Tahuku!”

But Tahuku saw nothing. The reef was solid as of old and the sun was shining on it and he said so.

The canoe-builder shut his eyes and when he opened them again the reef had ceased to lift, but he was weary. Bells rang in his ears and his hands were hot and dry and now after a while and towards midday one of the papalagi—so it seemed to him—had seized him from behind and tied a band round his head, screwing it so tight that he would have screamed had he been an ordinary man.

He lay on the ground, and as he lay a woman, one of the wives of Poni, came running, panting as she ran.

“I burn, I burn!” cried the woman. “Aioma, my sight is going from me; I burn, I burn!” She fell on the ground and Katafa running to her raised her head.