Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/304



NE night, when the disease seemed past and only ten people were left of all those who had watched the burning of the schooner, Le Moan, sleeping by Kanoa, was awakened by Katafa.

Katafa was weeping.

She seized Le Moan by the hands and raising her without waking Kanoa, led her to the house above which Nan still stood frizzy-headed in the moonlight.

In the house on a mat Dick was lying tossing his head from side to side and talking in a strange tongue.

Talking the language of his early childhood, calling out to Kearney whom he had long forgotten, but whom he remembered now.

The green sickness had seized Dick—resisted for days and days it had him at last.

Le Moan stood in the doorway and the moon looking over her shoulder lit the form on the mat, the reef spoke and the wind in the trees, but she heard nothing, saw nothing and for a moment felt nothing.

Taori was lying on the mat talking in a strange tongue, turning his head from side to side.

Then, as a person all but drowned, all but dead, comes slowly back to life and comes in agony, Le Moan began to feel the world come round her once