Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/98

 Taori. Taori as she had seen him first, on that day when he had come to bid Aioma to the canoe building.

It was as if Fate on that day had suddenly stripped away a veil showing her the one thing to be desired, the only thing that would ever matter to her in this life or the next.

As she leaned, the breeze in her hair and her mind like a bird fleeting far ahead into the distance, flying fish like silver shaftless arrow-heads passed and flittered into the blue water, and now a turtle floating asleep and disturbed by the warble of the bow wash and the creak of the onrushing schooner, sank quietly fathoms deep leaving only a few bubbles on the swell.

Carlin had come on deck. Rantan had said not a word about the broken open cupboard or the whiskey; the ship was cleared of drink and that was enough for him; when he came on deck a few minutes after the other, he found the beachcomber leaning on the after rail.

A shark was hanging in the wake of the schooner. A deep-sea ship does not sail alone. She gives company and shelter to all sorts of fish from the remora that hangs on for a whole voyage, to the bonito that follows her maybe for a week. In front of the shark, moving and glittering like spoon bait, a pilot fish showed in flashes of blue and gold.

Carlin turned from contemplation of these things to find Rantan at his side.

On going below for a wash after his night on deck, Carlin had found the other at breakfast. Neither man