Part 6

But, careless as Donahue was, the papers were not to be found in the little deck cabin which he used as a chart-room. Vaiti, disappointed, took one of the charts and began studying the position of the ship, with a view to finding out the name of the island off which they were lying. The chart was almost a blank, nothing being marked upon its wide expanse but a number of reefs and two or three atolls—Bilboa Island, Vaka, Ngamaru—dotted hundreds of miles apart in a naked waste of white. Bilboa, an abandoned guano island, of which she had heard something, seemed to Vaiti the most likely of the three spots. Ngamaru, she knew, had a native population, and about Vaka she could for the moment remember nothing, although she knew she had heard something once upon a time. All this part of the Pacific was far removed from the _Sybil’s_ haunts, and indeed from the haunts of any other ship of which Vaiti had ever heard.

It did not seem to be a healthy place for schooners; the reefs round both Vaka and Bilboa were many, and most were marked “Position doubtful.” Donahue was evidently not familiar with either place, for the chart was freshly pencilled over with notes and corrections. Vaiti’s heart leaped up as she looked at the careless work.... She saw a way.

They were still clearing the lumber out of the whaleboat on deck. No one was watching.

Vaiti took a pencil and rubber, and began to do some artistic alterations on the chart, helped by her knowledge of seamanship. In ten minutes she had converted the innocent piece of parchment into a perfect death-trap, rolled it up and replaced it, put back the rubber and pencil, and slipped out again on deck, where she sat down on a coil of rope and waited.

In another couple of minutes the boat was in the water, and the mate called rudely to Vaiti. She came without a word, covering her face with her dress, and sobbing bitterly. She stumbled as she walked; you would have sworn she was weak, broken in spirit, and utterly helpless.

If the mate felt any compassion, he did not dare to show it. They shoved off, two natives at the oars. Vaiti, sobbing effectively behind her hands, kept a sharp look-out with the corner of one eye as they slid across the dark water, but she could see nothing save a faintly glimmering line of grey shore, and hear nothing but the humming of the surf on the reef.

As soon as they reached the shallow water near the shore, the mate took Vaiti by her arm and roared, “Out you go!”

Sobbing afresh, in the most natural and convincing manner in the world, she obeyed.... It was dark, and the native who rowed bow oar never knew that she whipped his knife dexterously out of his belt as she passed him.

“Why are you marooning me?” she wailed, as she waded through the warm, shallow water towards the shore.

The mate leaned out of the boat, now fading fast away into the starry gloom, and shouted as he disappeared:

“To pay for Delgadas Reef and the _Margaret Macintyre_!”

Vaiti, who had reached the shore, almost sat down with the shock. So that was it! that was it! The pearl-shell lagoon out of which she, almost unaided, had “jockeyed” the schooner _Margaret Macintyre_, some months before, was bringing in a crop other than pearls—of which last, indeed, the canny Scot who had financed the working of the place had had very much the larger share.

Well, things must be taken as they were found. The soft tropic night stirred gently round her. The stars were large and golden; they shone in the still lagoon like little moons. Palm trees waved somewhere up in the dusk above, striking their huge rattling vanes together with the swing of the night-breeze. It was land, safe, solid land, and the sand was warm and soft, and Vaiti was tired. She walked a little way up the beach, stretched herself under a pandanus tree, and went to sleep....

Some hours later she woke, with the dim, mysterious volcano-glow of the tropic dawn in her eyes, and a curious feeling of disquiet about her heart. Still half asleep, she saw the long grey shore sloping down to the silent lagoon, the ink-coloured pandanus trees standing up against the dull orange sky, the leaning stems and stumps of coco-palms, dark and formless in the shadow. She shut her eyes and tried to sleep again.

No use. That nameless disquiet—now almost fear—still stirred at her heart. She opened her eyes once more, and looked about. A little more light—the touch of a glowing finger away in the east—a clearer defining of the cocoanut stumps, snapped off near their roots in the last great hurricane.... One of the stumps was oddly shaped—almost like a human figure. She could have fancied it was a rude image of a sitting man, only that the profile, against the lightening east, was featureless, and there was nothing to represent the hands.

“I will not be frightened by a rotten cocoanut tree,” thought Vaiti. “I will sleep again till it is light. Am I not a sea-captain’s daughter, and the descendant of great Island chiefs, and shall I fear the fancies of my own mind?”

Determinedly she closed her eyes again, and lay very still. The dawn wind began to stir; the ripples crisped upon the beach; the locusts in the trees broke out into a loud chirr-ing chorus. And as the day broke silver-clear upon the shore, Vaiti, still lying on the sand, felt that some one, in the gathering light, was watching her as she lay.

Wary as a fox, she opened her dark, keen eyes without stirring her body ... and looked straight into a face that was bending almost over her ... a face hooded by a black cloth that hid the head and brow, and only left to view ... O God! O God! what was it?

The thing was featureless. Nose, eyes, and mouth were gone. In the midst of a cavern of unspeakable ruin the ghastly throat gaped vacant. Two handless, rotting stumps of arms waved blindly about—feeling—feeling....

Could it hear? Some instinct told the girl that it could. Softly as a snake she writhed out of the reach of those terrible groping arms.

It did hear. It sprang blindly forward—it snatched.

With one leap Vaiti was on her feet. Never looking back, she fled down the open beach, the sand spurting behind her as she ran. She heard a dull padding in her rear at first; it soon grew faint, but she ran on blindly, long after it had died away—ran, while the sun climbed over the horizon and cast down handfuls of burning gold on her uncovered head—ran, while the beach grew parchment-white and dazzled back the heat into her face like an open furnace—ran till at last her over-driven body gave way, and the sand spun round and the sky turned red before her eyes. Then only she staggered into the shade and dropped down upon a green mattress of convolvulus creeper to rest.

And now, when she had leisure to think and strength to cast off the haunting horror of that inhuman face, she knew what Donahue had done.

This was not Bilboa, the uninhabited guano island that she had feared. This was infinitely worse—it was Vaka, the leper isle!

She remembered that she had once heard a dim rumour of Vaka and its ghastly leper people—the remnant of a plague-smitten tribe long ago forcibly exiled there from one of the fierce western groups. No ships ever called at this graveyard of the living; it was supposed that the cocoanuts and fish of the island provided sufficient food for the people, and no one cared to run the chance of their stowing away and escaping, especially as they were known to be both daring and treacherous on occasion. Donahue had indeed laid his plans well for the most hideous revenge that the heart of man or devil could conceive. A few weeks or months in this charnel-house of horrors, where the very air must reek of contagion, and what would it avail her if, after all, some stray, storm-driven vessel should rescue the castaway? Better, then, that she should stay and die among the other nameless nightmare horrors that walked these stricken shores.

No! Vaiti, sitting cross-legged on the netted vines and staring grimly out to sea, then and there took resolve that such a fate should not be hers.... Sharks were uncertain, if you really wanted them; but the stick of dynamite she had taken from the mate’s cabin was safe and sure. If she failed in using it for the special purpose she had planned, she would put it in her mouth and light the fuse.... There would be no more trouble after that. And as for the flies—one did not feel them, of course, when one was dead.

All the same, she did not mean to die if she could avoid it, and, as the first step towards helping herself, she knocked some nuts off a young palm, and took her breakfast off the refreshing water and juicy meat. Then she cut a length of bush rope, looped it round the tallest palm in sight, and set her feet inside the loop, so that she could work herself up to the top of the tree, monkey-on-stick fashion, leaning against the rope. When she got into the crown of the palm she knelt among the leaves, holding on tightly, and looked right and left over the island.

It was a pure atoll, an irregular circle of feather palms lying on the sea like a great green garland set afloat. The inner lagoon was several square miles in extent, but the land was not more than a few hundred yards wide at any point, and there was no soil to speak of. The palms, the scanty, pale green scrub, the mop-headed pandanus trees, the trailing creepers, all sprang out of pure white coral gravel and sand. The scene was lovely as only a coral atoll can be—the jewel-green water of the inner lagoon, shaded with vivid reflections of lilac and pale turquoise, the stately circled palms, the wide, white beach enclasping all the island like a frame of purest pearl, the burning blue of the surrounding sea, all combined to form a picture bright as fairyland and sparkling as an enamelled gem set upon a velvet shield.

But Vaiti, while she saw and admired the loveliness of the scene, also recognised its barrenness as only an islander could. No fruit, no roots, little fresh water—nothing, in fact, but cocoanut and pandanus kernels, eked out by a little fish.... The lepers must often go hungry.

The hot day turned suddenly chill as Vaiti recalled those blind, snatching, handless arms. They came of a cannibal race, these Vaka folk. What if she had not waked? What if, wearied as she well might be, she slept too long and too soundly in the night that was to come?

*CHAPTER VII*

*THE TURNING OF THE TABLES*

She looked narrowly about the island, hoping to discover the place where the lepers lived. A cluster of small, miserable huts, on the far side of the lagoon, attracted her attention. It seemed not more than half a mile from the spot where she had spent the night. The best fishing grounds she judged, by the look of the shore, to be near the village. She was therefore, no doubt, several miles from their usual haunts.

So far, so good. Where was the schooner? It lay to her left about a mile out at sea, close to a small, uninhabited, sandy islet. Vaiti supposed that the men were cutting wood and looking for water. She saw one or two black dots on the shore, recognisable by their blue dungaree clothing, and strained her eyes eagerly to see if the dinghy had been pulled up on the sand, for in this lay her only chance. If they brought the boat up on the beach, to repair her where wood could be had without going to the atoll itself (Vaiti would have wagered that the _Ikurangi_ did not carry a splinter outside of the galley fuel), then the schooner would probably stop overnight. In that case she could carry out her plans. Otherwise ... there was always the dynamite.

The dinghy was ashore, drawn well up on the beach.

She drew a breath of relief, and slid down the tree again. Now she could wait till night with an easy mind.

All day she hid in the tangle of young palm and low-growing scrub that clustered about the foot of the loftier trees. Once she saw a couple of the lepers pass by in the distance, evidently looking for something. These had eyes, and she crept closer into the shelter of the scrub till they were gone. Then she came cautiously out, and plucked long sheets of the fine pale-brown natural matting that protects the young shoot of the cocoanut, to cover up her white dress, for the scrub was dangerously thin, in that staring overhead sun. She did not venture down to the sea to fish, but fed upon cocoanuts during the day.

Night came at last—night and coolness, with big stars shining in the lagoon, and a gentle breeze stirring among the palms. About midnight, as near as she could guess, Vaiti came out of her shelter and prepared for action.

She took off her clothes, and fastened about her waist a petticoat of the dark-coloured cocoanut matting which she had stitched together during the day. So habited, with her olive skin and black hair, she knew that she was invisible in the darkness of the night. She fastened the dynamite, and a box of matches, into the coil of hair on the top of her head, stuck her knife into the waist of her petticoat, and walked down the beach into the warm, dark sea.

She knew very well that the outer side of an atoll commonly swarms with sharks, but the risk did not trouble her. There was something a good deal worse to face on the island than any number of sharks. Heading for the distant light of the schooner, she swam through the starry water with the low, dog-like island paddle that can cover such marvellous distances—keeping her head well out, and quietly taking her time.

It was a long swim, but it ended at last, and the schooner rose up before her in the water, black and silent, and shifting ever so little upon the swell of the incoming tide. The stars made little trickles of light upon her wet, dark hull. Two boats lay alongside—the dinghy, freshly mended and watertight, and the whaleboat, loaded with wood and cocoanuts. After the slovenly fashion of the _Ikurangi_, they had left the boats until the morning to hoist inboard, seeing that it was dead calm in the lee of the islet.

This was more than Vaiti had hoped for, and it made her task easy. She cut the dinghy’s painter, got into the boat, and muffled the oars with a strip or two torn from her petticoat. Then she put the dynamite into the whaleboat, cut and attached a good long fuse, set a match to it, and saw that the tiny red spark was steadily eating its way along, before she pulled off from the ship. She towed the whaleboat after her a little way, and then let it go thirty or forty yards from the ship. It was not her desire to wreck the schooner at Vaka Island, and possibly let loose her enemies upon the atoll; rather she wished the ship well out of the way before any disaster should overtake her. The charts would most probably ensure that matter. The destruction of the boat was only intended to secure her own possession of the dinghy.

She had scarcely reached the shore before a loud explosion boomed out across the water, and immediately after lights began to stir on board the schooner. Vaiti worked with coolness and speed, knowing that it was not likely, though possible, that any one would swim ashore. From her eyrie in the coco-palm she had noted a deep, narrow creek running up from the lagoon—a mere crack in the coral, but wide enough to admit a small boat, taken in with care. There was just enough light from the stars to enable her to find the place, and run the boat up on the sand at the end, into the heart of a tangle of leaves and creepers that entirely concealed it. For safety’s sake, she cut a few more armfuls of trailing vines from the shore, and buried the boat two or three feet deep, so that neither from the sea nor the land could it possibly be seen.

As she worked, she could hear shouts and cries, made faint by distance, coming across the water from the schooner. She could imagine the scene that would take place on board when they found themselves boatless. Some of the native crew—not Donahue or the mate; they would never face the sharks—would probably swim ashore to-morrow to investigate. Well, let them!

Having finished the concealing of the dinghy, she got into it herself, put on her clothes again, drew the tangled creepers well over her, and went calmly to sleep, secure that no one could find her unless she chose to be found.

All the same, she was very cautious about getting up the next morning, and looked carefully between the leaves before she ventured out of her hiding-place. She covered up her light dress with the cocoanut canvas, and then climbed a palm to look about.

People were moving hurriedly about the decks of the schooner; something seemed to be going on. As she watched, she saw two natives, clad only in loin-cloths, stand up on the bulwarks, ready to dive. In another moment they had flashed down into the sea, small as ants to sight at that distance, but perfectly clear to Vaiti’s sea-trained eyes. Then the dark specks began to make their way across the water. The sun was newly risen, the sea was still a mirror of molten gold, and the tiny black heads stood out sharply on its surface. Vaiti set her teeth as she watched them creeping on. They were island men, of her mother’s own race, and they had done her no harm. And ... the longer a vessel lies at anchor in equatorial latitudes, the more certain it is that sharks will gather round her—even if there has been no explosion in the water alongside to kill the fish and collect the tigers of the sea from far and near.

Vaiti looked away, and began desperately to count the nuts clustered among the palm-fronds at her feet.... How many were there? Ten—fifteen—twenty——

A long, despairing shriek tore across the water. She put her fingers in her ears and buried her face in the leaves. Yet, all the same, she heard a second cry, short and sudden, and quickly ended. There was nothing more. She lifted her face again, her teeth set tight into her lower lip. The two black heads were gone.

“No one will come ashore to-day,” she said, with a shiver. Something seemed to stab her, as she thought of that doctored chart in the schooner’s deck cabin. The reefs on the course to South America were hundreds of miles from shore—the ship had no boats—and the native crew must suffer with the villainous captain and mate, if the disaster that she had plotted so carefully should come about.... There would be sharks there, too, when the ship broke up....

The crystal-gold of the sea turned dim before Vaiti’s eyes. It was only a mist of tears that lay between, but to the girl’s excited imagination it seemed like the spreading and darkening stain of blood.

Careless of whether she was seen or not, she slid down the tree and rushed into the scrub, where she sat down upon the sand and cried like a mere nervous schoolgirl. The sun was past the zenith when she lifted her head again; the schooner had put out to sea, and lay, a far-off snowy speck, upon the blue horizon.

Vaiti stood up, flung back her hair, and cast the trouble from her. She could not afford to grieve over the inevitable now; there was too much to do. The boat had to be prepared and provisioned, and that was not the work of a moment.

She husked and opened a number of large cocoanuts, and removed the insides. She then cut a quantity of young palm-leaves, and plaited them into baskets, which she filled with the cocoanut meat. Afterwards she cut down dozens of young green nuts for drinking, husked them to save space, and slung them together in bunches with strips of their own fibre. This done, she hid the provisions in the boat, and set about her own supper, as it was almost dark.

Nourishing food she felt she must have, if she was to get through with her enterprise, but she dared not attract attention to herself by going out torch-fishing on the reef. However, there were certain holes in the ground about the roots of the palms that to her experienced eye promised something better than fish.

She dug a fire-hole in the gravel at the end of the gully where she had hidden the boat, lined it with stones, and made a fire, looking well to it that no gleam should be visible from above. When the stones were beginning to heat, she took a piece of palms-leaf in her hand, hid herself in the bush, and waited, still as a rock.

By-and-by there was a faint scuffling among the roots of the trees, and a shadowy thing began climbing up the trunk of a palm. Vaiti waited till it had disappeared in the crown of the tree, and then climbed after it to a point about ten feet from the top, where she tied her strip of leaf round the trunk and came down again.

Thump! thump! Two cocoanuts fell to the earth. The crab (for it was a cocoanut crab of the biggest and fiercest kind) was getting his supper. Now he would come down the tree, rip open the nuts with his formidable claws, and enjoy the contents.

Slowly he began to back down the palm, his sensitive tail ready to tell him when he had touched earth and might safely let go. And now it was that Vaiti’s trap (a well-known native trick) proved his undoing. The belt of dry leaflets round the tree tickled his tail, he promptly let go, and fell with a crash seventy feet through air on to the pile of coral lumps that Vaiti had heaped up at the foot of the tree.

The girl picked him up, badly injured and unable to use his claws (which were big enough to crack her ankle), and put an end to him with a clever stroke of her knife. He proved to be two feet long in the body alone, and of a fine blue and red colour, as seen in the dim light of the fire. She put him on the heated stones, wrapped in leaves, buried him until cooked, and then enjoyed a hot supper that an epicure might have envied.

Strengthened by the good food, she worked on late into the night, catching more crabs, whose meat she hoped she could dry in the sun, making a rough sail out of the bed-sheet she had carried away from the schooner, twisting sinnet plait out of cocoanut husk for ropes, cutting and trimming a small pandanus for the mast. She had all her plans laid, and knew what she meant to do. Her present position was about five hundred miles from the Marquesas, and the south-east trades would be in her favour. With lines for fishing, a beaker full of fresh water on board (she had found that in the dinghy when she took it away), cocoanuts to help out with, and plenty of crab to dry, she hoped that she might manage to reach the islands before her strength or her food gave out. Greater voyages had been done many a time in mere canoes, and the dinghy was a large boat of its kind, strong, well built, and new. If she failed—well, any death, any horror that the wide seas could hold was better than Vaka Island.

All being ready, she lay down and slept till dawn—a somewhat restless sleep, for it was full of wandering dreams, and all the dreams took one shape: Donahue’s schooner, snared by the lying chart, rushing helpless to her end, with the green-eyed tigers of the sea hovering ever about the reefs, and waiting ... waiting....

* * * * *

“I don’t think the patient can see any one,” said the nurse doubtfully.

The big, yellow-haired sailor took off his hat and stepped up on to the verandah. It was a very beautiful verandah. You could see most of Suva Bay from it, and half the tumbled purple peaks of Fiji’s wonderful mountains lying across the harbour.

“If you could stretch a point, ma’am,” said the sailor, “it might be as well for him. I’ve got good news.”