"Narii'll never get across the lagoon now!" Grief observed.
"Then he'll blow back to our side, worse luck!"
V
After the passing of the centre the barometer began to rise. Equally rapid was the fall of the wind. When it was no more than a howling gale, the engine lifted up in the air, parted its bed-plates with a last convulsive effort of its forty horsepower, and lay down on its side. A wash of water from the bilge sizzled over it and the steam arose in clouds. The engineer wailed his dismay, but Grief glanced over the wreck affectionately and went into the cabin to swab the grease off his chest and arms with bunches of cotton waste.
The sun was up and the gentlest of summer breezes blowing when he came on deck, after sewing up the scalp of one Kanaka and setting the other's arm. The Malahini lay close in to the beach. For'ard, Hermann and the crew were heaving in and straightening out the tangle of anchors. The Papara and the Tahaa were gone, and Captain Warfield, through the glasses, was searching the opposite rim of the atoll.
"Not a stick left of them," he said. "That's what comes of not having engines. They must have dragged across before the big shift came."
Ashore, where Parlay's house had been, was no vestige of any house. For the space of three hundred yards, where the sea had breached, no tree or even stump was left. Here and there, farther along, stood an occasional palm, and there were numbers which had been snapped off above the ground. In the crown of one surviving palm Tai-Hotauri asserted he saw something move. There were no boats left to the Malahini , and they watched him swim ashore and climb the tree.
When he came back, they helped over the rail a young native girl of Parley's household. But first she passed up to them a battered basket. In it was a litter of blind kittens—all dead save one, that feebly mewed and staggered on awkward legs.
"Hello!" said Mulhall. "Who's that?"
Along the beach they saw a man walking. He moved casually, as if out for a morning stroll. Captain Warfield gritted his teeth. It was Narii Herring.
"Hello, skipper!" Narii called, when he was abreast of them. "Can I come aboard and get some breakfast?"
Captain Warfield's face and neck began to swell and turn purple. He tried to speak, but choked.
"For two cents—for two cents——" was all he could manage to articulate.
THE END
*
man-eater