IIOne morning some six weeks after all this marrying and settling down a brig came into the lagoon. She was a blackbirder, thePortsoy, owned and captained by Colin Robertson, a Banffshire man, hence the name of his brig. Robertson and his men landed, took off water, coconuts, bananas, and everything else they could find worth taking. Then they turned their attention to the population. Four men were not a great find, but Robertson was not above trifles. He recruited them; that is to say, he kicked them into his boat and took them on board thePortsoy, leaving the three widows—grass widows now—wailing on the shore. He had no fine feelings about the marriage tie and he reckoned they would make out somehow. They were no use to him as labour and they were ill-flavored; all the same, being a man of gallantry and some humour, he dipped his flag to them as thePortsoycleared the lagoon and breasted the tumble at the break.Maru standing aft saw the island with the white foam fighting the coral and the gulls threshing around the break, saw the palms cut against the pale aquamarine of the skyline that swept up the burning blue of the noon, heard the long rumble and boom of the surf on the following wind, and watched and listened till the sound of the surf died to nothingness and of the island nothing remained but the palm tops, like pinheads above the sea dazzle.He felt no grief, but there came to him a new and strange thing, a silence that the shipboard sounds could not break. Since birth the eternal boom of the waves on coral had been in his ears, night and day and day and night—louder in storms, but always there. It was gone. That was why, despite the sound of the bow wash and boost of the waves and the creak of cordage and block, the brig seemed to have carried Maru into the silence of a new world.They worked free of the Paumotus into the region of settled winds and accountable currents, passing atolls, and reefs that showed like the threshing of a shark’s tail in the blue, heading north-west in a world of wind and wave and sky, desolate of life and, for Maru, the land of Nowhere.So it went on from week to week, and, as far as he was concerned, so it might have gone on for ever. He knew nothing of the world into which he had been suddenly snatched, and land which was not a ring of coral surrounding a lagoon was for him unthinkable.He knew nothing of navigation, and the brass-bound wheel at which a sailor was always standing with his hands on the spokes, now twirling it this way, now that, had for him a fascination beyond words, the fascination of a strange toy for a little child, and something more. It was the first wheel he had ever seen and its movements about its axis seemed magical, and it was never left without someone to hold it and move it—why? The mystery of the binnacle into which the wheel-mover was always staring, as a man stares into a rock pool after fish, was almost as fascinating.Maru peeped into the binnacle one day and saw the fish, like a starfish, yet trembling and moving like a frightened thing. Then some one kicked him away and he ran forward and hid, feeling that he had pried into the secrets of the white men’s gods and fearing the consequences.But the white men’s gods were not confined to the wheel and binnacle; down below they had a god that could warn them of the weather, for that day at noon, and for no apparent reason, the sailors began to strip the brig of her canvas. Then the sea rose, and two hours later the cyclone seized them. It blew everything away and then took them into its calm heart, where, dancing like giants in dead still air, and with the sea for a ballroom floor, the hundred-foot-high waves broke thePortsoyto pieces.Maru alone was saved, clinging to a piece of hatch cover, half stunned, confused, yet unafraid and feeling vaguely that the magic wheel and the trembling fish god had somehow betrayed the white men. He knew that he was not to die, because this strange world that had taken him from his island had not done with him yet, and the sea, in touch with him like this, and half washing over him at times, had no terror for him, for he had learned to swim before he had learned to walk. Also his stomach was full; he had been eating biscuits whilst thePortsoy’scanvas was being stripped away though the wind was strong enough almost to whip the food from his hands.The peaceful swell that followed the cyclone was a thing enough to have driven an ordinary man mad with terror. Now lifted hill high on a glassy slope, the whole wheel of the horizon came to view under the breezing wind and blazing sun, then gently down-sliding the hatch cover would sink to a valley bottom only to climbing again a glassy slope and rise again hill-high into the wind and sun. Foam flecks passed on the surface and in the green sun-dazzled crystal of the valley floors he glimpsed strips of fucus floating face down, torn by the storm from their rock attachments, and through the sloping wall of glass up which the hatch cover was climbing he once glimpsed a shark, lifted and cradled in a ridge of the great swell, strange to see as a fly in amber or a fish in ice.The hatch cover was sweeping with a four-knot current, moving with a whole world of things concealed or half-seen or hinted at. A sea current is a street, it is more, it is a moving pavement for the people of the sea; jelly fish were being carried with Maru on the great swell running with the current, a turtle broke the water close to him and plunged again, and once a white roaring reef passed by only a few cable lengths. He could see the rock exposed for a moment and the water closing on it in a tumble of foam.
One morning some six weeks after all this marrying and settling down a brig came into the lagoon. She was a blackbirder, thePortsoy, owned and captained by Colin Robertson, a Banffshire man, hence the name of his brig. Robertson and his men landed, took off water, coconuts, bananas, and everything else they could find worth taking. Then they turned their attention to the population. Four men were not a great find, but Robertson was not above trifles. He recruited them; that is to say, he kicked them into his boat and took them on board thePortsoy, leaving the three widows—grass widows now—wailing on the shore. He had no fine feelings about the marriage tie and he reckoned they would make out somehow. They were no use to him as labour and they were ill-flavored; all the same, being a man of gallantry and some humour, he dipped his flag to them as thePortsoycleared the lagoon and breasted the tumble at the break.
Maru standing aft saw the island with the white foam fighting the coral and the gulls threshing around the break, saw the palms cut against the pale aquamarine of the skyline that swept up the burning blue of the noon, heard the long rumble and boom of the surf on the following wind, and watched and listened till the sound of the surf died to nothingness and of the island nothing remained but the palm tops, like pinheads above the sea dazzle.
He felt no grief, but there came to him a new and strange thing, a silence that the shipboard sounds could not break. Since birth the eternal boom of the waves on coral had been in his ears, night and day and day and night—louder in storms, but always there. It was gone. That was why, despite the sound of the bow wash and boost of the waves and the creak of cordage and block, the brig seemed to have carried Maru into the silence of a new world.
They worked free of the Paumotus into the region of settled winds and accountable currents, passing atolls, and reefs that showed like the threshing of a shark’s tail in the blue, heading north-west in a world of wind and wave and sky, desolate of life and, for Maru, the land of Nowhere.
So it went on from week to week, and, as far as he was concerned, so it might have gone on for ever. He knew nothing of the world into which he had been suddenly snatched, and land which was not a ring of coral surrounding a lagoon was for him unthinkable.
He knew nothing of navigation, and the brass-bound wheel at which a sailor was always standing with his hands on the spokes, now twirling it this way, now that, had for him a fascination beyond words, the fascination of a strange toy for a little child, and something more. It was the first wheel he had ever seen and its movements about its axis seemed magical, and it was never left without someone to hold it and move it—why? The mystery of the binnacle into which the wheel-mover was always staring, as a man stares into a rock pool after fish, was almost as fascinating.
Maru peeped into the binnacle one day and saw the fish, like a starfish, yet trembling and moving like a frightened thing. Then some one kicked him away and he ran forward and hid, feeling that he had pried into the secrets of the white men’s gods and fearing the consequences.
But the white men’s gods were not confined to the wheel and binnacle; down below they had a god that could warn them of the weather, for that day at noon, and for no apparent reason, the sailors began to strip the brig of her canvas. Then the sea rose, and two hours later the cyclone seized them. It blew everything away and then took them into its calm heart, where, dancing like giants in dead still air, and with the sea for a ballroom floor, the hundred-foot-high waves broke thePortsoyto pieces.
Maru alone was saved, clinging to a piece of hatch cover, half stunned, confused, yet unafraid and feeling vaguely that the magic wheel and the trembling fish god had somehow betrayed the white men. He knew that he was not to die, because this strange world that had taken him from his island had not done with him yet, and the sea, in touch with him like this, and half washing over him at times, had no terror for him, for he had learned to swim before he had learned to walk. Also his stomach was full; he had been eating biscuits whilst thePortsoy’scanvas was being stripped away though the wind was strong enough almost to whip the food from his hands.
The peaceful swell that followed the cyclone was a thing enough to have driven an ordinary man mad with terror. Now lifted hill high on a glassy slope, the whole wheel of the horizon came to view under the breezing wind and blazing sun, then gently down-sliding the hatch cover would sink to a valley bottom only to climbing again a glassy slope and rise again hill-high into the wind and sun. Foam flecks passed on the surface and in the green sun-dazzled crystal of the valley floors he glimpsed strips of fucus floating face down, torn by the storm from their rock attachments, and through the sloping wall of glass up which the hatch cover was climbing he once glimpsed a shark, lifted and cradled in a ridge of the great swell, strange to see as a fly in amber or a fish in ice.
The hatch cover was sweeping with a four-knot current, moving with a whole world of things concealed or half-seen or hinted at. A sea current is a street, it is more, it is a moving pavement for the people of the sea; jelly fish were being carried with Maru on the great swell running with the current, a turtle broke the water close to him and plunged again, and once a white roaring reef passed by only a few cable lengths. He could see the rock exposed for a moment and the water closing on it in a tumble of foam.