CHAPTER III.
THE RACE TO MOTUTABU.
Cheung's schooner arrived from Levuka early the next morning, mooring in the stream at first, then, as the tide served, going to a wharf remote from the main one where the Lehua still lay. Stanton did not go near her, but stayed at Cheung's house after breakfast, at the latter's suggestion, talking with Lucy Haines. From behind the tatties of split bamboo they saw Loo Fong pass by and glance up, later to return again.
Stanton said nothing of what had happened the night before. It did not seem necessary. Cheung had gone to see about getting the schooner ready. Tiki was in his shed, waiting to be called for, smoking his new pipe, a stray no longer.
Stanton and the girl told each other something of their early life. Mention of the impending trip made her grave, brought worry to her eyes. He could tell that she was fighting off doubts of finding her father. Several times they sat silent, but not out of accord.
Cheung came back at noon and said they would leave on the ebb after nightfall. He too had seen Loo Fong. A scout he had sent out reported that they were taking stores aboard the Lehua. The skipper had gone to the hospital, Johnson was in command, and the cook had left.
"They savvy Fahine, my ship," said Cheung. "They savvy she come in. They watch all same we watch along of them. Maybe we get staht. Long way to Motutabu; Fahine mo' fast than Lehua. My captain good man. Suppose wind blow light, you leach island befo' them."
It was dark when they went on board. The Chinese skipper talked "pidgin" that was comprehensible. He found a few words of dialect that Tiki understood, to the black's delight, and sent him forward. The Chinese sailors, naked above the waist, their feet bare, their heads bound with bright bandannas, were a piratical-looking lot though their ordinary occupation was peaceful trading. But they were efficient, getting the schooner under way to singsong orders from mate and boatswain, with his whistle, as the captain showed the girl and Stanton to their quarters.
The schooner was plainly fitted up, and it smelled of ancient cargoes of copra, of bêche-de-mer, sharks' fins, turtle shell and pearl shell, but Cheung had evidently been at some pains to make them comfortable. There were two cabins aft for them, and the girl's, especially, had been brightened with rugs and cushions.
In the main cabin there was a rack for rifles, filled with well oiled weapons. Stanton had noted appreciatively the tall masts, the narrow beam, the clean entry and fine lines of the ship. Speed evidently counted in Cheung's business. In a rush for competitive trade or to be the first at a new pearling ground, the Fahine would not be a laggard.
She was well-found, decks clear and clean of litter, ropes coiled, the ends seized and the rigging well set up. He could hear the quick tread of the yellow-skinned sailors as they went about the familiar tasks. Soon she was under way, the wharf sliding past, the lights of Suva gleaming through the ports.
The captain came below, deferential.
"Suppose you likee go topside?" he said. "Can do."
He was in Chinese clothes, his feet shod; a muscular man with a typically Mongolian face, sure of himself and authoritative, but plainly considering them as allies, friends of Cheung Li.
The wind was fresh from the land, striking them a little abaft the beam, and they slipped fast through the water, with sheets well started. Stanton, watching the way she answered helm, surmised that her bottom was clean. She showed no lights anywhere. The captain took night-glasses from a hook in the companionway and surveyed the reach behind them. They were well out of the shipping.
"No one come," he said laconically. "You like look-see?"
Stanton took the binoculars, focused them, swept the water between them and the land. There was nothing moving there. They had got a start, at least.
He wondered if the Chinese skipper had been to Motutabu before. Probably not. But he would have its position, and the Lehua's previous trip would not advantage them much.
Their direct course was southeast, the distance something over six hundred miles. It might take them anywhere from a week to a fortnight to cover it, for the winds were variable, there were tantalizing calms and strong currents set up by the action of the tides over the varying depths and contour of the bottom, where vast expanses of shallows suddenly changed to vast abysses cleft by submarine peaks and ranges. Neither schooner had an engine. Luck or fate was going to enter largely into the affair.
They lost the land wind and ran into a calm inside of two hours, working through it at last to strike the southeast trade. The Fahine was close-hauled and clawed into it, making eight knots, slogging along at a lively clip with the sheer bows buried at every plunge. It stiffened to a squall, and the schooner leaned against it, the mainsail reefed two points, and only a small staysail forward.
Stanton was a good sailor, and the next morning proved Lucy Haines was another. All that day they sailed fast under a bright sky, the crested seas dark sapphires, save where the foam creamed or was blown in spindrift, and the sun flashed back golden from the facets of the waves. All day the horizon stayed clear of smoke or sail. The girl's spirits rose. It began to look as if the Lehua had not got away. Flying fish rose from the brine, pursued by rushing dolphins; frigate birds soared free.
The trade set them down, and they regained their easting with short legs. They had crossed the Kadavu Passage north of the Astrolabe Reefs, passing between Totoya and Matuku. Now there was no land in sight, would not be if they kept anywhere near their true course until they sighted the island of their quest. The Tongas were far to the north as they headed to cross the Tropic of Capricorn. The wide expanse of ocean, the run of sparkling water, the clean wind blowing between sea and sky—it was all physically exhilarating, mentally stimulating, a tonic for doubt, strengthened by the lonely horizon.
The two of them had their own mess. The rest ate Chinese food, but they were served a menu to suit their occidental tastes. Cheung's orders, no doubt. It was excellently cooked and served. Things aboard the Fahine ran like clockwork. There was never any confusion. The yellow men went about their tasks with a will the moment an order was given, without fumbling, knowing what was wanted.
It blew harder, the seas mounted, still under the blue sky and bright sun. They had to lower the mainsail at last and mount a storm staysail between the two masts, balanced by a rag of a jib. They made more leeway now. The wind remained southeast, blowing from the quarter they sought to penetrate as if it was determined to hold them off. It might have been the breath of the great gray god defending his tabu. But any wind was better than no wind, unless they had to run before it, and it did not come to that.
The weather modified swiftly with a blazing sunset. Stanton came on deck at midnight to find a heavy swell running, the schooner under full sail but with only a few flaws of wind that sent her forward spasmodically. The captain was aft by the starboard rail, motionless. Stanton offered him one of the cheroots with which Cheung had supplied him, and the other took it silently.
He lit it before he spoke.
"Lil time ago we see ship," he said. "All same this. Gone now. Long way off."
"You think it was the Lehua?"
"No can tell. Maybe. Maskee."
It was not indifference. Only the tacit acceptance of conditions, the Oriental touch of fatalism. He pointed to where a new moon hung like a nail-paring.
"Wind go soon. Maybe they get, maybe we catch. Maskee."
The word summed up Chinese philosophy. The equivalent of the Russian nitchevo. It was not the time for direct action, save for the handling of the ship, which was the plaything of the weather. But later in the night Stanton, restless, unable to share the maskee-ism of the skipper, smelled incense. The captain was burning punk sticks before the joss in the gilded shrine in the cabin. He had his superstitions, or his faiths.
The next three days saw them almost motionless. The sea had gone down and was like glass, reflecting the fiery glare of the sun. Now and then they saw distant squalls, bursts of rain, ruffled patches of sea, but they got no breath of wind.
The horizon was clear again. The Lehua—Stanton held no doubt that the vessel they had sighted was that schooner, with Loo Fong aboard—might be experiencing the same conditions, or she might be bowling along out of the baffling strip.
A current was steadily setting them east. He envied the imperturbability of the Chinese; they were used to the vagaries of the sea, and accepted what they could not alter; but he chafed with impatience. Lucy Haines kept to her cabin, her meals served there. Stanton did not disturb her. She was sick, not of body, but of heart. The punk sticks burned constantly.
On the fourth morning trade clouds appeared aft, in the northwest. It was the time of the monsoon changes of wind caused by the difference in temperature between air and water. There was wind in those vaporous heights. It revealed itself in a dark line on the water that came fast toward them as the skipper gave an order and they swung out the booms in readiness. The breeze caught them, urged them on, sailing wing and wing, the canvas bellying taut as drums, the lively sea seething all about them, a broad wake behind, on their course once more, headed straight for Motutabu.
Stanton noticed Tiki at his usual post, far forward, his eyes always turned south. He was a different looking savage from the sick creature curled up on the bale. His skin was glossy and his eyes were bright. His broad nostrils dilated as if he smelled familiar odors. Stanton wondered what he was thinking about. If the cook of the Lehua had spoken truly, his own island held peril for him, but there was no fear in his eyes. Whenever they looked at Stanton they held gratitude, but there was a difference, a measure of pride.
That afternoon the captain cast a light on Tiki.
"I speak with Tiki," he said, "No savvy too much, but he say one time he live along Motutabu. His father tahunga, all same wiza'd. Tiki all same tahunga himself. He speak Motutabu velly bad place stop along. All time too much bad magic along of big god live that place."
There was more than that that the skipper had found out by signs and certain words they both understood. Stanton retailed it later to the girl, who was again on deck.
Apparently Tiki's father had run the tribe. Tiki seemed to have been trained to take his place. Then the god had turned malignant. It was one of the deities of the South Sea pantheon that had to be placated, and the sacrifices had failed. There had been an earthquake—"Velly much shake that island," was the way the captain interpreted it. The top of a mountain had fallen off and a cape had slid into the sea. The wizard was blamed. The population escaped in canoes, after killing the man whose magic had gone wrong. Tiki had been spared for some reason which was obscure, perhaps because of his youth or because the women hid him.
On the tribe's new home he had been suffered to live. A new wizard manifested himself. There was no god on this island. All went well save that Tiki was in bad odor. He was an hereditary tahunga, of an ancient line of wizards, and the new one feared him. Tiki had lived by himself in the bush, periodically hunted and sought for a sacrifice, blamed by the new tahunga for every sickness and death. So Tiki had stolen aboard the Lehua, hoping to escape to some friendlier place at which they might touch, not knowing what sort of man was in command or what kind of men were on the ship.
The curious thing was that he did not seem alarmed because they were going to Motutabu. The god was an evil god, but he believed fully in the magic of his dead father. It was the plotting of the man who later set himself up as tahunga that had annoyed the deity. His father had understood the god, had taught Tiki secrets concerning it. None but the ancient line of wizards dared approach it. Its shadow was death to all others.
Stanton could see no particular bearing in all this concerning the finding of Haines and the pearls. But he remembered the warnings of Cheung not to meddle with the god, and it was evident that the skipper had gone to much pains to talk with Tiki. Tiki seemed to be acquiring importance, a card whose value Stanton could not judge, though he sensed that he might have done something far more significant than he guessed when he rescued him from the cruelty of the mate. He had much to learn about Motutabu, much to learn about the god. Even now he could not quite shake off the feeling that Cheung had not spoken idly. Strange things happened in the South Seas.
He understood it a little better with his first close glimpse of Motutabu.