A FIRE ON THE REEF

Kearney had put shelves in the house to hold the ships so that they did not interfere with the floor space where he slept with Dick.

The shack behind the house where the provisions had been stored still held, though the roof had gone pretty much to pieces, and here the sailor had fixed the sleeping quarters of Katafa.

Blankets had been given to them by the wreck, supplementing those left behind by Stanistreet, and, getting along for sundown, Kearney, with three blankets on his arm, two for a bed and one for a quilt, beckoned the girl to follow him.

She stopped short at the entrance to the shack and then took a step backwards, standing and watching him at his work.

Then, when he came out, he pointed to the blankets.

“There ain’t no pilla,” said Kearney, “but you won’t be mindin’ that. Now then, Kanaka girl, there’s your bunk. Ain’t you likin’ the look of it?”

She had drawn back another step.

“I’m with you,” said Kearney, pointing to the couch.

She shook her head. Ask a fox to enter a trap.

“Well, then, you can just sleep in the trees,” said he, and off he went round the house, leaving her to her choice.

Dick, tired out with the day, was in the house and sound asleep, and the sailor, who had a fishing line to overhaul, sat down by the door and set to work on it. As he sat, busy with his fingers and reviewing with his mind Kanakas and their unaccountable ways, he saw the girl coming out from the trees. She had fished two of the blankets out of the shack, and she was crossing the sward with them towards the canoe that was tied to the bank. She got into the canoe with them and vanished from sight—all but her head, visible in the sunset light above the bank.

Now Kearney had old-fashioned ideas as to how young people should behave towards their elders, and Dick had received many a “clip” from him for disobedience. He was starting to “go after” the girl, when he saw two hands go up to her head; she was arranging her hair. One might have fancied her before a mirror.

This sight checked him. He finished his work, put the line away, and retired to the house. During their ten years of residence the house had almost been destroyed by a big blow from the northwest and Kearney, in rebuilding, had enlarged it.

There was plenty of room for him and Dick, and to-night, as he lay there, the four ships on their shelves above him and Dick sound asleep by the wall, he could see through the open doorway a new picture: the mat sail of the canoe still unfurled, and, just distinguishable in the fast-rising twilight, the head of the girl above the bank.

Kearney was worried. Living in ease and quietude, one might fancy worry his last visitant, but that was not so; quite small things, things he would never have given a second thought to on shipboard, had the power to upset him here, and though he would not have changed his mode of life for worlds, a broken fishing line or a leak in the dinghy would make him grumpy for hours, cursing his fate and wondering what was going to happen next.

Katafa was worrying him now; she was unlike any Kanaka he had ever seen. Where had she come from? Was it from that island he guessed to be lying down south there? And if so, might she not bring others of her kind after her? Then the way she had slipped from under his hand, and those eyes of hers which she kept fixed on him—she wasn’t right.

He dropped off to sleep with this conviction in his mind and dreamt troublous dreams, awaking about two in the morning to wonder what she was doing and whether everything was secure. Then, sleep driven away, he came out into the windless, starry night, where a six days’ old moon was lolling above the trees.

Away out to sea a red flicker met his gaze. A fire was burning on the reef. Trumpets blowing in the night could not have astonished him more.

He watched for a moment as the flame waxed and waned, now casting a trail of red light on the lagoon water, now dying down only to leap up again. Then he came running to the canoe. The girl was not there and the dinghy was gone; the paddle was gone from the canoe also; she must have taken it to paddle herself over to the reef, not being able to use the sculls.

There was plenty of dried weed and bits of wreckage on the reef to make a fire with, but how had she got a light? He came back to the house and searched for the box of matches on the little shelf outside, where it was always put when done with. It was gone.

She must have come “smelling round” when they were asleep. She must have noticed where the matches had been put and treasured up the fact in her dark mind!

“But what in the nation’s she done it for?” asked Kearney of himself, as he stood scratching his head. “What’s she up to, anyway?”

The night made no reply—only the rumble of the reef, now loud, now low, and the mysterious light of the fire, now waxing, now waning, flaring up only to die down again.

He came to the trees on the other side of the sward and watched for an hour, till at last the fire died to a spark and the spark vanished.

Then came the sound of the paddle as the dinghy stole like a beetle across the star-shot lagoon water and tied up at the bank. A figure passed along the bank towards the house. She was putting the matchbox back; then she came along towards the canoe, slipped into it and vanished from sight.

Kearney waited ten minutes. Then he stole back to the house and turned in again.

“You wait till the mornin’, and I’ll l’arn you,” said he to himself as he closed his eyes, composing his mind to slumber with the thought of the whacking in store for the Kanaka girl.