THE PRIESTESS OF NANAWA

Le Juan had seen the canoe men land and heard their story. She had been on the outskirts of the crowd and, having got the gist of the matter, retired to her hut, waiting for the call she knew would come.

Whether Nanawa was a false god or not, she believed in him just as she believed in Nan.

Never laugh at the gods nor sneer at them. The form of history has been moulded by them and man’s destiny arranged by them, and the meanest African idol is the emblem of something that, if not real, was at all events powerful.

An interesting thing about these gods of Karolin was their individuality; each was a distinct character—Nan mild and benevolent, Nanawa ferocious, capricious and always ready to strike. Nan would never have been willing or able to reduce Le Juan to the condition in which she appeared before Uta when they found her and led her to him. Naturally ugly, her face was now appalling, rigid as a face carved from stone, and with only the whites of the eyes showing.

Standing before Uta, and supported on either side, she remained dumb for a moment. Then her mouth opened and a voice issued from it.

The words flowed over out of it, almost adhering together, the very saliva of speech.

“Set forth, strike, destroy,” commanded the voice. “Destroy utterly, O Uta, and thou Laminai, his son, and thou Ma, the son of Laminai.” The words became thicker, lost meaning, became a shout, a prolonged bray, more terrific than the bellowing of a conch. Convulsions seized her, foam ran from her mouth and then, collapsing, she was carried off, whilst Ma seized the great lambai shell passed to him out of the king’s house by one of the wives, and filled the air with its howling.

The bellowing of the shell, echoing over beach and lagoon, roused the gulls; their cries came back like the echoes of the cries of the people. “Kara! Kara! Kara!” “War! War! War!” Then silence fell and the fighting men, the women and the very children set to work, marshalled by Laminai, on the great business that had suddenly entered their lives like a sword.

It was still early morning. At that moment the cachalot was passing Karolin to find the swordfish, the orcas, and destruction! But it was not till early morning of the next day that the preparations were complete and the four great canoes ready for launching.

Each canoe held thirty men, one hundred and twenty men all told, and every man of the tribe was of that expedition except Uta, who was long past war, and three old men, dwellers on the southern beach, useless for anything but fishing in a small way.

In two hours after launching, such was the readiness of response of Karolin to danger or aggression, the provisions were on board, and in another hour the fleet, led by the canoe of Laminai, was paddling towards the break.