CHAPTER XX

THE KEEPER OF THE LAGOON

The woods here had been less affected by the cyclone than those upon

the other side of the island, but there had been destruction enough. To

reach the place he wanted, Dick had to climb over felled trees and

fight his way through a tangle of vines that had once hung overhead.

The banana trees had not suffered at all; as if by some special

dispensation of Providence even the great bunches of fruit had been

scarcely injured, and he proceeded to climb and cut them. He cut two

bunches, and with one across his shoulder came back down through the

trees.

He had got half across the sands, his head bent under the load, when a

distant call came to him, and, raising his head, he saw the boat adrift

in the middle of the lagoon, and the figure of the girl in the bow of

it waving to him with her arm. He saw a scull floating on the water

half-way between the boat and the shore, which she had no doubt lost in

an attempt to paddle the boat back. He remembered that the tide was

going out.

He flung his load aside, and ran down the beach; in a moment he was in

the water. Emmeline, standing up in the boat, watched him.

When she found herself adrift, she had made an effort to row back, and

in her hurry shipping the sculls she had lost one. With a single scull

she was quite helpless, as she had not the art of sculling a boat from

the stern. At first she was not frightened, because she knew that Dick

would soon return to her assistance; but as the distance between boat

and shore increased, a cold hand seemed laid upon her heart. Looking at

the shore it seemed very far away, and the view towards the reef was

terrific, for the opening had increased in apparent size, and the great

sea beyond seemed drawing her to it.

She saw Dick coming out of the wood with the load on his shoulder, and

she called to him. At first he did not seem to hear, then she saw him

look up, cast the bananas away, and come running down the sand to the

water’s edge. She watched him swimming, she saw him seize the scull,

and her heart gave a great leap of joy.

Towing the scull and swimming with one arm, he rapidly approached the

boat. He was quite close, only ten feet away, when Emmeline saw behind

him, shearing through the clear, rippling water and advancing with

speed, a dark triangle that seemed made of canvas stretched upon a

sword point.

* * * * * *

Forty years ago he had floated adrift on the sea in the form and

likeness of a small shabby pine-cone, a prey to anything that might

find him. He had escaped the jaws of the dog-fish, and the jaws of the

dog-fish are a very wide door; he had escaped the albicore and squid:

his life had been one long series of miraculous escapes from death. Out

of a billion like him born in the same year, he and a few others only

had survived.

For thirty years he had kept the lagoon to himself, as a ferocious

tiger keeps a jungle. He had known the palm tree on the reef when it

was a seedling, and he had known the reef even before the palm tree was

there. The things he had devoured, flung one upon another, would have

made a mountain; yet he was as clear of enmity as a sword, as cruel, and

as soulless. He was the spirit of the lagoon.

* * * * * *

Emmeline screamed, and pointed to the thing behind the swimmer. He

turned, saw it, dropped the oar and made for the boat. She had seized

the remaining scull and stood with it poised, then she hurled it blade

foremost at the form in the water, now fully visible, and close on its

prey.

She could not throw a stone straight, yet the scull went like an arrow

to the mark, balking the pursuer and saving the pursued. In a moment

more his leg was over the gunwale, and he was saved.

But the scull was lost.