"I see just one boat," said the lookout. "A lost fisherman or a lone visitor."
Paruru hoped that the young man was right. "Do not be too quick to decide," he cautioned. "It may be the lead craft of a war fleet."
The dot on the horizon grew steadily larger and its appearance more puzzling. The boat seemed to wallow excessively on a sea that had only moderate swells.
The lookout apparently had made the same observation. "It cannot be Pu-tahi," he said. "Pu-tahi would not be thrown around so. And the sail is very strange."
"Remember how tricky Pu-tahi can be," said Paruru. "I heard they once pretended to be dismasted and adrift. After they reached shore, they did not even bother with the usual ceremonies. They treated the captured men like clams—cut up their flesh and hung it to dry in the sun."
"Aue!'' said the lookout in dismay as Paruru continued to study the approaching vessel. He had seen many kinds of craft during his lifetime and had become expert at identifying them from afar. It was part of a warrior's training.
Each atoll had its own variation on the double-hulled pahi and the single-hulled outrigger canoe—the vaka. He had seen these from all angles, in all possible conditions, from the fresh timber and clean lines of a new vessel to the weathered and battered hull of a derelict. He grew frustrated and then alarmed as he realized that the oncoming vessel looked totally unfamiliar.
Then he heard the lookout gasp. "This cannot be possible, kaito-nui! The canoe has a single hull, but no outrigger."
Paruru strained his eyes to see the shape of the vessel beneath the billowing sail. At first he thought that the outrigger float had broken away. But how could a canoe stay balanced without one, especially with such a large expanse of sail? He remembered watching a vaka that lost its outrigger when worn lashings suddenly parted. The wind's force had laid the craft right over.
"Only the gods could hold such a vaka upright." Paruru glanced to the adjacent tree and saw that the lookout's lips were trembling.
"We must run," said the youth, "and summon the high priest. The marae must be cleansed, the offerings chosen. Aue! Aue! The gods are coming!"
Paruru ordered the young man to be silent, but his own thoughts were in turmoil. Could this indeed be a vessel bringing divine ones to the atoll? Was this the event that the ringoringo had foretold?
Paruru knew how fickle the gods could be, benevolent and savage by turns. He recalled a tale about Oro that he had recently heard in Tahiti. When the god first visited that high island, he came in a rage, wasting the land and forcing its people into hiding.
But another thought kept returning to the warrior's mind as he watched the ungainly craft. Would gods disgrace themselves by sailing so poorly?
He could not answer this question and he certainly could not remain up this tree, like a bewildered coconut picker, while the unknown canoe approached his island.
He descended so hurriedly that his warrior's girdle, a narrow, plaited belt around his waist, snagged and tore on the rough trunk. This insult to his badge of office was a bad omen, and blackened his mood as he strode out to find his warriors.
The men emerged from shade when he called them, hurriedly laying their spears into the bottoms of outrigger canoes that were kept on the seaward shore. A gap in the breakers here allowed canoes to be launched directly into the sea.
With shouts and the scraping of wood against stone, the canoes were hoisted up and run into the pounding surf. Spray glistening on their sun-blackened bodies, the men scrambled into the slender hulls and paddled frantically to get out. Paruru joined the melee, leaping into the bow of the largest vaka. He felt his canoe leap forward as the paddlers bent to their strokes.
To either side he saw the prows of the other canoes following in a tight formation behind his. Bucking on the rollers, his flotilla arrowed swiftly toward the invader. Now he could see how truly strange the craft was.
Its hull, painted dull red, was as wide as a man is tall and five times longer. The vessel bore no outrigger float, nor any trace of ever having had one. The huge sails flying from the single mast were not made of the stiff plaited mats used by all islanders. They appeared smooth and flexible, billowing out in the wind like enormous pieces of Tahitian bark-cloth. Yet no type of bark-cloth that Paruru knew could hold up to gusts and water without shredding.
Sails hung where he had never seen them—great three-sided sheets fastened to a pole that stuck forward from the prow. The wind made these sails bulge like a pregnant woman's belly.
He heard a cry of disbelief from Two-eels, the warrior behind him. Two-eels was a sturdy young man, a fierce fighter and an able leader of his own kaito group. "An outriggerless vaka that does not capsize! Cloth sails that do not tear! What kind of vessel is this?" he asked Paruru.
The kaito-nui stared ahead, his eyes narrowing. Such signs spoke of magic. Yet, as he watched, the boat lurched and wallowed in the swell, losing the wind. Gruffly he answered, "Gods may have made that vessel, but it is not a god who sails it."
Two-eels agreed, and then Paruru remembered something he had heard while traveling among the northern atolls. Now and again, strange moving islands had been sighted, islands fitted with huge billowing wings. Canoe-masters thought that these might be great pahi from afar. The moving islands were said to be as high as the tallest coconut palms, yet able to remain upright in the water.
Such miraculous things seemed scarcely to belong within the world of man, yet Paruru had heard that they were surprisingly flawed. Sometimes these winged visions met with accidents at sea. They fell prey to underwater coral banks, hazards that every seafarer knew to avoid.
Recalling the tales, Paruru scrutinized the oncoming vessel. Though far smaller, it fit descriptions he had heard, and it, too, shared the flaw. It was not heading for the pass, as he had assumed earlier, but on a collision course with the reef!
Paruru shouted at his men to paddle faster, then cupped his hands to his mouth and called a warning to whatever fool might be steering the strange boat. For answer he heard only the washing of the sea and the cries of gulls. The craft held its course.
Spray soaked Paruru's back, and a gust of wind chilled him. Behind him, Two-eels muttered about ghosts. Paruru stiffened as he considered grim possibilities. If the canoe carried corpses, then their angry spirits might still be close by, ready to attack anyone who approached. He would be better letting the reef have such a vessel....
"Aue!" came Two-eels's cry.
Paruru, too, had seen it—something moving beneath the other boat's sail. A crouching figure. A head, shoulders, arms, hands. He heard the paddlers arguing among themselves.
"What is that?"
"Shaped like a man ..."
"A man with blue arms?"
"The blue part is clothing," said one of the older paddlers. The others laughed in scorn.
Paruru sided with the scoffers. What were all those wrinkles, wattles, strips, and flaps hanging off the body? The figure looked more like a kelp-plastered sea creature than a man.
The face had two eyes and a mouth, but the nose stuck out like a bird's bill. The skin was darkened unevenly. The eyes stared wildly from within deep hollows. Hair the color of sun-bleached grass stood up in spikes and tangles about the head.
The figure's motions did not seem human. It lurched, stumbled, groped. When the mouth opened, only a croaking groan came forth.
A figure out of nightmares, thought Paruru, and raised his arm to give the signal to veer away. At that moment the apparition leaned over the boat's hull, extending both blue arms in a beseeching gesture. A hand went to an open mouth, jabbing a finger frantically inward in a sign of desperate thirst.
Paruru sat frozen, his arm still raised. Gods and demons might suffer on their journeys, but never were they reduced to such begging wrecks as this. Despite the odd coverings, this creature before him had to be a man!
Even as the stranger made his appeal, his craft was taking him toward the frothing waters that pounded the reef. Paruru watched
fear spread across the strange sailor's face as he finally realized his danger. Weakness made him clumsy as he struggled with the shaft of his steering oar. Paruru caught a glimpse of other men sprawled beneath the thwarts, but none rose to help.
Now Paruru's thoughts turned in a new direction. The crew seemed incapable of defending their vaka, and it seemed a prize well worth taking. Its remarkable sails alone would astonish everyone who saw them. He could not imagine what other wonders the craft held. Yet all would be lost if it struck the reef.
With a yell the kaito-nui ordered an intercept course and urged his paddlers to stroke harder. "Steer away!" he shouted at the foreign boat while he gestured at the breakers.
At last the stranger shoved on his oar handle and his craft swung around, heeling so far over that it nearly capsized. The mainsail swung to the wrong side and began to flap and then backfill. The boat slowed, drifting broadside to the wind.
At their leader's command, men at the bows of their canoes tossed loops of sennit cord over the invading vessel's stem post. Bending to their paddles, the islanders struggled to tbw the doomed boat off before it could hit the reef. But the backfilling wind in the huge sheets made the task impossible.
"Cut down your sails!" Paruru's shout was hoarse. He knew the order was extreme, for much time and effort went into lashing sails to masts and booms. But unless the stranger sacrificed his rigging, he would lose the boat.
Paruru was not sure if the foreign sailor grasped his meaning. The warrior slapped the side of his canoe with impatience while he watched the other's slow movements, his hands manipulating something at the bottom of his mast. Suddenly the mainsail slid down in a tumble of cloth. More fumbling at a line freed the two foresails, which flapped out to the side like banners.
Paruru gasped in surprise. These strangers had a way of dropping sail that he had never seen before. He had no time to puzzle over this wonder, for he was busy giving orders to his men.
At last the paddlers began to make headway, towing the ungainly craft away from the churning breakers. With voices lifted in a paddling chant, the men drove their blades deep.
The tide was starting to turn now, Paruru noticed as he looked toward the pass. Soon a strong current would be flowing out from the lagoon, a current that his men could not fight. The strange craft must be brought home now or abandoned.
"What is your wish, kaito-nui!" called the masters of the other canoes.
Paruru had not forgotten that unseen dangers might lurk on the foreign craft. His task was to protect his people. If he towed the vessel far to sea, and set it adrift, he would be taking the safest course.
But he recalled what he knew of the moving islands that had been seen elsewhere. A few had stopped, sending out men who offered trade—astonishing gifts in exchange for coconuts and vegetable greens. If this craft came from the same place, there might be similar treasure within its hull. What a prize to bring his new chief!
He gazed once more at the remarkable vessel. Perhaps the gods had sent it for his benefit so that Tepua would recognize that her kaito-nui was a man of courage. If he let the strange craft slip away, then he would have only words to bring her....
Paruru could delay no longer. He shouted the order to tow the boat into the lagoon. The paddles began again, closing the short distance to the pass.
The lead canoes halted just at the entrance to the channel. Backing water, they waited for a powerful wave to gather. Paruru heard a hoarse cry and looked at the foreigner in the boat. The outsider's face showed alarm as he gestured with one finger at the surging water. Paruru laughed. Had this man never before entered a pass?
"The wave comes," he bellowed to the towing canoes. "Ahead!"
Stroking powerfully, the men drove through the channel on the wave crest, dragging their load behind them. Paruru ordered his own canoe to follow. The rush of boiling surf just beneath the bow, and the jagged coral on the sides of the pass, made his heart beat faster. He might mock the foreigner's fear, but a part of him understood it.
There was always a risk of the unexpected here—a canoe upset or dragged against the reef, a paddler washed overboard, his head smashed or his limbs broken against the rocks. Perhaps, as Tepua had told him, there was an evil spirit dwelling in the channel....
But this time the ocean's surge carried all the vessels safely through, into the calm of the lagoon. Once out of danger, the outsider craned his head about, his expression as rapt as a child's. The warrior had seen this before—visitors, particularly high-islanders, gaping at the azure waters and the graceful sweep of coconut palms against the sky.
The foreign boat now glided easily behind the canoes. Paruru noticed that the arrival of his odd flotilla was already attracting attention. Several vaka were approaching from the far side of the lagoon. On shore he saw children running, and heard their shrill shouts as they tried to keep pace with the canoes.
Paruru's boat took the lead, and he headed for an anchorage that lay close to the residence of the chief. Now he stood downwind of the foreign craft. Cautiously he inhaled its scents.
At sea, the briny wind had overwhelmed all else. Here, the smells wafting from the boat were strong—urine, excrement, and the rotting-pork stink of sick and unwashed bodies. He caught fainter scents that reminded him of tree sap. The familiar odors of a pahi were lacking—the dry tang of sennit, the fishy odor of nets and tackle, the aroma of sweet coconut oil from the bodies of one's canoe mates.
He noticed the boat starting to drift, blown by the onshore breeze toward the shallows. "Throw out your anchor stone," Paruru called to the sailor, miming the action of lifting something and tossing it overboard.
Evidently the foreigner understood, but the stone was too heavy for him. Grunting and sweating as he knelt in the bottom of the boat, he finally managed to haul up a huge black fishhook with four prongs. It was attached to a strange line made of many interlinked little pieces. With a clank and rattle that sounded like a cascade of pebbles falling, the anchor descended to the bottom.
The clattering rope grew tight and the boat ceased its shoreward drift. Some of Paruru's men pounded their thighs with approval and amusement. The foreigner was not a total fool. He knew how to drop an anchor stone.
"Drinking nuts!" Paruru demanded, remembering the stranger's signs of thirst. He took a viavia that was passed to him from the supply carried beneath the thwarts. Ordering his canoe closer, he tossed the partly husked nut to the eager hands. The stranger brought out a bright blade that flashed sun into Pamru's eyes. Instead of peeling away the bit of green husk that covered the nut's mouth, he began hacking and stabbing at the middle, as if trying to wound an enemy.
Paruru heard whispers from the men behind him.
"He does not know how to drink from the viavia."
"He must come from far away. Even our infants know how."
It took several shouts to turn the foreigner's attention from his futile efforts. Finally the ravaged face looked up. The kaito-nui held aloft a second drinking nut and showed how to poke open the small mouth at its end. Paruru lifted the nut and drank.
Clumsily the stranger followed suit, making too large an opening and dribbling half the contents down his chin. Astounded at the man's ineptitude, Paruru tossed him several more coconuts. On his second try, the outsider did better, but began to gulp with a frenzy that alarmed the kaito-nui. Paruru had seen starved men kill themselves by swallowing more than their shriveled stomachs could bear. He shouted a warning.
To his surprise, the sailor did not drain the second nut but instead bent to the bottom of the boat. Beneath the tumbled sail lay another man, like himself in appearance except for the dark color of his hair. Cradling the head of his companion in his arm, the stranger poured coconut water on the dry and cracked lips. Paruru watched as a man who seemed dead gradually regained life.
At once he felt a mixture of approval and concern. This stranger was not as stupid as he had first seemed. He knew enough not to sicken himself after his privation. And
he was generous enough to help his weaker comrade.
But the presence of a second recovering foreigner, and possibly a third, worried Paruru. How would he deal with these men?
As he pondered the question he grew aware of voices in the distance and the splash of approaching paddles. He turned and saw canoes coming from every direction. On shore, men and women were gathering in a large crowd.
"Stay back!" he ordered, and told his warriors to pass the word along. "No one may board!" He glanced at the onlookers in the shallows—men with sweaty faces, women holding naked babies, girls decked out in sunshades of coconut fronds. He was not sure he could control their curiosity.
"Summon the high priest," he bellowed toward one of his men ashore. Then he called a swift canoe and gave another order—to find Tepua, who had gone to visit Paruru's sister Heka, and bring her back at once.
Tepua would be pleased with this prize, he thought. No other chief had ever captured such a vessel. Yet Paruru felt uneasy as he watched the bright-haired man reviving his third companion. He wished, not for the first time, that Kohekapu had kept his strength awhile longer.
His daughter, lovely as she was, did not possess the wisdom of a chief. Worst of all, she had spent too much time in Tahiti, where men were soft and women lazy. A strong will was needed now. A great chief would know how to use this gift that the gods had sent.
FOUR
As the sun rose toward noon Tepua sat with Heka, Paruru's sister and chief of Piho Clan. The women relaxed on mats laid out under a stand of palms by the lagoon. Within calling distance servants stood ready to bring food or drink. For now, the women were content just to talk.
Heka and most of her clan lived on their own long, slender islet far from the reef's pass. After the frenzy of activities surrounding her assumption of the chiefhood, Tepua had come to this quieter part of the atoll for a few days of rest. Her decorated pahi now stood high on the beach, while her paddlers lolled in the shade.
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