The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-11-15

and presently the cocoanut palms began
to sway and whisper, and the boom
of the surf, awakened from long sleep,
sounded out at the reef. Still the bank
of cloud erept on toward the moon,
and the crisp patter of rain sounded
on the bone-dry earth.
Suddenly old Rarago appeared round
the bungalow wall and pointed towards
the sky; but Carter only heard his
name uttered before the moon was blot
ted out and the hurricane burst upon
them. The corrugated iron roof of the
verandah was carried away in the first
gust, and Carter listened to it rafting
away into the darkness like Intellectual
stage thunder He seized Rarago bv
the arm, and together they clung to the
balustrade, seeing nothing, but hear.
ing strange sounds that came indistinct-
ly through the roar of wind and rain
the barking of dogs, the crack of split
ting timber, the crash of glass as gravel
hurtled through the bungalow windows.
Something few out of the night and
hit Carter on the forehead He put up
his hand and brought it away wet, yet
still he chung to the baiustrade and
strained his eyes into the darkness. The
possibilities that Law behind the black
veil of the storm at once appalled, and
fascinated him. 1t was maddening to
hear so many things, yet to know moth
ing and do nothing. Inaction was the
hell Of it.
He CROPPED his way along the veran-
dab and down the steps to the gravel
path. Would the rubber stand the
strain? At least he could feel The
wind made it impossible to stand, so
he dropped to his knees and crawled on
through pools of water, over stones and
tangled brushwood, towards the planta-
ton.
A palm crashed down out of the dark.
ness ahead of him, another fell behind,
and the swapping of third sounded
above the shrieking wind like the re-
port of a rifle directly overhead On
the instant Carter felt himself seized
and dragged backwards, and the tree
trunk crashed to earth where he had
just been kneeling. Soft hair blew
across his face, and he turned to find
Mirama at his side.
With the grey of the dawn he went
down to the beach and sat gazing out
to sea, trying to think.
The plantation was a chaos of tan
igled foliage beaten into mud. Even
the coeOanut grove was level with the
ground. For some reason-or was it
for no reason ?-the work of three years
had been obliterated in night, wiped
from the face of the earth like a draw
ing from a slate, and he stood where
he had begun. He smiled as he remem-
bered that yesterday the thought of two
more years had sickened him. Today
there were five.
It was then that Mirama came out on
to the beach. and handed him a blue
foreign envelope smeared with mud.
There were red hibiscus blossoms be-
hind her ears, and the wind blew her
hair about her face as she squatted IN
the sand at his feet; but Carter failed
to notice these things, and he seemed
not to be listening while she told him
how she had found the letter in the
mangrove swamp.
His eyes had hardly traversed the
first line of the note when it dropped
from his fingers. and laugh escaped
his lips that Mirama had never heard
before. Then it seemed that he would
never take his eyes off the horizon, He
stared and stared as the moments went
by, and she thought he had ceased to
breathe. But at last he moved. and |
sighed like one very weary. His glance
fell on the girl at his feet, and the
meeting of their eyes was the dawn Of
Mirama 5 dav.