The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1942-01-08
CHAPTER Nv

She drew into herself, then. After
q while Tonga Dick Wayne went aft
to stand beside the man at the
wheel, but Karen remained at the
rail, her eyes on Alakoa.
For a long time the island drew
no nearer. The Holokai seemed
fixed at given distance from her
goal, racing across restless sea
which forever interposed itself. I'm
der Karen's feet the deck of the
little vessel pulsed between the
steady boom of her Diesel and the
shock of the smooth swells she was
smashing to pieces as she drove.
She still carried all sail, heeling
deep and boring off at long slant,
but the great added power of her
engine made her lift and reel, reach
ing across the face of the sea like
crazy thing.
Stealing a glance over her shoul-
der, Karen saw that Dick himself
now took the wheel. There was a
great stir on deck as most of the
canvas came down; and after this
the half dozen of the crew who were
visible stood alert along the rail,
watching the water.
Very much alive with a definite
concentration, Tonga Dick Wayne
spun his vessel through Alakoa's
treacherous shoals. A Hawaiian boy
was in the bow with a lead line,
his eyes turned to Dicks face, but
Dick die not call for the lead. A
great mound of water rose under
the taffrail of the Holokai, Slam
ming her shoreward like surfboard
before it broke and raced along her
counter in a thrashing roar.
Then suddenly upon the little
schooner there was silence-unex-
pected, but complete and final. The
engine quit, and the voice OF the
reef diminished surprisingly, until
it seemed no more than a whisper.
Effortlessly, on so even keel that
she seemed to glide upon glass, the
Holokai drifted under single scrap
of sail into Alakoa's little harbor.
Along the shoreline of the little
that band of electric blue, emer-
aid, and the red-gold of reflected
sunset made the shadows an aggres-
sive rainbow, unbelievable to main
land eyes. Beyond this radiant
prism the indescribable soft tan of
the beach lay broadly; then the
deep, dark, silent green of tropic
vegetation, studded through with lit
tie buildings that were like toy build
ings, quiet and lovely in the sunset
light
So absorbing was her interest in
the little port that for while she
forgot Tonga Dick; she was even un-
aware of the scrutiny of hundred
pairs Of eyes-mostly those of small
brown-skinned boys who swan be-
side the slowing Holokai. What oc-
cupied Karen now was this unfamii-
lar soil where her father had been
born: this land which even yet, il
John Colt was to be believed, be-
longed to her.
The background of Alakoa's tiny
port was like that of Honolulu-a
near swift rising of mountain slopes
dark with ohia trees and kiavi
brush, into which reached from be-
low the long pale green fingers Of
the kukui trees, following the moist
er contours. But the foreground was
new and unknown.
At one side, just behind the beach,
an old warehouse ran, long and low,
silver-gray from uncounted rains.
It was haH smothered in tangle
of sea grapes, and over one end
hung a y'est flame tree of the bright
est cri ,.on Karen had ever seen.
Out from it ran a massive but crazi-
ly leaning pier; and all except the
pier seemed lost in the riot of COCO
nuts and hula palms, breadfruit
trees and banyans, which made a
veritable jungle behind the beach.
This ruined development was the
old Waterson layout, now turned
over to the fishermen whose SAM
pans and outriggers dotted the shall
low water and the beach. The pill
ings leaned and sagged, but stood.
Here wsk perhaps the last landing
old Garrett Waterson's eyes had
ever touched, that day when he had
pointed his tall schooner southwark
to the open sea-never, so far as
Karen knew, to be heard from
again. When she thought Of that it
made the shadowy figure of her
grandfather seem unexpectedly
close.
But the pier that Garrett Water
son had built was not the principal
landing any more. Farther to the
west the Wayne landing stood,
modern concrete dock, long and
clean-cut. Behind it number of
long, handsome stucco buildings
stood. set in parallel The roadWaYS