H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ Pariseault was not unprepared for the happening, for he had seen signs of coming trouble in the Kanaka's manner, and had dreaded an outbreak of madness. He had fallen asleep on the idea that this darkly brooding man might attempt to kill him, and, when he awoke to find himself alone, it was with a feeling of danger passed.
In situations like this the mind becomes very rigid and simple and primitive; it discards convention, and even what we call decency, it has little room for the finer emotions. It is like an animal in a trap, whose one idea is to get out. ”

“ In the woods there were, doubtless, unlimited possibilities in the way of food, but he did not care to explore the woods. Among the trees, and out of sight of the beach, a vaguely unpleasant feeling came to him a feeling as though he were not alone, as though he were possibly being watched, as though—— Ah, it would be impossible to put in words that subtle, indefinable atmosphere of secretiveness, watchfulness, and almost antagonism to the intruder which these island woods held in their depths and in their silence.
He kept to the beach and the lagoon. Here all was free and open. ”

“ Pariseault berthed the boat among the bushes, and, not feeling any need for food, lay down in her and fell asleep.
When he awoke, it was afternoon. He was hungry, and, leaving the boat, he came along the beach to his cooking-place, where he lit a fire and toasted one of the fish which he had caught the previous evening. All his movements were hurried, and like those of a person who has to perform some simple and well-known business whilst suffering from disturbance of the mind. The water breaker belonging to the boat was lying empty on the beach. ”

“ The swell at the break of the reef lifted the keel with a motion buoyant and balloon-like, and the following wind, broken by the reef and the near presence of the land, died away into light airs. Pariseault had no need to take to the sculls; the boat had way enough on to reach the strip of sandy beach lying before her across the diamond-bright lagoon water, and, as her nose touched the sand, the wind died away utterly. ”

“ On the 20th of May the boats, that had been keeping company about a mile apart, were separated by a still greater distance, the sail of the captain's boat being now glimpsed like a gull's wing, now lost in the sun-blaze and the glitter of the sea. Pariseault, though he had a compass and a chart giving him the lie of Raratonga, steered by the captain's boat, which was much better off in this respect. It was also faster. It was also bound to prove its speed, for it was crammed with living men, and it was racing against death. ”

“ The vanishing of the whale-boat filled them with gloom; they had friends and relations in her, and, as far as Pariseault could gather, the idea had come to them that they would never, never see those friends and relations again.
The younger of the two men had been ailing for a long time past, smitten by the disease which civilisation introduced to Polynesia—consumption.
When the whale-boat vanished, this man laid himself down in the bow of the dinghy and refused food. He seemed to have made up his mind to die. Kanakas can die when they please, or, at least, in those days they could. ”

“ Here the weed fought the vine and the vine the weed, and the tree the vine. The tendrils of the liantasse hung like the cables of a ship, whilst to the liantasse clung orchids like gorgeous but ruined birds. ”