One moment: and there, on the reef, where the breakers whitened and beat, Rahéro was standing alone, glowing, and scorched and bare, A victor unknown of any, raising the torch in the air. But once he drank of his breath, and instantly set him to fish Like a man intent upon supper at home and a savoury dish. For what should the woman have seen? A man with a torch—and then A moment’s blur of the eyes—and a man with a torch again. And the torch had scarcely been shaken. “Ah, surely,” Rahéro said, “She will deem it a trick of the eyes, a fancy born in the head; But time must be given the fool to nourish a fool’s belief.” So for a while, a sedulous fisher, he walked the reef, Pausing at times and gazing, striking at times with the spear: —Lastly, uttered the call; and even as the boat drew near, Like a man that was done with its use, tossed the torch in the sea.
Lightly he leaped on the boat beside the woman; and she Lightly addressed him, and yielded the paddle and place to sit; For now the torch was extinguished the night was black as the pit. Rahéro set him to row, never a word he spoke, And the boat sang in the water urged by his vigorous stroke. —“What ails you?” the woman asked, “and why did you drop the brand? We have only to kindle another as soon as we come to land.” Never a word Rahéro replied, but urged the canoe. And a chill fell on the woman.—“Atta! speak! is it you? Speak! Why are you silent? Why do you bend aside? Wherefore steer to the seaward?” thus she panted and cried. Never a word from the oarsman, toiling there in the dark; But right for a gate of the reef he silently headed the bark, And wielding the single paddle with passionate sweep on sweep, Drove her, the little fitted, forth on the open deep. And fear, there where she sat, froze the woman to stone: Not fear of the crazy boat and the weltering deep alone; But a keener fear of the night, the dark, and the ghostly hour, And the thing that drove the canoe with more than a mortal’s power And more than a mortal’s boldness. For much she knew of the dead That haunt and fish upon reefs, toiling, like men, for bread, And traffic with human fishers, or slay them and take their ware, Till the hour when the star of the dead