And the voice of the reef seemed pitched for his ears alone; it seemed to say: ‘You cheated me once, Mafatu, but someday, someday I will claim you!

All around, as far as the eye could reach, were wastes of leaden water. The canoe was the moving center of a limitless circle of sea.

Thunder in his ears. Water strangling him. Terror in his soul. The canoe slewed round into the trough. The boy flung himself forward, wound his arms about the mid-thwart. It was the end of a world.

The palms, trooping to the edge of the beach, were motionless in the night air. All the world seemed to hold its breath as this boy climbed up out of the sea.

He almost hoped that the island was uninhabited, but if it were– He shivered as he realized his isolation. Even at sea in his small canoe he had...