Against the dim light of the stars
and beyond the beach of darkness they could see the fronds of
the palms waving. The five survivors were starving, and the green
cocoa-nuts hung above them, filled with food and drink. But their
bodies, broken and tormented as they were by hunger and the battering
breakers, refused even to rise and climb for the food that meant life.
So they lay there, as though dead.
* * * * *
Over the ridge of the beach came a man. His pale copper skin shone in
the fresh sunlight of the morning. His quick black eyes were caught by
the sight of torn clothing hanging on a bush. Moving swiftly down the
beach of pounded coral, he saw a man lying with arms thrown out, face
downward. Turning the body over Faivaatala[31] found that the man was
dead. Taking the body in his arms he staggered with it up the beach,
and placed it under the shade of the trees. Returning he found the
living five. Their gaunt bodies and the broken craft on the shore told
him without words the story of their long drifting over the wilderness
of the waters.
Without stopping to waste words in empty sympathy with starving men,
Faivaatala ran to the nearest cocoa-nut tree and, climbing it, threw
down luscious nuts.
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