Never the Twain Shall Meet

It was a song that never before had been sung;once sung, never again would it be heard. Such asong, indeed, as little girls croon to their dolls; halffuneral chant, half hymn, sung in a minor key by agirl with a powerfully sweet lyric soprano. The lastof the land breeze carried it aft to Gaston Larrieau,the master of the 200-ton auxiliary trading schoonerMoorea, where he stood on the top step of the companion,his leonine head and tremendous shoulders showingabove the deck-house, as he smoked his first after-breakfastpipe.

While he listened, a shadow passed over the man’sface, as when winds drive a dark cloud above a sunnyplain. He removed his pipe thoughtfully to murmur:

“Ah, my poor Tamea! Dear child of the sun! Homesickalready!” Then he came out on deck and stoodby the weather rail, looking forward until he espiedthe figure of the singer stretched face downward, at fulllength, alongside the bowsprit, but snuggled comfortablyin the belly of the jib. One arm enveloped thebowsprit; at each rise and fall of the Moorea’s longclipper bow, her feet, sandal-clad, beat the canvas inrhythm. And, because she was young and athrill withthe music of the spheres, because the dark blue waterpurling under the schooner’s forefoot brought to hermemories of the insistent, peaceful swish of the surfenveloping the outer reef at Riva, the girl Tamea sang: