island and he’ll home back like a pigeon if he has a canoe and can paddle long enough. That island we took the girl from is the pearl island. Born and bred there she was, and it’s her centre of everything. Sru got it all out of her and about the pearls and fixed up with her to take us back. Don’t know what he’s promised her, I reckon a few beads is all she wants and all she’ll get, but that’s how it lies: we’ve only got to push along due south by the compass and she’ll correct us, leeway or set of current or any tomfool tricks of the needle don’t matter to her. She never bothers about the compass, she sees where she wants to go straight before her nose, same’s when land’s in sight you see it and steer for it.”
“Can she steer?” asked Carlin, who had not been on deck the day Sru set her at the wheel.
Rantan turned to where the girl was standing in the bow, called her aft and gave the wheel over to her. When she had felt the ship, standing with her head slightly uptilted, she altered the course a few points; the Kermadec had been off her path by that amount owing to leeway or set of current.
From that moment the ship was in the hands of Le Moan, tireless as only a being can be who exists always in the open air. She lived at the wheel with intervals for sleep and rest, always finding on her return the ship off her course, still heading south, but no longer on that exact and miraculous line drawn by instinct between herself and Karolin.
Error in the form of leeway or the influence of
