The Ocean is a congregation of rivers, the drift currents and the stream currents; rivers, some constant in their flow, some intermittent¹ and variable; some wide, as in the case of the Brazil current which at its broadest covers four hundred and fifty miles; some narrow as in the case of the Karolin-Marua drift, scarcely twenty miles from east to west. The speed of these rivers varies from five miles a day to fifteen or thirty, as in the case of the Brazil current, or from ten to a hundred and twenty miles a day as in the case of the Gulf² Stream.  
Sometimes these rivers, lying almost side by side, are flowing in opposite directions, as in the case of the north running Karolin-Marua current and the southerly drift that had now got the schooner³ in its grasp; and each one of these streams of the sea, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, has its own peculiar⁴ people, from the Japanese swordfish of the Kuro Shiwo to the Gambier turtles on the Karolin-Marua.
 
Left without wind the schooner drifted, her sails casting vast reflections on the glassy swell⁵; sometimes, away out, a slight disturbance⁶ on the water would show where a sleeping turtle had suddenly submerged, and over-side in the ship’s shadow, fucus and jelly-fish floating fathoms⁷ deep could be seen drifting with the ship. Nothing else. Neither shark nor albacore nor palu nor gull⁸ spoke⁹ of life across or beneath that glacial sea.
 
The sun sank in a west of solid gold and the stars took the night, the sails showing black against the brilliant ceiling.
 
Dick, who had come on deck before sunset, stood by Aioma at the after rail. He seemed himself again, but he had not eaten that day; a fact that disturbed the canoe-builder, who had turned from dark thoughts and misgivings¹⁰ to a sort of cheery fatalism. Aioma was alive and there was food and water on board for a long time and the wind might blow soon or the drift—he sensed a drift—take them somewhere. He had a feeling also that his curses had closed the mouth of Le Juan; he had eaten well, and his belly¹¹ was full of ship’s food and bananas, so his sturdy nature refused depression.
 
“Of what use,” he was saying, “is a man without food? A man is the paraka he eats and the fish.... Go and eat, Taori, for without food a man is not a man.”
 
“I will eat to-morrow,” said Taori, “I have no heart for eating now.”
 
Away forward crouching¹² in her old place Le Moan listened to the creak of the ship as it moved to the swell and watched the stars that shone on Karolin.
 
The faithful unbreakable sense born with her as truly as the power of the water-finder is born in him, or the power of the swallow to find its southern nest, told her just where Karolin lay; away on the starboard beam to the north, now dead aft as the schooner turned to some gentle swirl¹³ of the current, now a bit to port, now back again to starboard.
 
She could see the figures of Taori and Aioma in the starlight and she could hear the voices of Poni and the others from the foc’sle, the creak of th............