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Walter E. Traprock - The Cruise of the Kawa
walk in our direction. I knew he couldn't swim a stroke and yet here he was, performing an apparent
miracle right in our faces. Then it suddenly dawned on me - he was walking on the coral branches!
It was not a particularly pleasant interview.
After apologizing for our absence, which we attributed to illness, we broke the news as gently as possible
that we were married.
"Well," said William Henry Thomas, "so be I ... the lady's on board."
"You old land-crab!" blazed Whinney. "Who married you?"
"She did," he replied.
"But who performed the ceremony?" asked Swank.
"Me," answered William Henry.
In vain we tried to explain the necessity of proper rites. His only rejoinder was, "You're too late."
But what made our sailor-man maddest was the information that the yawl had to be moved.
"Here I be as snug as a bug in a rug," he stormed, "an' you go gallivantin' round marrying an' what all, an'
now you show up an boost me out. Its e-viction, that's what it is, e-viction."
This was a long speech for William Henry Thomas; fortunately it was his last. While he was delivering it
I heard a slight splash and turned just in time to see a seal-like form slip over the Kawa's counter and
disappear. I watched in vain for her reappearance. Doubtless like all Filbertines she could stay under
water for hours at a time. After that Thomas sullenly did Triplett's bidding and half-heartedly assisted in
the work of getting the Kawa into the atoll.
It was an arduous task. For four days we labored, working our vessel close in shore opposite a clearing in
the forest, where the outer island was not more than quarter of a mile wide and free from trees. Instructed
by Triplett, we paved the highway to the lagoon with cocoanuts. Our wives and friends thinking it was a
game, assisted us. If they had known it was work they would, of course, have knocked off immediately.
And then the promised storm broke and I saw Triplett's plan.
It was such a storm as this, undoubtedly, that had struck us on July 4th. This time, crouched in the shelter
of the near-by trees, clinging to the matted haro, we were free to watch a stupendous spectacle.
Triplett alone went aboard and lashed himself to the improvised steering post. Our sail had been
stretched and rigged with hundreds of yards of eva-eva, in addition to which four large
taa-taas were lashed along the scuppers.
In less time than it takes to tell, the wind had risen to super-hurricane force. Suddenly Baa-haabaa let out
a yell of warning and pointed seaward. Rushing toward us at lightning speed was a wall of white water,
sixty feet high! In a trice we were all in the treetops, my wife hauling me after her with praiseworthy
devotion. All, did I say? All but Triplett. He was sublime. Then for the first time I knew that he was, in
truth, our chief. Waving his free arm at the advancing maelstrom, he yelled defiance. Then this towering
seawall hit him square in the stern.
I caught one fleeting glimpse of the Kawa gallantly riding the foam. An instant later she was flung with a
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