Hawaii - James Michener [47]
The most critical part of any twenty-four-hour period came in the half hour just before dawn, for unless the navigator could catch a glimpse of some known star and thus check course he would have to proceed through an entire day with only the unreliable sun to steer by; for while it was true that master astronomers like Teroro and Tupuna could follow each movement of the sun and take from it their heading, they could not use it to determine their latitude. For that they depended upon the stars; their sailing directions reminded them which stars culminated over which islands, and to pass the last moments of night without seeing any constellations was not only an omen of bad luck in the future, it was also proof of present difficulty, which, if it persisted for several days, might develop into catastrophe.
For example, after their first fleeting glimpse of the Seven Little Eyes, Teroro and his uncle had waited anxiously for Three-in-a-Row, which other astronomers then living in distant deserts had already named Orion's Belt, for the sailing directions said that these stars hung over Nuku Hiva, their replenishment point. But Three-in-a-Row had not appeared during the night watch and Teroro had been unable to determine his latitude. Now the conspicuous stars were setting without having been seen, and the navigator was worried.
He had, however, observed on earlier trips that it was a peculiarity of his ocean that in the last few minutes of morning twilight, some star, as if determined to aid mariners, pushed clouds aside and showed itself, and he thought there was still time for this to happen.
"Three-in-a-Row will appear there," Tupuna announced confidently, but Teroro wondered if the night's strong wind might not have blown the canoe rather farther north than his uncle suspected.
"Maybe they will be closer to that cloud," Teroro suggested. The difference of opinion was not to be resolved, for clouds continued to streak out of the west to meet the sun rising on the other side of the ocean. On this day dawn was neither inspiring nor refreshing, for the sun straggled reluctantly up behind many layers of cloud, half illuminated the ocean with dull gray and proved to the voyagers that they did not know where they were.
Teroro and Tupuna, having accomplished all they could, fell into immediate sleep in the stormy daylight; and it was then that the fetter's wife, wizened, red-eyed old Teura, paid for her passage. She climbed out of the grass house, splattered sea water over her wrinkled face, rubbed her bleary eyes, threw her head back and started studying the omens. In nearly two thirds of a century of living with the gods, she had unraveled many of their tricky ways. Now she watched now Ta'aroa moved the waves, how the spume rose, how the tips fell away and in what manner they tumbled back into the troughs. She marked the color of the sea and the construction of the basic swells that underlay the more conspicuous waves.
At midmorning she saw a land bird, possibly from Bora Bora itself, winging its way out to sea, and from its flight she was able to determine the bird's estimate of how long the storm would continue, and it confirmed her own. A bit of bark, washed out to sea days before from Havaiki, was of particular interest to the old woman, for it proved that the ocean had a northerly set, which was not apparent from the wind, which blew more toward the northeast.
But most of all the rheumy-eyed old seer studied the sun, for although it was well masked behind layers of cloud, her practiced eye could mark its motion. "Star men like Tupuna and Teroro don't think much of the sun,"