At a seasonable hour the next days, I got my jewels--my little inhuman

jewels--into their thick, winter clothes again, and we trotted down to

breakfast, as hungry as bears. Deborah was good enough to embrace both

the little ones, but she gave the Zebra a wide berth, and was not

entirely satisfied at leaving him loose in the house.

He was rather odd-looking, I confess. He used to curl up under the table

and go to sleep, at all hours of the day,--I think it was the cold

weather that encouraged him in it,--stretching himself, now and then,

like a spaniel, and showing his sharp saw-teeth in a queer way, when he

laughed in his dreams. Presently Gail came in, and we sat at table, and

came near to eating her out of house and home. Deborah said

grace,--rather a long one, considering we were so hungry,--a grace in

which my babies were not forgotten, and the Zebra was made the subject

of a special prayer. To my horror Zebra was helping himself

surreptitiously to the nearest dish, the while. It was a merry meal. I

rose in the midst of it, and laid before Gail an enormous placard,

printed in as many colours as even the Zebra could boast, and Gail read

it out to Deborah:

=JENKINS' HALL.=

IMMENSE ATTRACTION!

_FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY!_

HOKY AND POKY,

A BRACE OF SOUTH-SEA BABIES, FROM THE ANCIENT RIVERS

OF KABALA-KUM,

--AND--

THE WONDERFUL BOY

ZEBRA,

A CANNIBAL PRINCE FROM THE PALMY PLAINS OF POTTOBOKEE

IN THEIR GRAND MORAL DIVERSION,

The first and only opportunity is now afforded the great public

to observe with safety how the heathen, in his blindness,

bows down to wood and stone.

These are the only original and genuine representatives of the

Kabalakumists and Pottobokees that ever left

their coral strand.

ADMISSION, ----, CHILDREN, HALF PRICE.

Deborah was awed into silence, and Gail was apparently thinking over the

possible result of this strange advertisement, for she said nothing, but

took deliberate sips of coffee, and broke the dry toast between her

fingers, while she looked at all four of us savages in a peculiar and

ominous manner. Nothing was said, however, to disparage any farther

announcement of the entertainment; and, having appeased our hunger, we

adjourned to the reading of another chapter, during which the South Sea

babies _would_ play cat's-cradles under Gail's writing-table, and the

Zebra put his foot into the middle of her work-basket, and was very

miserable indeed.

I was as full of work as could be. As an _impressario_ I had to rush

about all day, mustering the Great Public for the evening. Out I went,

full of it, while the bronze midgets were left in charge of Gail and

Deborah, and the Zebra was locked in an upper room, with plenty to eat,

and no facilities for getting into mischief. I saw the leading men in

town: the preacher, who was deeply interested, proposing to take up a

collection on the next sabbath, for our benefit,--which proposition I

received with graceful acquiescence peculiarly my own; the professor, at

the Seminary, who was less affable, but whose pupils were radiant at the

prospect of getting into the cannibals at reduced rates; and the editor,

who desired to print full biographies of myself and cannibals, with

portraits and facsimile of autographs. He strongly urged the

plausibility of this new method of winning the heart of the Great

Public, and was willing to take my note for thirty days, in

consideration of his personal friendship for me, and his sympathy, as a

public man and a member of the press, with the show business.

Everything worked so nicely that it really seemed quite providential

that I had come, as I had, like anything in the night,--noiseless and

unheralded. Everything was in good order, and, after our late dinner, I

went out again, to finish for the evening,--portioning off my charges,

as before, and returning, at the last moment, to bring them up to the

hall for their _début_. But judge of my horror at finding my Zebra

stretched upon the floor of his room, quite insensible; and all this

time Jenkins's Hall was thronged with the Great Public, who had come to

see us bow down to wood and stone.

I was greatly alarmed. What could this sudden attack mean? He was not

subject to disorders of that nature,--at least, I had never seen him in

a similar condition. The little fellows began to cry in their peculiar

fashion, which is simply raising the voice to the highest and shrillest

pitch, and then shaking to an unlimited degree. Gail was by no means

charmed at these new developments, and Deborah fled from the room. In a

moment the cause of our trouble was disclosed. Gail's cologne bottles

were exhumed from under the bed--but quite empty. Their contents had

been imbibed by the Zebra in an extemporaneous bacchanalian festival,

tendered to himself by himself, in honour of the occasion.

It was useless to borrow further trouble, so I prepared my apology: "The

sudden indisposition peculiar to young cannibals during the early stages

of a public and Christian career had quite prostrated the representative

from many a palmy plain; and the South Sea babies would endeavour to

fill the vacancy caused by his absence with several new and interesting

features not set down in the bills."

I was most cordially received by the audiences, and the little midgets

danced their weird and fantastic dances, in the least possible clothing

imaginable, and sang their love-lyrics, and chanted their passionate

war-chants, and gave the funeral wail in a manner that reflected the

highest credit upon their respective South Sea papas and mammas. I

considered it an entire success, and pocketed the proceeds with

considerable satisfaction.

But to return to my poor little Zebra. His cologne-spree had been quite

too much for him. He was mentally and physically demoralized, and could

be of no use to me, professionally, for a week, at least. I at once saw

this, and as I had two or three engagements during that time, I begged

Gail to allow him to remain with her during his convalescence, while I

went on with the babes and fulfilled my engagements. She consented.

Deborah also promised to be very good to him. I think she took a deeper

interest in him when she found how very human he was--a fact she did not

fully realize until he took to drinking.

On we went, through three little villages, in three little valleys, with

crowded houses every evening. Delighted and enthusiastic audiences

wanted the midgets passed around, just as we passed the bone fish-hooks

and shark's-teeth combs, for inspection.

About this time I received a short and decisive epistle from Gail,--an

immediate summons home. The Zebra, in an unwatched moment, had got into

the kerosene, and was considered no longer a welcome guest at Gail's.

Deborah was praying with him daily, which didn't seem to have the

desired effect, for he was growing worse and worse every hour.

There were at least seven towns anxiously awaiting my South-Sea

Lecture, with the "heathen in his blindness" attachment. Yet it was out

of the question to think of pressing on in my tour, thereby sacrificing

my poor Zebra, and possibly Gail as well. I feared it was already too

late to save him, for I knew the nature of his ailment, and foresaw the

almost inevitable result. When we returned, Gail met us with tears in

her eyes, and furrows of care foreshadowed in her face. I felt how great

a responsibility I had shifted upon her shoulders, and accused myself

roundly for such selfishness. The babes rushed into her arms with the

first impulse of love, and refused to allow her out of their sight again

for some hours.

Deborah was, even then, wrestling with the angels up in Zebra's room,

and I waited until she came down, with her eyes red and swollen,--a

bottle of physic in one hand and a Bible in the other; then I went in to

my poor, thin, shadowy little Zebra, who was wild-eyed and nervous, and

scarcely knew me at first, but went off into hysterics the moment he

found me out, to make up for it. He had had no opportunity of speaking

to any one, save in his broken English, for several days, and he rushed

into a torrent of ejaculations so violent and confusing that I was

thoroughly alarmed at his condition. Presently he grew quieter, from

sheer exhaustion, and then I learned how he had taken Deborah's

well-intended efforts toward his spiritual conversion. _He believed her

praying him to death!_ Deborah knew nothing of the sensitive organism of

these islanders. When moved by a spirit of revenge, they threaten one

another with prayers. Incantations are performed and sacrifices offered,

under which fearful spells the unhappy victim of revenge cannot think

of surviving. So he lies down and dies, without pain, or any effort on

his part; and all your physic is like so much water, administer it in

what proportions you choose.

I went into the garden, where I saw Gail under the maples,--the very

maples that were budding in pink and white when she wrote me the letter

bidding me come out of the South, bringing my sheaves with me. The

animated sheaves were even then swinging on the clothes-lines, and

taking life easily. "Gail," I said, "O Gail, the Zebra is a dead boy!"

Gail was shocked, and silent. I told her how useless, how hopeless it

was to think of saving him. All the doctors and all the medicine in the

world were a fallacy where the soul was overshadowed with a malediction.

"Gail," I said, "that Zebra says he wants to be an angel, and he

couldn't possibly have decided upon anything more unreasonable than

this. What shall I do without my Zebra?" And I walked off by myself, and

felt desperately, while Gail was wrapped in thought, and the babes

continued to do inexpressible things on the clothes-lines, to the

intense admiration of three small boys on the other side of the

garden-fence.

The doctor had already been called, and the physic that Deborah carried

about with her was a legitimate draught prescribed by him. Little did he

know of the death-angel that walks hand-in-hand with a superstition as

antique as Mount Ararat. So day by day the little Zebra grew more and

more slender, till his frail, striped skeleton stretched itself in a

hollow of the bed, and great gleaming eyes watched me as they would

devour me with deathless and passionate love.

Sometimes his soul seemed to steal out of his withering body and make

mysterious pilgrimages into its native clime. I heard him murmuring and

muttering in a language unfamiliar to me. I remembered that the chiefs

had a dialect of their own,--a vocabulary so sacred and secret that no

commoner ever dared to study out its meaning. This I took to be his

classical and royal tongue, for he was of the best blood of the kingdom,

and a king's heir.

Deborah, at the delicate suggestion of Gail, discontinued her

visitations to his chamber, as it seemed to excite him so sadly; but her

earnest soul never rested from prayer in his behalf till his last breath

was spent, and his splendid stripes grew livid for a moment, and seemed

to change like the dolphin's before their waning glories were faded out

in the lifeless flesh.

One twilight I took the midgets into the darkened room. They scarcely

knew the thin, drawn face, with the slender, wiry fingers locked over

it, but they recognized the death-stroke with prophetic instinct, and,

crouching at the foot of the bed, rocked their dusky bodies to and fro,

to and fro, wailing the death-wail for Zebra.

Then I longed for wings to fly away with my savage brood,--away, over

seas and mountains, till the palms waved again their phantom crests in

the mellow star-light, and the sea moaned upon the reef, and the rivulet

leaped from crag to crag through silence and shadow: where death seemed

but a grateful sleep; for the soul that dawned in that quiet life had

never known the wear and tear of this one, but was patient, and

peaceful, and ready at any hour of summons.

Dear Gail strove to comfort me in my tribulation; but the Great Public

went its way, and knew nothing of the young soul that was passing in

speedy death. Yet the Great Public was my guide, philosopher, and

friend. I could do nothing without its sanction and co-operation. I

basked in its smiles. I trembled at the thought of its displeasure; and

now death was robbing me of my hard-earned riches, and annihilating my

best attraction. No wonder I fretted myself, and berated my ill-fortune.

Poor Gail had her hands full to keep me within bounds. I rushed to the

Zebra's room, and vowed to him that if he wouldn't die just yet I would

take him home at once to his kingdom, and we'd always live there, and

die there, by-and-by, when we were full of years.

Alas, it was too late! "I want to be an angel," reiterated my Zebra, his

thin face brightening with an unearthly light; "to be an angel,"

whispered that faint and failing voice, while his humid eyes glowed like

twin moons sinking in the far, mystical horizon of the new life he was

about to enter upon. I struggled with him no longer. I bowed down by his

pillow, and pressed the shadowy form of my once beautiful Zebra. "Well,

be an angel, little prince," said I; "be anything you please, now, for I

have done my best to save you, and failed utterly."

So he passed hence to his destiny; and his nation wept not, neither wore

they ashes upon their foreheads, nor burned seams in their flesh; for

they knew not of his fate. But there was a small grave digged in the

orchard, and at dusk I carried the coffin in my arms thither: how light

it was! he could have borne me upon his brawny shoulders once,--strong

as a lion's. Gail cried, and Deborah cried; and I was quite beside

myself. The mites of cannibals ate earth and ashes, and came nearly

naked to the obsequies, refusing to wear their jackets, though the air

was frosty and the night promised snow. We knelt there, to cover Zebra

for the last time, crying and shivering, and feeling very, _very_

miserable.

I took a little rest from business after that; seeing, meantime, a stone

cut in this manner:--

Here lies,

In this far land,

A PRINCE OF THE SAVAGE SOUTH,

And the Last of his Tribe.

But life called me into the arena again. A showman has little time to

waste in mourning over his losses, however serious they may be.

One frosty evening I got my brace of cannibals into the lumbering

ambulance that constituted my caravan, with our boxes of war-clubs and

carved whale's-teeth lashed on behind us, plenty of buffalo-robes around

us, and a layer of hot bricks underfoot, and so we started for our next

scene of action. The inexorable calls of the profession forbade our

lingering longer under Gail's hospitable roof; and it was not without

pangs of inexpressible sorrow that we turned from her door, and knew not

if we were ever again to enjoy the pure influences of her household.

My heart warmed toward poor, disconsolate Deborah in that moment, and I

forgave her all, which was the most Christian act I ever yet performed.

As we rode down the lane, I caught a glimpse of the low mound in the

orchard, and I buried my little barbarians under my great-coat, so as to

spare them a fresh sorrow, while I thought how, spring after spring,

that small grave would be covered with drifts of pale apple-blossoms,

and in the long winters it would be hidden under the paler drifts of

snow,--when it should be strewn with sea-shells, and laid away under a

cactus-hedge, in a dense and fragrant shade; and I gathered my little

ones closer to me, and said in my soul: "O, if the August Public could

only know them as I know them, it would doubt us less, and love us more!

The Zebra is gone, indeed, but my babes are here, fresh souls in perfect

bodies, like rare-ripe fruits, untouched as yet, with the nap and the

dew upon them." The stars sparkled and flashed in the cloudless sky, as

we hurried over the crisp ground,--a little, bereaved, benighted company

of South-Sea strollers, who ask your charity, and give their best in

return for it.

* * * * *

I have told you of my South-Sea show. You may yet have an opportunity of

judging how you like it, provided my baby heathens don't insist upon

turning into angels before their time, after the manner of the lamented

Zebra. In the meantime, the dread of this not improbable curbing of my

high career is but one of the sorrows of a South-Sea showman.

THE HOUSE OF THE SUN.

My Hawaiian oracle, Kahéle, having posed himself in compact and chubby

grace, awaited his golden opportunity, which was not long a-coming. I

sat on the steps of L----'s verandah, and yawned frightfully, because

life was growing tedious, and I did not know exactly what to do next.

L----'s house was set in the nicest kind of climate, at the foot of a

great mountain, just at that altitude where the hot air stopped dancing,

though it was never cool enough to shut a door, or to think of wearing a

hat for any other purpose than to keep the sun out of one's eyes.

L----'s veranda ran out into vacancy as blank as cloudless sky and

shadowless sea could make it; in fact, all that the eye found to rest

upon was the low hill jutting off from one corner of the house beyond a

jasmine in blossom; and under the hill a flat-sailed schooner rocking in

a calm. I think there was nothing else down the slope of the mountain

but tangled yellow grass, that grew brown and scant as it crept into the

torrid zone, a thousand feet below us, and there it had not the courage

to come out of the earth at all; so the picture ended in a blazing

beach, with warm waves sliding up and down it, backed by blue-watery

and blue-airy space for thousands and thousands of miles.

Why should not a fellow yawn over the situation? especially as L---- was

busy and could not talk much, and L----'s books were as old as the hills

and a good deal drier.

Having yawned, I turned toward Kahéle, and gnashed my teeth. The little

rascal looked knowing; his hour had come. He fired off in broken

English, and the effect was something like this:--

"Suppose we sleep in House of the Sun,--we make plenty good sceneries?"

"And where is that?" quoth I.

Kahéle's little lump of a nose was jerked up toward the great mountain

at the back of L----'s house. "Haleakala!"[A] cried he, triumphantly,

for he saw he had resurrected my interest in life, and he felt that he

had a thing or two worth showing, a glimpse of which might content me

with this world, dull as I found it just then. "Haleakala--the House of

the Sun--up before us," said Kahéle.

[A] Haleakala, an extinct crater in the Sandwich Islands,

supposed to be the largest in the world.

"And to get into the Sun's House?"

"Make a good climb up, and go in from the top!"

Ha! to creep up the roof and drop in at the skylight: this were indeed a

royal adventure. "How long would it take?"

Kahéle waxed eloquent. That night we should sleep a little up on the

slope of the mountain, lodging with the _haolis_ (foreigners) among the

first clouds; in the morning we should surprise the sun in the turrets

of his temple; then down--down--down into the crater, that had been

strewed with ashes for a thousand years. After that, out on the other

side, toward the sea, where the trade-winds blew, and the country was

fresh and fruitful. The youngster sweated with enthusiasm while he

strove to make me comprehend the full extent of the delights pertaining

to this journey; and, as he finished, he made a rapid flank movement

toward the animals, staked a few rods away.

It was not necessary that I should consent to undertake this expedition.

He was eager to go, and he would see that I enjoyed myself when I went;

but go I must, now that he had made up my mind for me. I confess, I was

as wax in that climate. Yet, why not take this promising and uncommon

tour? The charm of travel is to break new paths. I ceased to yawn any

further over life. Kahéle went to the beasts, and began saddling them.

L----'s hospitality culminated in a bottle of cold, black coffee, and a

hamper of delicious sandwiches, such as Mrs. L---- excels in. I had

nothing to do but to go. It did look like a conspiracy; but, as I never

had the moral courage to fight against anything of that sort, I got into

the saddle and went.

Turning for a moment toward the brute's tail, overcome with conflicting

emotions, I said,--

"Adieu, dear L----, thou picture of boisterous industry! Adieu, Mrs.

L----, whose light is hid under the bushel of thy lord; but, as it warms

him, it is all right, I suppose, and thy reward shall come to thee some

day, I trust! By-by, multitudes of little L----s, tumbling recklessly in

the back-yard, crowned with youth and robust health and plenty of flaxen

curls! Away, Kahéle! for it is toward evening, and the clouds are

skating along the roof of the House of the Sun. Sit not upon the order

of your going, but strike spurs at once,--and away!"

It was thus that I revived myself. The prospect of fresh adventure

intoxicated me. I do not believe I could have been bought off after that

enlivening farewell. The air of the islands was charged with

electricity. I bristled all over with new life. I wanted to stand up in

my saddle and fly.

It seemed the boy had engaged a special guide for the crater,--one

accustomed to feeling his way through the bleak hollow, where any

unpractised feet must have surely gone astray. Kahéle offered him a

tempting bonus to head our little caravan at once, though it goes sorely

against the Hawaiian grain to make up a mind inside of three days.

Kahéle managed the financial department, whenever he had the

opportunity, with a liberality worthy of a purse ten times as weighty as

mine; but as he afterward assured me, that guide was a fine man, and a

friend of his whom it was a pleasure and a privilege to serve.

Of course, it was all right, since I couldn't help myself; and we three

pulled up the long slopes of Haleakala, while the clouds multiplied, as

the sun sank, and the evening grew awfully still. Somewhere up among the

low-hanging mist there was a house full of _haolis_, and there we

proposed to spend the night. We were looking for this shelter with all

our six eyes, while we rode slowly onward, having scarcely uttered a

syllable for the last half-hour. You know there are some impressive

sorts of solitude, that seal up a fellow's lips; he can only look about

him in quiet wonderment, tempered with a fearless and refreshing trust

in that Providence who has enjoined silence. Well, this was one of those

times; and right in the midst of it Kahéle sighted a smoke-wreath in the

distance. To me it looked very like a cloud, and I ventured to declare

it such; but the youngster frowned me down, and appealed to the special

guide for further testimony. The guide declined to commit himself in the

matter of smoke or mist, as he ever did on all succeeding occasions,

being a wise guide, who knew his own fallibility. It was smoke!--a thin,

blue ribbon of it, uncoiling itself from among the branches of the

overhanging trees, floating up and up and tying itself into double-bow

knots, and then trying to untie itself, but perishing in the attempt.

In the edge of the grove we saw the little white cottage of the

_haolis_; and, not far away, a camp fire, with bright, red flames

dancing around a kettle, swung under three stakes with their three heads

together. Tall figures were moving about the camp, looking almost like

ghosts, in the uncertain glow of the fire; and towards these lights and

shadows we jogged with satisfaction, scenting supper from afar.

"Halloo!" said we, with voices that did not sound very loud up in that

thin atmosphere.

"Halloo!" said they, with the deepest unconcern, as though they had been

through the whole range of human experience, and there was positively

nothing left for them to get excited over.

Some of their animals whinnied in a fashion that drew a response from

ours. A dog barked savagely until he was spoken to, and then was obliged

to content himself with an occasional whine. Some animal--a sheep,

perhaps--rose up in the trail before us, and plunged into bush, sending

our beasts back on their haunches with fright. A field-cricket lifted up

its voice and sang; and then a hundred joined him; and then ten thousand

times ten thousand swelled the chorus, till the mountains were alive

with singing crickets.

"Halloo, stranger! Come in and stop a bit, won't you?" This was our

welcome from the chief of the camp, who came a step or two forward, as

soon as we had ridden within range of the camp fire.

And we went in unto them, and ate of their bread, and drank of their

coffee, and slept in their blankets,--or tried to sleep,--and had a

mighty good time generally.

The mountaineers proved to be a company of California miners, who had

somehow drifted over the sea, and, once on that side, they naturally

enough went into the mountains to cut wood, break trails, and make

themselves useful in a rough, out-of-door fashion. They had for

companions and assistants a few natives, who, no doubt, did the best

they could, though the Californians expressed considerable contempt for

the "lazy devils, who were fit for nothing but to fiddle on a

jew's-harp."

We ate of a thin, hot cake, baked in a frying-pan over that camp fire;

gnawed a boiled bone fished out of the kettle swung under the three

sticks; drank big bowls of coffee, sweetened with coarse brown sugar and

guiltless of milk; and sat on the floor all the while, with our legs

crossed, like so many Turks and tailors. We went to our blankets as soon

as the camp fire had smothered itself in ashes, though meanwhile Jack,

chief of the camp, gathered himself to windward of the flames, with his

hips on his heels and his chin on his knees, smoking a stubby pipe, and

talking of flush times in California. He was one of those men who could

and would part with his last quarter, relying upon Nature for his bed

and board. He said to me, "If you can rough it, hang on a while,--what's

to drive you off?" I could rough it: the fire was out, the night chilly;

so we turned in under blue blankets with a fuzz on them like moss, and,

having puffed out the candle,--that lived long enough to avenge its

death in a houseful of villainous smoke,--we turned over two or three

times apiece, and, one after another, fell asleep. At the farther side

of the house lay the natives, as thick as sheep in a pen, one of them a

glossy black fellow, as sleek as a eunuch, born in the West Indies, but

whose sands of life had been scattered on various shores. This sooty

fellow twanged a quaint instrument of native workmanship, and twanged

with uncommon skill. His art was the life of that savage community at

the other end of the house. Again and again, during the night, I awoke

and heard the tinkle of his primitive harp, mingled with the

ejaculations of delight wrung from the hearts of his dusky and sleepless

listeners.

Once only was that midnight festival interrupted. We all awoke suddenly

and simultaneously, though we scarcely knew why; then the dog began to

mouth horribly. My blanket-fellows--beds we had none--knew there was

mischief brewing, and rushed out with their guns cooked. Presently the

dog came in from the brush, complaining bitterly, and one of the miners

shot at a rag fluttering among the bushes. In the morning we found a

horse gone, and a couple of bullet-holes in a shirt spread out to dry.

As soon as the excitement was over, we returned to the blankets and the

floor. The eunuch tuned his harp anew, and, after a long while, dawn

looked in at the uncurtained window, with a pale, grey face, freckled

with stars.

Kahéle saw it as soon as I did, and was up betimes. I fancy he slept

little or none that night, for he was fond of music, and especially fond

of such music as had made the last few hours more or less hideous.

Everybody rose with the break of day, and there was something to eat

long before sunrise, after which our caravan, with new vigour, headed

for the summit.

Wonderful clouds swept by us; sometimes we were lost for a moment in

their icy depths. I could scarcely see the tall ears of my mule when we

rode into those opaque billows of vapour that swept noiselessly along

the awful heights we were scaling. It was a momentary but severe

bereavement, the loss of those ears and the head that went with them,

because I cared not to ride saddles that seemed to be floating in the

air. What was Prince Firouz Schah to me, or what was I to the Princess

of Bengal, that I should do this thing!

There are pleasanter sensations than that of going to heaven on

horseback; and we wondered if we should ever reach the point where we

could begin to descend again to our natural level, and talk to people

infinitely below us just then. Ten thousand perpendicular feet in the

air; our breath short; our animals weak in the knees; the ocean rising

about us like a wall of sapphire, on the top of which the sky rested

like a cover,--we felt as though we were shut in an exhausted receiver,

the victims of some scientific experiment for the delectation of the

angels. We were at the very top of the earth. There was nothing on our

side of it nearer to Saturn than the crown of our heads. It was deuced

solemn, and a trifle embarrassing. It was as though we were personally

responsible for the planet during the second we happened to be uppermost

in the universe. I felt unequal to the occasion in that thin, relaxing

atmosphere. The special guide, I knew, would shirk this august

investiture, as he shirked everything else, save only the watchful care

of my collapsing _porte-monnaie_. Kahéle, perhaps, would represent us to

the best of his ability,--which was not much beyond an amazing capacity

for food and sleep, coupled with cheek for at least two of his size.

There is danger in delay, saith the copybook; and while we crept slowly

onward toward the rim of the crater, the sun rose, and we forgot all

else save his glory. We had reached the mouth of the chasm. Below us

yawned a gulf whose farther walls seemed the outlines of some distant

island, within whose depths a sea of cloud was satisfied to ebb and

flow, whose billows broke noiselessly at the base of the sombre walls

among whose battlements we clung like insects. I wonder that we were not

dragged into that awful sea, for strange and sudden gusts of wind swept

past us, coming from various quarters, and rushing like heralds to the

four corners of the heavens. We were far above the currents that girdle

the lower earth, and seemed in a measure cut off from the life that was

past. We lived and breathed in cloud-land. All our pictures were of

vapour; our surroundings changed continually. Forests laced with frost;

silvery, silent seas; shores of agate and of pearl; blue, shadowy

caverns; mountains of light, dissolving and rising again transfigured in

glorious resurrection, the sun tinging them with infinite colour. A

flood of radiance swept over the mysterious picture,--a deluge of

blood-red glory that came and went like a blush; and then the mists

faded and fled away, and gradually we saw the deep bed of the crater,

blackened, scarred, distorted,--a desert of ashes and cinders shut in by

sooty walls; no tinge of green, no suggestion of life, no sound to

relieve the imposing silence of that literal death of Nature. We were

about to enter the guest-chamber of the House of the Sun. If we had been

spirited away to the enchanted cavern of some genii, we could not have

been more bewildered. The cloud-world had come to an untimely end, and

we were left alone among its blackened and charred ruins. That magician,

the sun, hearing the approach of spies, had transformed his fairy palace

into a bare and uninviting wilderness. But we were destined to explore

it notwithstanding; and our next move was to dismount and drive our

unwilling animals over into the abyss. The angle of our descent was too

near the perpendicular to sound like truth, in print. I will not venture

to give it; but I remember that our particular guide and his beast were

under foot, while Kahéle and his beast were overhead, and I and my

beast, sandwiched between, managed to survive the double horror of being

buried in the _débris_ that rained upon us from the tail-end of the

caravan, and slaying the unfortunate leaders ahead with the multitude of

rocks we sent thundering down the cliff. A moving avalanche of stones

and dust gradually brought us to the bed of the crater, where we offered

thanks in the midst of an ascending cloud of cinders, every soul of us

panting with exhaustion, and oozing like a saturated sponge. The heat

was terrific; shelter there was none; L----'s coffee was all that saved

as from despair. Before us stretched miles and miles of lava, looking

like scorched pie-crust; two thousand feet above us hung heavy masses of

baked masonry, unrelieved by any tinge of verdure. To the windward there

was a gap in the walls, through which forked tongues of mist ran in, but

curled up and over the ragged cliffs, as though the prospect were too

uninviting to lure them farther. It behoved us to get on apace, for life

in the deserted House of the Sun was, indeed, a burden, and moreover

there was some danger of our being locked in. The wind might veer a

little, in which case an ocean of mist would deluge the crater, shutting

out light and heat, and bewildering the pilgrim so that escape were

impossible. The loadstone bewitched the compass in that fixed sea, and

there were no beacons and no sounding signals to steer by. Across the

smooth, hard lava occasional traces of a trail were visible, like

scratches upon glass. Close to the edges of this perilous path yawned

chasms. Sometimes the narrow way led over a ridge between two sandy

hollows, out of which it was almost impossible to return, if one false

step should plunge you into its yielding vortex. There was a long pull

toward afternoon, and a sweltering camp about three p.m., where we

finished L----'s lunch, and were not half satisfied. Even the consoling

weed barely sustained our faulting spirits, for we knew that the more

tedious portion of the journey was yet to come.

The windward vestibule wound down toward the sea, a wild gorge through

which the molten lava had poured its destructive flood. There it lay, a

broad, uneven pass of dead, black coal,--clinkers, as ragged and sharp

as broken glass,--threaded by one beaten track a few inches in breadth.

To lose this trail was to tear the hoofs from your suffering beasts in

an hour or two, and to lacerate your own feet in half the time. Having

refreshed ourselves on next to nothing, we pressed forward. Already the

shadows were creeping into the House of the Sun, and as yet we had

scarcely gained the mouth of the pass. As we rode out from the shelter

of a bluff, a cold draught struck us like a wave of the sea. Down the

bleak, winding chasm we saw clouds approaching, pale messengers that

travel with the trade-wind and find lodgment in the House of the Sun.

They were hastening home betimes, and had surprised us in the passage.

It was an unwelcome meeting. Our particular guide ventured to assume an

expression of concern, and cautiously remarked that we were

_palikia_,--that is, in trouble! For once he was equal to an emergency;

he knew of a dry well close at hand; we could drop into it and pass the

night, since it was impossible to feel our way out of the crater through

clouds almost as dense as cotton. Had we matches? No. Had we dry sticks?

Yes, in the well, perhaps. Kahéle could make fire without phosphorus,

and we could keep warm till morning, and then escape from the crater as

early as possible. After much groping about, in and out of clouds, we

found the dusty well and dropped into it. Ferns--a few of them--grew

about its sides; a dwarfed tree, rejoicing in four angular branches, as

full of mossy elbows as possible, stood in the centre of our retreat,

and at the roots of this miserable recluse the Kanakas contrived to

grind out a flame by boring into a bit of decayed wood with a dry stick

twirled rapidly between their palms. Dead leaves, dried moss, and a few

twigs made a short-lived and feeble fire for us. Darkness had come upon

the place. We watched the flaming daggers stab the air fitfully, and

finally sheathe themselves for good. We filled our shallow cave with

smoke that drove us into the mouth of it, from time to time, to keep

from strangulation. We saw our wretched beasts shaking with cold; we saw

the swift, belated clouds hurrying onward in ghostly procession; we

could do nothing but shudder and return to our dismal bed. No cheerful

cricket blew his shrill pipe, like a policeman's whistle; the sea sang

not for us with its deep, resounding voice; the Hawaiian harp was

hushed. A stone, loosened by some restless lizard, rattled down the

cliff; a goat, complaining of the cold, bleated once or twice. The wind

soughed; the dry branches of our withering tree sawed across each other:

these were our comforters during that almost endless night.

Once the heavens were opened to us. Through the rent in the clouds we

saw a great shoulder of the cliff above us, bathed in moonlight. A

thousand grotesque shadows played over the face of it. Pictures came and

went,--a palimpsest of mysteries. Gargoyles leered at us from under the

threatening brows of the bluff; and a white spectre, shining like a

star, stood on the uppermost peak, voiceless and motionless,--some

living creature lost in admiration of the moon. Then the sky fell on us,

and we were routed to our solitary cave.

There is a solitude of the sea that swallows up hope; the despairing

spirit hangs over a threatening abyss of death; yet above it and below

it there are forms of life rejoicing in their natural element. But there

is a solitude of the earth that is more awful; in it Death taunts you

with his presence, yet delays to strike. At sea, one step, and the

spirit is set at liberty,--the body is entombed for ever. But alas!

within the deserts of the earth no sepulchre awaits the ashes of him who

has suffered, and nought but the winds or the foul-feeding vultures

shall cleanse that bleaching skeleton where it lies.

We tried to sleep on our stony pillows. Kahéle woke and found the guide

and me dozing; later, the guide roused himself to the discovery that

Kahéle and I were wrapped in virtuous unconsciousness. Anon I sat up

among the rocks, listened to the two natives breathing heavily, and

heard the wind sighing over the yawning mouth of our cavern. I heard the

beasts stamping among the clinkers, and covered my head again with the

damp blanket, and besieged sleep. Then we all three started from our

unrefreshing dreams, and lo! the clouds were rising and fleeing away,

and a faint, rosy light over the summit-peaks looked like sunrise; so we

rose and saddled the caravan, and searched about us for the lost trail.

Hour after hour we drew nearer to the mouth of the crater. Our progress

was snail-like; each one of us struck out for himself, having lost

confidence in the cunning of the other. From small elevations we took

our reckoning, and he who got the farthest toward the sea lifted up his

voice in triumph, and was speedily joined by the rest of the party.

At last we came upon the bluffs that overhang the green shores of the

island. We were safely out of the Sun's Tabernacle, but not yet free to

pass into the lowly vales of the earth. Again and again we rode to the

edges of the cliffs, whose precipitous walls forbade our descent.

Sometimes we clung to the bare ribs of the mountain, where a single

misstep might have sent us headlong into the hereafter. Frequently we

rejoiced in a discovery that promised well; but anon a sheltered chasm

unveiled its hideous depths, or an indigo-jungle laid hold of us and cut

us off in that direction.

Below us lay the verdant slopes of Kaupo. From their dried-grass houses

flocked the natives, looking like ants and their hills. They watched us

for hours with amused interest. Now and then they called to us with

faint and far-off voices,--suggestions that were lost to us, since they

sounded like so many bird-notes floating in the wind. All day we saw the

little village lying under us temptingly peaceful and lazy. Clouds still

hung below us: some of them swept by, pouring copious drops, that drove

our audience within doors for a few moments; but the rain was soon over,

the sun shone brighter than over, the people returned to watch us, and

the day waned. We surprised flock upon flock of goats in their rocky

retreats; but they dispersed in all directions like quicksilver, and we

passed on. About dusk we got into the grassy land, and thanked God for

deliverance.

Here Kahéle's heart rejoiced. Here, close by the little chapel of Kaupo,

he discovered one whom he proclaimed his grandfather; though, judging

from the years of the man, he could scarcely have been anything beyond

an uncle. I was put to rest in a little stone cell, where the priests

sleep when they are on their mission to Kaupo. A narrow bed, with a

crucifix at the foot of it, a small window in the thick wall, with a jug

of water in the corner thereof, and a chair with a game-leg, constituted

the furnishment of the quaint lodging. Kahéle rushed about to see old

friends,--who wept over him,--and was very long absent, whereat I waxed

wroth, and berated him roundly; but the poor fellow was so charmingly

repentant that I forgave him all, and more too, for I promised him I

would stay three days, at least, with his uncle-grandfather, and give

him his universal liberty for the time being.

From the open doorway I saw the long sweep of the mountains, looking

cool and purple in the twilight. The ghostly procession of the mists

stole in at the windward gap; the after-glow of the evening suffused the

front of the chapel with a warm light, and the statue of the Virgin

above the chapel-door,--a little faded with the suns of that endless

summer, a little mildewed with the frequent rains,--the statue looked

down upon us with a smile of welcome. Some youngsters, as naked as

day-old nest-birds, tossed a ball into the air; and when it at last

lodged in the niche of the Virgin, they clapped their hands, half in

merriment and half in awe, and the games of the evening ended. Then the

full moon rose; a cock crew in the peak of the chapel, thinking it

daybreak, and the little fellows slept, with their spines curved like

young kittens. By and by the moon hung, round and mellow, beyond the

chapel-cross, and threw a long shadow in the grass; and then I went to

my cell and folded my hands to rest, with a sense of blessed and

unutterable peace.

THE CHAPEL OF THE PALMS.

Oh, the long suffering of him who threads a narrow trail over the brown

crust of a hill where the short grass lies flat in tropical sunshine! On

one side sleeps the blue, monotonous sea; on the other, crags clothe

themselves in cool mist and look dreamy and solemn.

The boy Kahéle, who has no ambition beyond the bit of his foot-sore

mustang, lags behind, taking all the dust with commendable resignation.

As for me, I am wet through with the last shower; I steam in the fierce

noonday heat. I spur Hoké the mule into the shadow of a great cloud that

drifts lazily overhead, and am grateful for this unsatisfying shade as

long as it lasts. I watch the sea, swinging my whip by its threadbare

lash like a pendulum,--the sea, where a very black rock is being drowned

over and over by the tremendous swell that covers it for a moment; but

somehow the rock comes to the surface again, and seems to gasp horribly

in a deluge of breakers. That rock has been drowning for centuries, yet

its struggle for life is as real as ever.

I watch the mountains, cleft with green, fern-cushioned chasms, where an

occasional stream silently distils. Far up on a sun-swept ledge a

white, scattering drift, looking like a rose-garden after a high wind, I

know to be a flock of goats feeding. But the wind-dried and sun-burnt

grass under foot, the intangible dust that pervades the air, the

rain-cloud in the distance, trailing its banners of crape in the sea as

it bears down upon us,--these annoyed me somewhat, and make life a

burden for the time being; so I spur my faithless Hoké up a new ascent

as forbidding as any that we have yet come upon, and slowly and with

many pauses creep to the summit.

Kahéle, "the goer," belies his name, for he loiters everywhere and

always; yet I am not sorry. I have the first glimpse of Wailua all to

myself. I am not obliged to betray my emotion, which is a bore of the

worst sort.

Wailua lies at my feet,--a valley full of bees, butterflies, and

blossoms, the sea fawning at the mouth of it, the clouds melting over

it; waterfalls gushing from numerous green corners; silver-white

phaëtons floating in mid-air, at a loss to choose between earth and

heaven, though evidently a little inclined earthward, for they no sooner

drift out of the bewildering bowers of Wailua than they return again

with noticeable haste.

Down I plunge into the depths of the valley, with the first drops of a

heavy shower pelting me in the back; and under a great tree, that seems

yearning to shelter somebody, I pause till the rain is over.

Anon the slow-footed Kahéle arrives, leaking all over, and bringing a

peace-offering of ohias, the native apple, as juicy and sweet as the

forbidden fruits of Paradise. As for these apples, they have solitary

seed, like a nutmeg, a pulp as white as wax, a juice flavoured with

roses, and their skin as red as a peony and as glossy as varnish. These

we munch and munch while the forest reels under the impetuous avalanches

of big rain-drops, and our animals tear great tufts of sweet grass from

the upper roadside.

Is it far to the chapel, I wonder. Kahéle thinks not,--perhaps a pari or

two distant. But a pari, a cliff, has many antecedents, and I feel that

some dozen or so of climbs, each more or less fatiguing, still separate

me from the rest I am seeking, and hope not to find until I reach the

abode of Père Fidelis, at the foot of the cross, as one might say.

The rain ceases. Hoké once more nerves himself for fresh assaults upon

the everlasting hills. Kahéle drops behind as usual, and the afternoon

wanes.

How fresh seems the memory of this journey, yet its place is with the

archives of the past. I seem to breathe the incense of orange-flowers,

and to hear the whisper of distant waterfalls as I write.

It must have been toward sunset,--we were threading the eastern coast,

and a great mountain filled the west--but I felt that it was the hour

when day ends and night begins. The heavy clouds looked as though they

were still brimful of sunlight, yet no ray escaped to gladden our side

of the world.

Finally, on the brow of what seemed to be the last hill in this life, I

saw a cross,--a cross among the palms. Hoké saw it, and quickened his

pace: he was not so great an ass but he knew that there was provender in

the green pastures of Père Fidelis, and his heart freshened within him.

A few paces from the grove of palms I heard a bell swing jubilantly. Out

over the solemn sea, up and down that foam-crested shore, rang the sweet

Angelus. One may pray with some fervour when one's journey is at an end.

When the prayer was over, I walked to the gate of the chapel-yard,

leading the willing Hoké, and at that moment a slender figure, clad all

in black, his long robes flowing gracefully about him, his boyish face

heightening the effect of his grave and serene demeanour, his thin,

sensitive hands held forth in hearty welcome,--a welcome that was almost

like a benediction, so spiritual was the love which it expressed,--came

out, and I found myself in the arms of Père Fidelis, feeling like one

who has at least been permitted to kneel upon the threshold of his

Mecca.

Why do our hearts sing _jubilate_ when we meet a friend for the first

time? What is it within us that with its life-long yearning comes

suddenly upon the all-sufficient one, and in a moment is crowned and

satisfied? I could not tell whether I was at last waking from a sleep or

just sinking into a dream. I could have sat there at his feet contented;

I could have put off my worldly cares, resigned ambition, forgotten the

past, and, in the blessed tranquillity of that hour, have dwelt joyfully

under the palms with him, seeking only to follow in his patient

footsteps until the end should come.

Perhaps it was the realization of an ideal that plunged me into a

luxurious reverie, out of which I was summoned by _mon père_, who hinted

that I must be hungry. Prophetic father! hungry I was indeed.

_Mon père_ led me to his little house with three rooms, and installed me

host, himself being my ever-watchful attendant. Then he spoke: "The lads

were at the sea, fishing: would I excuse him for a moment?"

Alone in the little house, with a glass of claret and a hard biscuit for

refreshment, I looked about me. The central room, in which I sat, was

bare to nakedness: a few devotional books, a small clock high up on the

wall, with a short wagging pendulum, two or three paintings, betraying

more sentiment than merit, a table, a wooden form against the window,

and a crucifix, complete its inventory. A high window was at my back; a

door in front opening upon a verandah shaded with a passion-vine; beyond

it a green, undulating country running down into the sea; on either hand

a little cell containing nothing but a narrow bed, a saint's picture,

and a rosary. Kahéle, having distributed the animals in good pasturage,

lay on the verandah at full length, supremely happy as he jingled his

spurs over the edge of the steps, and hummed a native air in subdued

falsetto, like a mosquito.

Again I sank into a reverie. Enter _mon père_ with apologies and a plate

of smoking cakes made of eggs and batter, his own handiwork; enter the

lads from the sea with excellent fish, knotted in long wisps of grass;

enter Kahéle, lazily sniffing the savoury odours of our repast with

evident relish; and then supper in good earnest.

How happy we were, having such talks in several sorts of tongues, such

polyglot efforts towards sociability,--French, English, and native in

equal parts, but each broken and spliced to suit our dire necessity!

The candle flamed and flickered in the land-breeze that swept through

the house,--unctuous waxen stalactites decorated it almost past

recognition; the crickets sang lustily at the doorway; the little

natives grew sleepy and curled up on their mats in the corner; Kahéle

slept in his spurs like a born muleteer. And now a sudden conviction

seized us that it was bedtime in very truth; so _mon père_ led me to one

of the cells, saying, "Will you sleep in the room of Père Amabilis?"

Yea, verily, with all humility; and there I slept after the benediction,

during which the young priest's face looked almost like an angel's in

its youthful holiness, and I was afraid I might wake in the morning and

find him gone, transported to some other and more lovely world.

But I didn't. Père Fidelis was up before daybreak. It was his hand that

clashed the joyful Angelus at sunrise that woke me from my happy dream;

it was his hand that prepared the frugal but appetizing meal; he made

the coffee, such rich, black, aromatic coffee as Frenchmen alone have

the faculty of producing. He had an eye to the welfare of the animals

also, and seemed to be commander-in-chief of affairs secular as well as

ecclesiastical; yet he was so young!

There was a day of brief incursions mountain-ward, with the happiest

results. There were welcomes showered upon me for his sake; he was ever

ministering to my temporal wants, and puzzling me with dissertations in

assorted languages.

By happy fortune a Sunday followed when the Chapel of the Palms was

thronged with dusky worshippers; not a white face present but the

father's and mine own, yet a common trust in the blessedness of the

life to come struck the key-note of universal harmony, and we sang the

_Magnificat_ with one voice. There was something that fretted me in all

this admirable experience: Père Fidelis could touch neither bread nor

water until after the last mass. Hour by hour he grew paler and fainter,

spite of the heroic fortitude that sustained his famishing body.

"_Mon père_," said I, "you must eat, or go to heaven betimes." He would

not. "You must end with an earlier mass," I persisted. It was

impossible: many parishioners came from miles away; some of these

started at daybreak, as it was, and they would be unable to arrive in

season for an earlier mass. Excellent martyr! thought I, to offer thy

body a living sacrifice for the edification of these savage Christians!

At last he ate, but not until appetite itself had perished. Then troops

of children gathered about him clamouring to kiss the hand of the

priestly youth; old men and women passed him with heads uncovered,

amazed at the devotion of one they could not hope to emulate.

Whenever I referred to his life, he at once led me to admire his

fellow-apostle, who was continually in his thoughts. Père Amabilis was

miles away, repairing a chapel that had suffered somewhat in a late

gale; Père Amabilis would be so glad to see me; I must not fail to visit

him; and for fear of some mischance, Père Fidelis would himself conduct

me to him.

The way was hard,--deep chasms to penetrate, swift streams to be forded,

narrow and slippery trails to be threaded through forest, swamp, and

wilderness. These obstacles separated the devoted friends, but not for

long seasons. Père Fidelis would go to him whom he had not laid eyes on

for a fortnight at least.

The boy Kahéle was glad of companionship; one of the small fishers, an

acolyte of the chapel, would accompany us, and together they could lag

behind, eating ohias and dabbling in every stream.

A long day's journey followed. We wended our way through jungles of

lauhala, with slim roots in the air and long branches trailing about

them like vines; they were like great cages of roots and branches in a

woven snarl. We saw a rocky point jutting far into the sea. "Père

Amabilis dwells just beyond that cape," said my companion, fondly; and

it seemed not very far distant; but our pace was slow and wearisome, and

the hours were sure to distance us. We fathomed dark ravines whose

farther walls were but a stone's throw from us, but in whose profound

depths a swift torrent rushed madly to the sea, threatening to carry us

to our destruction,--green, precipitous troughs, where the tide of

mountain-rain was lashed into fury, and with its death-song drowned our

voices and filled our animals with terror.

Now and then we paused to breathe, man and beast panting with fatigue;

sometimes the rain drove us into the thick wood for shelter; sometimes a

brief deluge, the offspring of a rent cloud at the head of the ravine,

stayed our progress for half an hour, until its volume was somewhat

spent and the stream was again fordable. Here we talked of the daily

miracles in nature. Again and again the young fathers are called forth

into the wilderness to attend on the sick and dying. Little chapels are

hidden away among the mountains and through the valleys; all these must

be visited in turn. Their life is an actual pilgrimage from chapel to

chapel, which nothing but physical inability may interrupt.

At one spot I saw a tree under which Père Fidelis once passed a

tempestuous night. On either side yawned a ravine swept by an impassable

flood. There was no house within reach. On the soaked earth, with a

pitiless gale sweeping over the land, from sunset to sunrise he lay

without the consolation of one companion. Food was frequently scarce: a

few limpets, about as palatable as parboiled shoe-leather, a paste of

roast yams and water, a lime perhaps, and nothing besides but lumpy salt

from the sea-shore.

While we were riding a herald met us bearing a letter for _mon père_. It

was a greeting from Père Amabilis, who announced the chapel as rapidly

nearing its complete restoration. Père Fidelis fairly wept for joy at

this intelligence, and burst into a panegyric upon the unrivalled

ingenuity of his spiritual associate. We were sure to surprise him at

work, and this trifling episode seemed to be an event of some importance

in the isolated life they led.

At sunset we passed into the open vale of Wailuanui, and saw the chapel

looking fresh and tidy on the slope of the hill toward the sea. Two

waterfalls that fell against the sunset flashed like falling flame, and

a soft haze tinged the slumberous solitudes of wood and pasture with the

dream-like loveliness of a picture. There seemed to be but one sound

audible,--the quick, sharp blows of a hammer. Père Fidelis listened with

eyes sparkling, and then rode rapidly onward.

Behold! from the chapel wall, high up on a scaffolding of boughs, his

robes gathered about him, his head uncovered and hammer in hand, Père

Amabilis leaned forth to welcome us. The hammer fell to the earth. Père

Amabilis loosened his skirts and clasped his hands in unaffected

rapture. We were three satisfied souls, asking for nothing beyond the

hem of that lonely valley in the Pacific.

Of course there was the smallest possible house that could be lived in,

for our sole accommodation, because but one priest needed to visit the

district at a time, and a very young priest at that. A tiny bed in one

corner of the room was thought sufficient, together with two plates, two

cups, and a single spoon. Luxuries were unknown and unregretted.

"Well, father, what have you at this hotel?" said Père Fidelis, as we

came to the door of the cubby-house.

"Water," replied our host with a grave tone that had an undercurrent of

truth in it.

But we were better provided for. Within an hour's time a reception took

place: the native parishioners came forth to welcome Père Fidelis and

the stranger, each bringing some voluntary tribute,--a fish, a fowl lean

enough to quiet the conscience of Père Fidelis, an egg or two, or a

bunch of taro.

Long talks followed; the news of the last month was discussed with much

enthusiasm, and some few who had no opportunity of joining in the debate

gave expression to their sentiments through such speaking eyes as

savages usually are possessed of.

The welcome supper-hour approached. Willing hands dressed a fowl; swift

feet plied between the spring and the kettle swung over the open

camp-fire, children danced for very joy before the door of the chapel,

under the statue of the Virgin, whose head was adorned with a garland of

living flowers. The shadows deepened; stars seemed to cluster over the

valley and glow with unusual fervour; the crickets sang mightily,--they

are always singing mightily over yonder; supper came to the bare table

with its meagre array of dishes; and, since I was forced to have a whole

plate and a bowl, as well as the solitary spoon, for my whole use, the

two young priests ate together from the same dish and drank from the

same cup, and were as grateful and happy as the birds of the air under

similar circumstances.

A merry meal, that! For us no weak tea, that satirical consoler, nor tea

whose strength is bitterness, an abomination to the faithful, but _mon

père's_ own coffee, the very aroma of which was invigorating; then our

friendly pipes out under the starlight, where we sat chatting amicably,

with our three heads turbaned in an aromatic Virginian cloud.

I learned something of the life of these two friends during that social

evening. Born in the same city in the north of France, reared in the

same schools, graduated at the same university, each fond of life and

acquainted with its follies, each in turn stricken with an illness that

threatened death, together they came out of the dark valley with their

future consecrated to the work that now absorbs them, the friendship of

their childhood increasing with their years and sustaining them in a

remote land, where their vow of poverty seems almost like sarcasm, since

circumstances deprives them of all luxuries.

"Do you never long for home? do you never regret your vow?" I asked.

"Never!" they answered; and I believed them. "These old people are as

parents to us; these younger ones are as brothers and sisters; these

children we love as dearly as though they were our own. What more can we

ask?"

What more indeed! With the rain beating down upon your unsheltered

heads, and the torrents threatening to engulf you; faint with

journeyings; a-hungered often; weak with fastings; pallid with

prayer,--what more _can_ you ask in the same line? say I.

Père Fidelis coughed a little, and was somewhat feverish. I could see

that his life was not elastic; his strength was even then failing him.

"Père Amabilis is an artisan: he built this house, and it is small

enough; but some day he will build a house for me but six feet long and

_so_ broad," said Père Fidelis, shrugging his shoulders; whereat Père

Amabilis, who looked like a German student with his long hair and

spectacles, turned aside to wipe the moisture from the lenses, and said

nothing, but laid his hand significantly upon the shoulder of his

friend, as if imploring silence. Alas for him when those lips are silent

for ever!

I wondered if they had no recreation.

"O yes. The poor pictures at the Chapel of the Palms are ours, but we

have not studied art. And then we are sometimes summoned to the farther

side of the island, where we meet new faces. It is a great change."

For a year before the arrival of Père Amabilis, who was not sooner able

to follow his friend, Père Fidelis was accustomed to go once a month to

a confessional many miles away. That his absence might be as brief as

possible, he was obliged to travel night and day. Sometimes he would

reach the house of his confessor at midnight, when all were sleeping:

thereupon would follow this singular colloquy in true native fashion. A

rap at the door at midnight, the confessor waking from his sleep.

_Confessor_. "Who's there?"

_Père Fidelis_. "It is I!"

_Conf._ "Who is I?"

_Père F._ "Fidelis!"

_Conf._ "Fidelis who?"

_Père F._ "Fidelis kahuna pule!" (Fidelis the priest.)

_Conf._ "Aweh!" (An expression of the greatest surprise.) "_Entre_,

Fidelis kahuna pule."

Then he would rise, and the communion that followed must have been most

cheering to both, for _mon père_ even now is merry when he recalls it.

These pilgrimages are at an end, for the two priests confess to one

another: conceive of the fellowship that hides away no secret, however

mortifying!

The whole population must have been long asleep before we thought of

retiring that night, and then arose an argument concerning the fittest

occupant of the solitary bed. It fell to me, for both were against me,

and each was my superior. When I protested, they held up their fingers

and said, "Remember, we are your fathers and must be obeyed." Thus I was

driven to the bed, while mine hosts lay on the bare floor with saddles

for pillows.

It was this self-sacrificing hospitality that hastened my departure. I

felt earth could offer me no nobler fellowship,--that all acts to come,

however gracious, would bear a tinge of selfishness in comparison with

the reception I had met where least expected.

I am thankful that I had not the heart to sleep well, for I think I

could never have forgiven myself had I done so. When I woke in the early

part of the night, I saw the young priests bowed over their breviaries,

for I had delayed the accustomed offices of devotion, and they were

fulfilling them in peace at last, having me so well bestowed that it was

utterly impossible to do aught else for my entertainment.

Once more the morning came. I woke to find Père Amabilis at work, hammer

in hand, sending his nails home with accurate strokes that spoke well

for his trained muscle. Père Fidelis was concocting coffee and directing

the volunteer cooks, who were seeking to surpass themselves upon this

last meal we were to take together. In an hour _mon père_ was to start

for the Chapel of the Palms, while I wended my way onward through a new

country, bearing with me the consoling memory of my precious friends. I

can forgive a slight and forget the person who slights me, but little

kindnesses probe me to the quick. I wonder why the twin fathers were so

very careful of me that morning? They could not do enough to satisfy

themselves, and that made me miserable; they stabbed me with tender

words, and tried to be cheerful with such evident effort that I couldn't

eat half my breakfast, though, as it was, I ate more than they did--God

forgive me!--and altogether it was a solemn and memorable meal.

A group of natives gathered about us seated upon the floor; it was

impossible for Père Fidelis to move without being stroked by the

affectionate creatures who deplored his departure. Père Amabilis

insisted upon adjusting our saddles, during which ceremony he slyly hid

a morsel of cold fowl in our saddle-bags.

That parting was as cruel as death. We shall probably never see one

another again; if we do, we shall be older and more practical and more

worldly, and the exquisite confidence we have in one another will have

grown blunt with time. I felt it then as I know it now--our brief idyl

can never be lived over in this life.

Well, we departed: the corners of our blessed triangle were spread

frightfully. Père Fidelis was paler than ever; he caught his breath as

though there wasn't much of it, and the little there was wouldn't last

long; Père Amabilis wiped his spectacles and looked utterly forsaken;

the natives stood about in awkward, silent groups, coming forward, one

by one, to shake hands, and then falling back like so many automatons.

Somehow, genuine grief is never graceful: it forgets to pose itself; its

muscles are perfectly slack and unreliable.

The sea looked grey and forbidding as it shook its shaggy breakers under

the cliff: life was dismal enough. The animals were unusually wayward,

and once or twice I paused in despair under the prickly sunshine, half

inclined to go back and begin over again, hoping to renew the past; but

just then Hoké felt like staggering onward, and I began to realize that

there are some brief, perfect experiences in life that pass from us like

a dream, and this was one of them.

In the proem to this idyl I seem to see two shadowy figures passing up

and down over a lonesome land. Fever and famine do not stay them; the

elements alone have power to check their pilgrimage. Their advent is

hailed with joyful bells: tears fall when they depart. Their paths are

peace. Fearlessly they battle with contagion, and are at hand to close

the pestilential lips of unclean death. They have lifted my soul above

things earthly, and held it secure for a moment. From beyond the waters

my heart returns to them. Again at twilight, over the still sea, floats

the sweet Angelus; again I approach the chapel falling to slow decay:

there are fresh mounds in the churchyard, and the voice of wailing is

heard for a passing soul. By-and-by, if there is work to do, it shall be

done, and the hands shall be folded, for the young apostles will have

followed in the silent footsteps of their flock. Here endeth the lesson

of the Chapel of the Palms.

KAHÉLE.

From a bluff, whose bald forehead jutted a thousand feet into the air,

and under whose chin the sea shrugged its great shoulders, Kahéle, my

boy,--that delightful contradiction, who was always plausible, yet never

right,--Kahéle and I looked timidly over into the sunset valley of Méha.

The "Valley of Solitude" it was called; albeit, at that moment, and with

half an eye, we counted the thirty grass-lodges of the village, and

heard the liquid tongues of a trio of waterfalls, that dived head-first

into the groves at the farther end of the valley, where the mountain

seemed to have opened its heart wide enough to let a rivulet escape into

the sea. But the spot was a palpable and living dream, and no fond

rivulet would go too hastily through it; so there was a glittering sort

of monogram writ in water, and about it the village lodges were

clustered in a very pleasing disorder.

The trail dropped down the cliff below us in long, swinging zigzags, and

wound lazily through the village; crossed the stream at the ford; dipped

off toward the sea, as though the beach, shining like coarse gold, were

a trifle too lovely to be passed without recognition, and then it

climbed laboriously up the opposite cliff, and struck off into space. In

ten seconds a bird might have spanned the deep ravine, and caught as

much of its loveliness as we; but we weren't birds, and, moreover, we

had six legs apiece to look after, so we tipped off from the dizzy ridge

that overhung the valley of Méha to the north, and gradually descended

into the heat and silence of the place, that seemed to make a picture of

itself when we first looked down upon it from our eyrie.

We found the floor of the valley very solemn and very lovely, when we

reached it. Three youngsters, as brown as berries, and without any

leaves upon them, broke loose from a banana-orchard and leaped into a

low _hou_-tree as we approached. They were a little shy of my colour,

pale-faces being rare in that vicinity. Two women who were washing at

the ford--and washing the very garments they should have had upon their

backs--discovered us, and plunged into the stream with a refreshing

splash, and a laugh apiece that was worth hearing, it was so genuine and

hearty. Another youngster hurried off from a stone wall like a startled

lizard, and struck on his head, but didn't cry much, for he was too

frightened. A large woman lay at full length on a broad mat, spread

under a pandanus, and slept like a turtle. I began to think there were

nothing but women and children in the solitary valley, but Kahéle had

kept an eye on the reef, and, with an air of superior intelligence, he

assured me that there were many men living about there, and they, with

most of the women and children, were then out in the surf, fishing.

"To the beach, by all means!" cried I; and to the beach we hastened,

where, indeed, we found heaps of cast-off raiment, and a hundred

footprints in the sand. What would Mr. Robinson Crusoe have said to

that, I wonder! Across the level water, heads, hands, and shoulders, and

sometimes half-bodies, were floating about, like the _amphibia_. We were

at once greeted with a shout of welcome, which came faintly to us above

the roar of the surf, as it broke heavily on the reef, a half-mile out

from shore. It was drawing toward the hour when the fishers came to

land; and we had not long to wait, before, one after another, they came

out of the sea like so many mermen and mermaids. They were refreshingly

innocent of etiquette,--at least, of our translation of it; and, with a

freedom that was amusing as well as a little embarrassing, I was

deliberately fingered, fondled, and fussed with by nearly every dusky

soul in turn. "At last," thought I, "fate has led me beyond the pale of

civilization; for this begins to look like the genuine article."

With uncommon slowness, the mermaids donned more or less of their

apparel, a few preferring to carry their robes over their arms; for the

air was delicious, and ropes of seaweed are accounted full dress in that

delectable latitude. Down on the sand the mermen heaped their scaly

spoils,--fish of all shapes and sizes, fish of every colour; some of

them throwing somersaults in the sand, like young athletes; some of them

making wry faces, in their last agony; some of them lying still and

clammy, with big, round eyes like smoked-pearl vest-buttons set in the

middle of their cheeks; all of them smelling fishlike, and none of them

looking very tempting. Small boys laid hold on small fry, bit their

heads off, and held the silver-coated morsels between their teeth, like

animated sticks of candy. There was a Fridayish and Lent-like atmosphere

hovering over the spot, and I turned away to watch some youths who were

riding surf-boards not far distant,--agile, narrow-hipped youths, with

tremendous biceps and proud, impudent heads set on broad shoulders, like

young gods. These were the flower and chivalry of the Méha blood, and

they swam like young porpoises, every one of them.

There was a break in the reef before us; the sea knew it, and seemed to

take special delight in rushing upon the shore as though it were about

to devour sand, savages, and everything. Kahéle and I watched the

surf-swimmers for some time, charmed with the spectacle. Such buoyancy

of material matter I had never dreamed of. Kahéle, though much in the

flesh, could not long resist the temptation to exhibit his prowess, and

having been offered a surf-board that would have made a good lid to his

coffin, and was itself as tight as cork and as smooth as glass, suddenly

threw off his last claim to respectability, seized his sea-sled, and

dived with it under the first roller which was then about to break above

his head, not three feet from him. Beyond it, a second roller reared its

awful front, but he swam under that with ease; at the sound of his "open

sesame," its emerald gates parted and closed after him. He seemed some

triton, playing with the elements, and dreadfully "at home" in that very

wet place. The third and mightiest of the waves was gathering its

strength for a charge upon the shore. Having reached its outer ripple,

again Kahéle dived and reappeared on the other side of the watery hill,

balanced for a moment in the glassy hollow, turned suddenly, and,

mounting the towering monster, he lay at full length on his fragile

raft, using his arms as a bird its pinions,--in fact, soaring for a

moment with the wave under him. As it rose he climbed to the top of it,

and there, in the midst of foam seething like champagne, on the crest of

a rushing sea-avalanche about to crumble and dissolve beneath him, his

surf-board bidden in spume, on the very top bubble of all, Kahéle danced

like a shadow. He leaped to his feet and swam in the air, another

Mercury, tiptoeing a heaven-kissing hill, buoyant as vapour, and with a

suggestion of invisible wings about him,--Kahéle transformed for a

moment, and for a moment only; the next second my daring sea-skater

leaped ashore, with a howling breaker swashing at his heels. It was

something glorious and almost incredible; but I saw it with my own eyes,

and I wanted to double his salary on the spot.

Sunset in the valley of Méha. The air full of floating particles, that

twinkled like diamond-dust; the great green chasm at the head of the

valley illuminated by one broad bar of light shot obliquely through it,

tipped at the end with a shower of white rockets that fringed a

waterfall, and a fragment of rainbow like a torn banner. That deep,

shadowy ravine seemed, for a moment, some mystery about to be divulged;

but the light faded too soon, and I never learned the truth of it. The

sea quieter than usual; very little sound save the rhythmical vibration

of the air, that suggested flowing waters and quivering leaves; the

lights shifted along the upper cliffs; a silver-white tropic-bird sailed

from cloud to cloud, swiftly and noiselessly, like a shooting-star. A

delicious moment, but a brief one; soon the sun was down, and the

deepening shadows and gathering coolness set all the valley astir.

Camp-fires were kindled throughout the village; column after column of

thin blue smoke ascended in waving spirals, separating at the top in

leaf-shaped clouds. It was like the spiritual resurrection of some

ancient palm-grove; and when the moon rose, a little later, flooding the

Vale of Solitude with her vague light, the illusion was perfected; and a

group of savages, scenting the savoury progress of their supper, sat,

hungry and talkative, under every ghostly palm. Clear voices ascended in

monotonous and weird recitative; they chanted a monody on the death of

some loved one, prompted, perhaps, by the funereal solemnity of the

hour; or sang an ode to the moon-rise, the still-flowing river, or the

valley of Méha, so solitary in one sense, though by no means alone in

its loneliness.

Kahéle patronized me extensively. I was introduced to camp after camp,

and in rapid succession repeated the experiences of a traveler who has

much to answer for in the way of colour, and the peculiar cut of his

garments. I felt as though I was some natural curiosity, in charge of

the robustious Kahéle, who waxed more and more officious every hour of

his engagement; and his tongue ran riot as he descanted upon my

characteristics, to the joy of the curious audiences we attracted.

Some hours must have passed before we thought of sleep. How could we

think of it, when every soul was wide awake, and time alone seemed to

pass us by unconsciously? But Kahéle finally led me to a chief's house,

where, under coverlets of _kapa_, spiced with herbs, and in the midst of

numerous members of the household, I was advised to compose my soul in

peace, and patiently await daylight. I did so, for the drowsy sense that

best illustrates the tail-end of a day's journey possessed me, and I was

finally overcome by the low, monotonous drone of a language that I found

about as intelligible as the cooing of the multitudinous pigeon. The boy

sat near me, still descanting upon our late experiences, our possible

future, and the thousand trivial occurrences that make the recollections

of travel forever charming. The familiar pipe, smoked at about the rate

of three whiffs apiece, circulated freely, and kept the air mildly

flavoured with tobacco; and night, with all that pertains to it, bowed

over me, as, in an unguarded moment, I surrendered to its narcotizing

touch.

There was another valley in my sleep, like unto the one I had closed my

eyes upon, and I saw it thronged with ancients. No white face had yet

filled those savage and sensuous hearts with a sense of disgust, which,

I believe, all dark races feel when they first behold a bleached skin.

Again the breathless heralds announced the approach of a king, and the

multitudes gathered to receive him. I heard the beating of the tom-toms,

and saw the dancers ambling and posing before his august majesty, who

reclined in the midst of a retinue of obsequious retainers. The

spearsmen hurled their spears, and the strong men swung their clubs; the

stone-throwers threw skillfully, and the sweetest singers sang long

_méles_ in praise of their royal guest. A cry of fear rent the air as a

stricken one fled toward the city of refuge; the priests passed by me in

solemn procession, their robes spotted with sacrificial blood. War

canoes drew in from the sea, and death fell upon the valley. I heard

the wail for the slaughtered, and saw the grim idols borne forth in the

arms of the triumphant; then I awoke in the midst of that dream-pageant

of savage and barbaric splendour.

It was still night; the sea was again moaning; the cool air of the

mountain rustled in the long thatch at the doorway; a ripe bread-fruit

fell to the earth with a loud thud. I rose from my mat and looked about

me. The room was nearly deserted; some one lay swathed like a mummy in a

dark corner of the lodge, but of what sex I knew not,--probably one who

had outlived all sensations, and perhaps all desires; a rush, strung

full of oily _kukui_ nuts, flamed in the centre of the room, and a

thread of black smoke climbed almost to the peak of the roof; but,

falling in with a current of fresh air, it was spirited away in a

moment.

I looked out of the low door; the hour was such a one as tinges the

stoutest heart with superstition; the landscape was complete in two

colours,--a moist, transparent grey, and a thin, feathery silver, that

seemed almost palpable to the touch. Out on the slopes near the stream

reclined groups of natives, chatting, singing, smoking, or silently

regarding the moon. I passed them unnoticed; dim paths led me through

guava jungles, under orange groves, and beside clusters of jasmine,

overpowering in their fragrance. Against the low eaves of the several

lodges sat singers, players upon the rude instruments of the land, and

glib talkers, who waxed eloquent, and gesticulated with exceeding grace.

Footsteps rustled before and behind me; I stole into the thicket, and

saw lovers wandering together, locked in each other's embrace, and saw

friends go hand-in-hand conversing in low tones, or perhaps mute, with

an impressive air of the most complete tranquillity. The night-blooming

cereus laid its ivory urn open to the moonlight, and a myriad of

crickets chirped in one continuous jubilee. Voices of merriment were

wafted down to me; and, stealing onward toward the great meadow by the

stream, where the sleepless inhabitants of the valley held high

carnival, I saw the most dignified chiefs of Méha sporting like

children, while the children capered like imps, and the whole community

seemed bewitched with the glorious atmosphere of that particular night.

Who was the gayest of the gay, and the most lawless of the unlawful? My

boy, Kahéle, in whom I had placed my trust, and whom, until this hour at

least, I had regarded as the most promising specimen of the reorganized

barbarians.

Perhaps it was all right; perhaps I had been counting his steps with too

much confidence; they might have been simply a creditable performance,

the result of careful training on the part of his tutors. I am inclined

to think they were! At any rate, Kahéle went clean back to barbarism

that night, and seemed to take to it amazingly. I said nothing; I

thought it wiser to seem to hold the reins, though I hold them loosely,

than to try to check the career of my half-tamed domestic, and to find

him beyond my control; therefore I sat on one side taking notes, and

found it rather jolly on the whole.

The river looked like an inky flood with a broken silver crust; canoes

floated upon its sluggish tide like long feathers; swimmers plied up and

down it, now and then "blowing," whale-fashion, but slipping through

the water as noiselessly as trout. I could scarcely tell which was the

more attractive,--Nature, so fragrant and so voluptuous, or man, who had

become a part of Nature for the hour, and was very unlike man as I had

been taught to accept him.

Not till dawn did the dance or the song cease; not till everybody was

grey and fagged, and tongues had stopped wagging from sheer exhaustion.

I returned to my mats long ere that, to revolve in my mind plans for the

following day.

It was evident that Kahéle must at once quit the place, or go back to

barbarism and stick there. I didn't care to take the responsibility of

his return to first principles, and so ordered the animals to be saddled

by sunrise. At that delicious moment the youngster lay like one of the

Seven Sleepers, whom nothing could awaken. Everybody in the village

seemed to be making up his lost sleep, and I was forced to await the

return of life before pressing my claims any further.

The scorching noon drew on; a few of the sleepers awoke, bathed, ate of

their cold repast, and slept again. Kahéle followed suit; in the midst

of his refreshment I suggested the advisability of instant departure; he

hesitated. I enlarged upon the topic, and drew an enticing picture of

the home-stretch, with all the endearing associations clustering about

its farther end; he agreed to everything with a sweet and passive grace

that seemed to compensate me for the vexations of the morning.

I went to the river to bathe while the beasts were being saddled, and

returned anon to find Kahéle sound asleep, and as persistent in his

slumbers as ever. The afternoon waned; I began to see the fitness of

the name that had at first seemed to me inappropriate to the valley;

everybody slept or lazed during the hot hours of the day, and a

census-taker might easily have imagined the place a solitude. At sunset,

there was more fishing and more surf-swimming. It seemed to me the fish

smelt stronger, and the swimmers swam less skilfully than on the evening

previous; possibly it was quite as pretty a spectacle as the one that

first charmed me, but blessings are bores when they come out of season.

Night drew on apace; the moon rose, and the inhabitants pretended to

rest, but were shortly magnetized out of their houses, where they danced

till daybreak. The sweets of that sort of thing began to cloy, and I

resolved upon immediate action. Kahéle was taken by the ears at the very

next sunrise, and ordered to get up the mules at once. He was gone

nearly all day, and came in at last with a pitiful air of disappointment

that quite unmanned me; his voice, too, was sympathetic, and there was

something like a tear in his eye when he assured me that the creatures

had gone astray, but might be found shortly,--perhaps even then they

were approaching; and the young scamp rose to reconnoitre, glad, no

doubt, of an excuse for escaping from my natural but ludicrous

discomfiture. It is likely that my boy Kahéle would have danced till

doomsday, had I not shown spleen. It is as likely, also, that the chief

and all his people would have helped him out in it, had I not offered

such reward as I thought sufficient to tempt greed; but, thank heaven,

there is an end to everything!

On the morning of the fourth day, two travellers might have been seen

struggling up the face of the great cliff that walls in the valley of

Méha to the south. The one a pale-face, paler than usual, urging on the

other, a dark-face, darker than was its wont. Never did animals so

puzzle their wits to know whether they were indeed desired to hasten

forward, or to turn back at the very next crook in the trail. We were at

big odds, Kahéle and I; for another idol of mine had suddenly turned to

clay, and, though I am used to that sort of thing, I am never able to

bear it with decent composure. On we journeyed, working at cross

purposes, and getting nearer to the sky all the while, and finally

losing sight of the bewitching valley that had demoralized and so nearly

divorced us; getting wet in the damp grasses on the highlands, and

sometimes losing ourselves for a moment in the clouds that lie late on

the mountains; seeing lovely, narrow, and profound vales, wherein the

rain fell with a roar like hail; where the streams swelled suddenly like

veins, and where often there was no visible creature discernible, not

even a bird; where silence brooded, and the world seemed empty.

A very long day's journey brought us out of the green and fertile land

that lies with its face to the trade-wind; there the clouds gather and

shed their rains; but all of the earth lying in the lee of the great

central peak of the island is as dust and ashes,--unwatered, unfruitful,

and uninteresting, save as a picture of deep and dreadful desolation. No

wonder that Kahéle longed to tarry in the small Eden of Méha, knowing

that we were about to journey into the deserts that lie beyond it. No

wonder that the shining shores of the valley beguiled him, when he knew

that henceforth the sea would break upon long reaches of black lava, as

unpicturesque as a coal-heap, the path along which was pain, and the

waysides anguish of spirit; where fruit was scarce, and water brackish,

and every edible dried and deceitful.

Having slept the sleep of the just,--for I felt that I had done what I

could to reclaim my backsliding Kahéle,--I awoke on a Sabbath morning

that presented a singular spectacle. Its chief features were a

glittering, metallic-tinted sea, and a smoking plain backed by naked

sand-hills. The low brush, scattered thinly over the earth, tried hard

to look green, but seldom got nearer to it than a dusty grey. Evidently

there was no sap in those charred twigs, for they snapped like coral

when you tested their pliancy. A few huts, dust-coloured and ragged,

were scattered along the trail; they had apparently lost all hope, and

paused by the wayside, to end their days in despair.

The _halé-pulé_, or prayer-house, chief of the forlorn huts, by virtue

of extraordinary hollowness and a ventilation that was only exceeded by

all out-of-doors,--this prayer-house, or church, was thrown open to the

public; and, to my amazement, Kahéle suggested the propriety of our

attending worship, even before the first conch had been blown from the

rude door by the deacon himself.

We went along the chalky path that led to the front of the house, and

sat in the shelter of the eaves for an hour or more. Seven times that

conch was blown, and on each occasion the neighbourhood responded,

though stingily; a few worshippers would issue out of the wilderness and

draw slowly toward us. One or two men came on horseback, and were happy

in their mood, exhibiting the qualities of their animals on the flats

before us. Some came on foot, with their shoes in hand; the shoes were

carefully put on at the church door, but put off again a few moments

after entering the rustic pews. Dogs came, about one for every human;

these lay all over the floor, or mounted the seats, or were held in the

arms of the congregation, as the case might be. Children came, and

played a savage version of leap-frog in the lee of the church, but they

were bleak-looking youngsters, not at all like the little human

vegetables that flourished in the genial atmosphere of the valley of

Méha.

The conch was blown again; the most melancholy sound that ever issued

from windy cavity floated up and down that disconsolate land, and seemed

to be saying, in pathetic gusts, "Come to meeting! Come to meeting!"

Probably every one that could come had come; at any rate no one else

followed, and, after a decent pause, the services of the morning were

begun. The brief interval of ominous silence that preceded the opening

was enlivened by the caprices of a fractious horse, and at least two

stampedes of the canine persuasion, at which time the dogs seemed

possessed of devils, and were running down in a body towards the sea,

but thought better of it, and stole noiselessly back again, one after

the other, just in season for the opening prayer, to which they entered

with a low-comedy cast of countenance, and a depressed tail.

That prayer bubbled out of the savage throat like a clear fountain of

vowels. The dignity of the man was impressive, and his face the picture

of devotion; his deportment, likewise, was all that could be desired in

any one, under the circumstances. Either he was a rare specimen of the

very desirable convert from barbarism, or he was a consummate actor; I

dare not guess which of the two beguiled me with his grave and

euphonious prayer.

I regret to state that, during the energetic expounding of the

Scriptures, a few of the congregation forgot themselves and slept

audibly; a few arose and went under the eaves to smoke; children went

down on all-fours, and crawled under the pews in chase of pups as

restless and incorrigible as themselves. At a later period, some one

announced an approaching schooner, and the body of the house was

unceremoniously cleared, for a schooner was as rare a visitor to that

part of the island as an angel to any quarter of the globe. Further

ceremony was out of the question, at least until the excitement had

subsided; the parson, with philosophical composure, precipitated his

doxology, and we all walked out into the dreary afternoon to watch the

schooner blowing in toward shore.

The wind was rising; white clouds scudded over us; transparent shadows

slid under us; the whole earth seemed unstable, and life scarcely worth

the living. Along the dead shore leaped the sea, in a careless,

dare-devil fashion; hollow rocks spouted great mouthfuls of spray

contemptuously into the air; columns of red dust climbed into the sky,

reeling to and fro as they passed over the bleak desert toward the sea

on the opposite side of the island. These dust-chimneys were continually

moving over the land so long as the wind prevailed, which was for the

rest of that afternoon, to my certain knowledge. In fact, the gale

increased every hour; sheets of spray leaped over the rocky barriers of

the shore, and matted the dry grass, that hissed like straw whenever a

fresh gust struck it.

One tattered cocoa-palm, steadfast in its mission, though the living

emblem of a forlorn hope, wrestled with the tempest that threw all its

crisp and rattling leaves over its head like a pompon, and fretted it

till its slender neck twisted as though it were being throttled. The

thatched house seemed about to go to pieces, and every timber creaked in

agony; yet we gathered in its lee, and awaited the slow approach of the

schooner. Near shore she put about, and seemed upon the point of

scudding off to sea again. For a moment our hearts were in our throats;

we were in danger of missing the sensation of the season; new faces, new

topics of conversation, and, perhaps, something good to eat, sent

thither by Providence, who seldom forgets His children in the waste

places, though I wonder that He lets them lose themselves so often.

The schooner rocked on the big rollers for half an hour; a small boat

put off from her, with some dark objects seated in it; out on the great

rollers the little shallop rocked, sometimes hidden from view by an

intervening wave, sometimes thrown partly out of the water as it

balanced for a moment on the crest of a breaker, but gradually drawing

in toward a bit of beach, where there was a possible chance of landing,

in some shape or other. A few rods from shore, three dusky creatures

deliberately plunged overboard and swam toward us. We rushed in a body

to welcome them,--two women old residents of the place, who came out of

the sea wailing for joy at their safe return to a home no more inviting

than the one whose prominent features I have sought to reproduce. Down

they sat, not three feet from the water, that bubbled and hissed along

the coarse sand, and lifted up their voices in pitiful and impressive

monotones, as they recounted in a savagely poetic chant their various

adventures since they last looked upon the beloved picture of desolation

that lay about them.

The third passenger--a youngster--came to land when he had got tired of

swimming for the fun of it, and, once more upon his native heath, he

seemed at a loss to know what to do next, but suffered himself to be

vigorously embraced by nearly everybody in sight, after which he joined

his companions with placid satisfaction, and capered about as naturally

as though nothing unusual had happened.

Off into the windy sea sped the small schooner, bending to the breeze as

though it were a perpetual miracle that brought her right-side-up every

once in a while. Back to the deserted prayer-house our straggling

community wended its way; everything that had been said before was said

again, with some embellishments. It was beginning to grow tiresome. I

longed to plunge into the desert that stretched around, seeking some

possible oasis where the fainting spirit might reassure itself that

earth was beautiful and life a boon.

Kahéle agreed with me that this sort of thing was growing tiresome. He

knew of a good place not many miles away; we could go there and sleep.

It presented a church and a good priest, and other inducements of an

exceedingly proper and unexceptionable character. The prospect, though

uninviting, was sufficient to revive me for the moment, and daring that

moment we mounted, and were blown away on horseback. The wind howled in

our ears; sand-clouds peppered us heavily; small pebbles and grit cut

our faces; heavier gusts than usual changed earth, sea, and sky into

temporary chaos. The day waned, so did our spirits, so did the life of

our poor beasts. In the distance, the church of Kahéle's prophecy stood

out like a small rock in a land than which no land I wot of can be

wearier. The sun fell toward the sea; the wind subsided, though it was

still lusty and disagreeable.

We entered the church, having turned our disheartened beasts into

paddock, and found a meagre and late afternoon session, seated upon mats

that covered the earthen floor. A priest strove to kindle a flame of

religious enthusiasm in our unnatural hearts, but I fear he sought in

vain. The truth was, we were tired to death; we needed wholesome soup,

savoury meats, and steaming vegetables, to humanize us. I didn't want to

be a Christian on an empty stomach. The wind began to sigh, after its

passion was somewhat spent; sand sifted over the matting with a low

hiss; and the dull red curtains, that stretched across the lower half of

the windows, flapped dolefully. Overhead, the wasps had hung their

mud-baskets, and the grey atmosphere of everything was depressing in the

extreme. Service was soon over; the people departed across the windy

moors, with much fluttering of gay garments. A horse stood at pasture,

with his head down, his back to the wind, and his tail glued to his

side,--a picture of sublime resignation. A high mound, with a sandstone

sepulchre built in the face of it, cut off half of the very red sunset,

while a cactus-hedge, starred with pale pink blossoms, ran up a low

hill, and made silhouette pictures against the sky.

I turned to watch a large butterfly, blown over in the late

gale,--stranded, as it were, at the church porch, and too far gone to

set sail again; a white sea-bird wheeled over me in big circles, and

screamed faintly; something fell in the church with a loud echo,--a

prayer-book, probably; and then the priest came out, fastened the door

of the deserted sanctuary, and the day's duties were done. We had

nothing to do but follow him to his small frame dwelling, where the one

little window to the west seemed to be set with four panes of burnished

gold, and some homely household shrubs in his garden-plat shivered, and

blossomed while they shivered, but looked like so many widows and

orphans, the whole of them.

At the hospitable board life began afresh. Another day, and we should

again approach the borders of the earthly paradise that glorified the

opposite side of the island. Kahéle's eyes sparkled; my heart leaped

within me; I felt that there was a charm in living, after all; and the

moment was a critical one, for had the lad begged me to return with him

to the beguilements of barbarism, I think it possible that I might have

consented. But he didn't! He was the pink of propriety, and an honour to

his progenitors. He said a brief grace before eating, prayed audibly

before retiring, was patient to the pitch of stupidity, and amiable to

the verge of idiocy.

At last, I began to see through him. Another four-and-twenty hours, and

he would be restored to the arms of his guardians; the sweet lanes of

Lahaina would again blossom before him; and all that he thought to be

excellent in life would know him as it had known him only a few weeks

before. It was time that he had again begun to walk the straight path,

and he knew it. He was Kahéle, the two-sided; Kahéle, the chameleon,

whose character and disposition partook of the colour of his

surroundings; who was pious to the tune of the church-bell, yet agile as

any dancer of the lascivious _hula_ at the thump of the tom-tom. He was

a representative worthy of some consideration; a typical Hawaiian whose

versatility was only excelled by the plausibility with which he

developed new phases of his kaleidoscopic character. He was very

charming, and as diverting in one _rôle_ as another. He was, moreover,

worthy of much praise for his skill in playing each part so perfectly

that to this hour I am not sure which of his dispositions he excelled

in, nor in which he was most at home.

Kahéle, adieu! I might have upbraided thee for thy inconstancy, had I

not been accused of that same myself. I might have felt some modicum of

contempt for thee, had thy skin been white; but under the cover of thy

darkness sin hid her ugliness, and thy rich blood leaped to many

generous actions that a white-livered sycophant might not aspire to. I

can but forgive all, and sometimes long a little to live over the two

sides of you,--extremes that met in your precious corporosity, and made

me contented with a changeful and sometimes cheerless pilgrimage; for I

knew, boy, that if I went astray you would meet me upon the highest

moral grounds; and, though I could not rely upon you, somehow you came

to time when least expected, and filled me with admiration and

surprise,--a sentiment which time and absence only threaten to

perpetuate.

LOVE-LIFE IN A LANAI.

IT was the witching hour of sunset, and we sat at dinner with tearful

eyes over the Commodore's curry. You see the Commodore prided himself on

the strength of this identical dish, and kept a mahogany-tinted

East-Indian steward for the sole sake of his skill in concocting the

same.

We dined, as usual, in the Commodore's unrivalled _Lanai_,--the very

thought of which is a kind of spiritual feast to this hour,--and while

we sat at his board we heard for the twentieth time the monotonous

recital of his adventures by flood and field. Like most sea-stories, his

narratives were ever fresh, as though they had been stowed away in

brine, were fished out of the vasty deep expressly for the occasion, and

put to soak again in their natural element as soon as we had tasted

their quality.

The Commodore was a roaring old sea-dog, who had been cast ashore

somewhere in the early part of the century; and finding himself in

quarters more comfortable than his wildest fancy dared to paint, he

resolved to end his amphibious days on that strip of shining beach, and

never more lose sight of land until he should slip his cable for the

last time, and sail into undiscovered seas. Meanwhile, he entertained

his friends at Wai-ki-ki, a kind of tropical Long Branch a few miles out

of Honolulu; and the grace with which he introduced Jack-ashore to the

dreamy twilight of his _Lanai_ is one of Jack's deathless memories. We

met the Commodore in the interesting character of Jack-ashore, and with

uncovered heads and hearts full of emotion entered the _Lanai_.