NIGHT IN THE BUSH.
Well, I was committed now; Tiapolo had to be smashed up before next
day, and my hands were pretty full, not only with preparations, but
with argument. My house was like a mechanics’ debating society: Uma was
so made up that I shouldn’t go into the bush by night, or that, if I
did, I was never to come back again. You know her style of arguing:
you’ve had a specimen about Queen Victoria and the devil; and I leave
you to fancy if I was tired of it before dark.
At last I had a good idea. What was the use of casting my pearls before
her? I thought; some of her own chopped hay would be likelier to do the
business.
“I’ll tell you what, then,” said I. “You fish out your Bible, and I’ll
take that up along with me. That’ll make me right.”
She swore a Bible was no use.
“That’s just your Kanaka ignorance,” said I. “Bring the Bible out.”
She brought it, and I turned to the title-page, where I thought there
would likely be some English, and so there was. “There!” said I. “Look
at that! ‘_London_: _Printed for the British and Foreign Bible
Society_, _Blackfriars_,’ and the date, which I can’t read, owing to
its being in these X’s. There’s no devil in hell can look near the
Bible Society, Blackfriars. Why, you silly!” I said, “how do you
suppose we get along with our own _aitus_ at home? All Bible Society!”
“I think you no got any,” said she. “White man, he tell me you no got.”
“Sounds likely, don’t it?” I asked. “Why would these islands all be
chock full of them and none in Europe?”
“Well, you no got breadfruit,” said she.
I could have torn my hair. “Now look here, old lady,” said I, “you dry
up, for I’m tired of you. I’ll take the Bible, which’ll put me as
straight as the mail, and that’s the last word I’ve got to say.”
The night fell extraordinary dark, clouds coming up with sundown and
overspreading all; not a star showed; there was only an end of a moon,
and that not due before the small hours. Round the village, what with
the lights and the fires in the open houses, and the torches of many
fishers moving on the reef, it kept as gay as an illumination; but the
sea and the mountains and woods were all clean gone. I suppose it might
be eight o’clock when I took the road, laden like a donkey. First there
was that Bible, a book as big as your head, which I had let myself in
for by my own tomfoolery. Then there was my gun, and knife, and
lantern, and patent matches, all necessary. And then there was the real
plant of the affair in hand, a mortal weight of gunpowder, a pair of
dynamite fishing-bombs, and two or three pieces of slow match that I
had hauled out of the tin cases and spliced together the best way I
could; for the match was only trade stuff, and a man would be crazy
that trusted it. Altogether, you see, I had the materials of a pretty
good blow-up! Expense was nothing to me; I wanted that thing done
right.
As long as I was in the open, and had the lamp in my house to steer by,
I did well. But when I got to the path, it fell so dark I could make no
headway, walking into trees and swearing there, like a man looking for
the matches in his bed-room. I knew it was risky to light up, for my
lantern would be visible all the way to the point of the cape, and as
no one went there after dark, it would be talked about, and come to
Case’s ears. But what was I to do? I had either to give the business
over and lose caste with Maea, or light up, take my chance, and get
through the thing the smartest I was able.
As long as I was on the path I walked hard, but when I came to the
black beach I had to run. For the tide was now nearly flowed; and to
get through with my powder dry between the surf and the steep hill,
took all the quickness I possessed. As it was, even, the wash caught me
to the knees, and I came near falling on a stone. All this time the
hurry I was in, and the free air and smell of the sea, kept my spirits
lively; but when I was once in the bush and began to climb the path I
took it easier. The fearsomeness of the wood had been a good bit rubbed
off for me by Master Case’s banjo-strings and graven images, yet I
thought it was a dreary walk, and guessed, when the disciples went up
there, they must be badly scared. The light of the lantern, striking
among all these trunks and forked branches and twisted rope-ends of
lianas, made the whole place, or all that you could see of it, a kind
of a puzzle of turning shadows. They came to meet you, solid and quick
like giants, and then span off and vanished; they hove up over your
head like clubs, and flew away into the night like birds. The floor of
the bush glimmered with dead wood, the way the match-box used to shine
after you had struck a lucifer. Big, cold drops fell on me from the
branches overhead like sweat. There was no wind to mention; only a
little icy breath of a land-breeze that stirred nothing; and the harps
were silent.
The first landfall I made was when I got through the bush of wild
cocoanuts, and came in view of the bogies on the wall. Mighty queer
they looked by the shining of the lantern, with their painted faces and
shell eyes, and their clothes and their hair hanging. One after another
I pulled them all up and piled them in a bundle on the cellar roof, so
as they might go to glory with the rest. Then I chose a place behind
one of the big stones at the entrance, buried my powder and the two
shells, and arranged my match along the passage. And then I had a look
at the smoking head, just for good-bye. It was doing fine.
“Cheer up,” says I. “You’re booked.”
It was my first idea to light up and be getting homeward; for the
darkness and the glimmer of the dead wood and the shadows of the
lantern made me lonely. But I knew where one of the harps hung; it
seemed a pity it shouldn’t go with the rest; and at the same time I
couldn’t help letting on to myself that I was mortal tired of my
employment, and would like best to be at home and have the door shut. I
stepped out of the cellar and argued it fore and back. There was a
sound of the sea far down below me on the coast; nearer hand not a leaf
stirred; I might have been the only living creature this side of Cape
Horn. Well, as I stood there thinking, it seemed the bush woke and
became full of little noises. Little noises they were, and nothing to
hurt—a bit of a crackle, a bit of a rush—but the breath jumped right
out of me and my throat went as dry as a biscuit. It wasn’t Case I was
afraid of, which would have been common-sense; I never thought of Case;
what took me, as sharp as the colic, was the old wives’ tales, the
devil-women and the man-pigs. It was the toss of a penny whether I
should run: but I got a purchase on myself, and stepped out, and held
up the lantern (like a fool) and looked all round.
In the direction of the village and the path there was nothing to be
seen; but when I turned inland it’s a wonder to me I didn’t drop.
There, coming right up out of the desert and the bad bush—there, sure
enough, was a devil-woman, just as the way I had figured she would
look. I saw the light shine on her bare arms and her bright eyes, and
there went out of me a yell so big that I thought it was my death.
“Ah! No sing out!” says the devil-woman, in a kind of a high whisper.
“Why you talk big voice? Put out light! Ese he come.”
“My God Almighty, Uma, is that you?” says I.
“_Ioe_,” [4] says she. “I come quick. Ese here soon.”
“You come alone?” I asked. “You no ’fraid?”
“Ah, too much ’fraid!” she whispered, clutching me. “I think die.”
“Well,” says I, with a kind of a weak grin, “I’m not the one to laugh
at you, Mrs. Wiltshire, for I’m about the worst scared man in the South
Pacific myself.”
She told me in two words what brought her. I was scarce gone, it seems,
when Fa’avao came in, and the old woman had met Black Jack running as
hard as he was fit from our house to Case’s. Uma neither spoke nor
stopped, but lit right out to come and warn me. She was so close at my
heels that the lantern was her guide across the beach, and afterwards,
by the glimmer of it in the trees, she got her line up hill. It was
only when I had got to the top or was in the cellar that she wandered
Lord knows where! and lost a sight of precious time, afraid to call out
lest Case was at the heels of her, and falling in the bush, so that she
was all knocked and bruised. That must have been when she got too far
to the southward, and how she came to take me in the flank at last and
frighten me beyond what I’ve got the words to tell of.
Well, anything was better than a devil-woman, but I thought her yarn
serious enough. Black Jack had no call to be about my house, unless he
was set there to watch; and it looked to me as if my tomfool word about
the paint, and perhaps some chatter of Maea’s, had got us all in a
clove hitch. One thing was clear: Uma and I were here for the night; we
daren’t try to go home before day, and even then it would be safer to
strike round up the mountain and come in by the back of the village, or
we might walk into an ambuscade. It was plain, too, that the mine
should be sprung immediately, or Case might be in time to stop it.
I marched into the tunnel, Uma keeping tight hold of me, opened my
lantern and lit the match. The first length of it burned like a spill
of paper, and I stood stupid, watching it burn, and thinking we were
going aloft with Tiapolo, which was none of my views. The second took
to a better rate, though faster than I cared about; and at that I got
my wits again, hauled Uma clear of the passage, blew out and dropped
the lantern, and the pair of us groped our way into the bush until I
thought it might be safe, and lay down together by a tree.
“Old lady,” I said, “I won’t forget this night. You’re a trump, and
that’s what’s wrong with you.”
She humped herself close up to me. She had run out the way she was,
with nothing on her but her kilt; and she was all wet with the dews and
the sea on the black beach, and shook straight on with cold and the
terror of the dark and the devils.
“Too much ’fraid,” was all she said.
The far side of Case’s hill goes down near as steep as a precipice into
the next valley. We were on the very edge of it, and I could see the
dead wood shine and hear the sea sound far below. I didn’t care about
the position, which left me no retreat, but I was afraid to change.
Then I saw I had made a worse mistake about the lantern, which I should
have left lighted, so that I could have had a crack at Case when he
stepped into the shine of it. And even if I hadn’t had the wit to do
that, it seemed a senseless thing to leave the good lantern to blow up
with the graven images. The thing belonged to me, after all, and was
worth money, and might come in handy. If I could have trusted the
match, I might have run in still and rescued it. But who was going to
trust the match? You know what trade is. The stuff was good enough for
Kanakas to go fishing with, where they’ve got to look lively anyway,
and the most they risk is only to have their hand blown off. But for
anyone that wanted to fool around a blow-up like mine that match was
rubbish.
Altogether the best I could do was to lie still, see my shot-gun handy,
and wait for the explosion. But it was a solemn kind of a business. The
blackness of the night was like solid; the only thing you could see was
the nasty bogy glimmer of the dead wood, and that showed you nothing
but itself; and as for sounds, I stretched my ears till I thought I
could have heard the match burn in the tunnel, and that bush was as
silent as a coffin. Now and then there was a bit of a crack; but
whether it was near or far, whether it was Case stubbing his toes
within a few yards of me, or a tree breaking miles away, I knew no more
than the babe unborn.
And then, all of a sudden, Vesuvius went off. It was a long time
coming; but when it came (though I say it that shouldn’t) no man could
ask to see a better. At first it was just a son of a gun of a row, and
a spout of fire, and the wood lighted up so that you could see to read.
And then the trouble began. Uma and I were half buried under a wagonful
of earth, and glad it was no worse, for one of the rocks at the
entrance of the tunnel was fired clean into the air, fell within a
couple of fathoms of where we lay, and bounded over the edge of the
hill, and went pounding down into the next valley. I saw I had rather
undercalculated our distance, or over-done the dynamite and powder,
which you please.
And presently I saw I had made another slip. The noise of the thing
began to die off, shaking the island; the dazzle was over; and yet the
night didn’t come back the way I expected. For the whole wood was
scattered with red coals and brands from the explosion; they were all
round me on the flat; some had fallen below in the valley, and some
stuck and flared in the tree-tops. I had no fear of fire, for these
forests are too wet to kindle. But the trouble was that the place was
all lit up-not very bright, but good enough to get a shot by; and the
way the coals were scattered, it was just as likely Case might have the
advantage as myself. I looked all round for his white face, you may be
sure; but there was not a sign of him. As for Uma, the life seemed to
have been knocked right out of her by the bang and blaze of it.
There was one bad point in my game. One of the blessed graven images
had come down all afire, hair and clothes and body, not four yards away
from me. I cast a mighty noticing glance all round; there was still no
Case, and I made up my mind I must get rid of that burning stick before
he came, or I should be shot there like a dog.
It was my first idea to have crawled, and then I thought speed was the
main thing, and stood half up to make a rush. The same moment from
somewhere between me and the sea there came a flash and a report, and a
rifle bullet screeched in my ear. I swung straight round and up with my
gun, but the brute had a Winchester, and before I could as much as see
him his second shot knocked me over like a nine-pin. I seemed to fly in
the air, then came down by the run and lay half a minute, silly; and
then I found my hands empty, and my gun had flown over my head as I
fell. It makes a man mighty wide awake to be in the kind of box that I
was in. I scarcely knew where I was hurt, or whether I was hurt or not,
but turned right over on my face to crawl after my weapon. Unless you
have tried to get about with a smashed leg you don’t know what pain is,
and I let out a howl like a bullock’s.
This was the unluckiest noise that ever I made in my life. Up to then
Uma had stuck to her tree like a sensible woman, knowing she would be
only in the way; but as soon as she heard me sing out, she ran forward.
The Winchester cracked again, and down she went.
I had sat up, leg and all, to stop her; but when I saw her tumble I
clapped down again where I was, lay still, and felt the handle of my
knife. I had been scurried and put out before. No more of that for me.
He had knocked over my girl, I had got to fix him for it; and I lay
there and gritted my teeth, and footed up the chances. My leg was
broke, my gun was gone. Case had still ten shots in his Winchester. It
looked a kind of hopeless business. But I never despaired nor thought
upon despairing: that man had got to go.
For a goodish bit not one of us let on. Then I heard Case begin to move
nearer in the bush, but mighty careful. The image had burned out; there
were only a few coals left here and there, and the wood was main dark,
but had a kind of a low glow in it like a fire on its last legs. It was
by this that I made out Case’s head looking at me over a big tuft of
ferns, and at the same time the brute saw me and shouldered his
Winchester. I lay quite still, and as good as looked into the barrel:
it was my last chance, but I thought my heart would have come right out
of its bearings. Then he fired. Lucky for me it was no shot-gun, for
the bullet struck within an inch of me and knocked the dirt in my eyes.
Just you try and see if you can lie quiet, and let a man take a sitting
shot at you and miss you by a hair. But I did, and lucky too. A while
Case stood with the Winchester at the port-arms; then he gave a little
laugh to himself, and stepped round the ferns.
“Laugh!” thought I. “If you had the wit of a louse you would be
praying!”
I was all as taut as a ship’s hawser or the spring of a watch, and as
soon as he came within reach of me I had him by the ankle, plucked the
feet right out from under him, laid him out, and was upon the top of
him, broken leg and all, before he breathed. His Winchester had gone
the same road as my shot-gun; it was nothing to me—I defied him now.
I’m a pretty strong man anyway, but I never knew what strength was till
I got hold of Case. He was knocked out of time by the rattle he came
down with, and threw up his hands together, more like a frightened
woman, so that I caught both of them with my left. This wakened him up,
and he fastened his teeth in my forearm like a weasel. Much I cared. My
leg gave me all the pain I had any use for, and I drew my knife and got
it in the place.
“Now,” said I, “I’ve got you; and you’re gone up, and a good job too!
Do you feel the point of that? That’s for Underhill! And there’s for
Adams! And now here’s for Uma, and that’s going to knock your blooming
soul right out of you!”
With that I gave him the cold steel for all I was worth. His body
kicked under me like a spring sofa; he gave a dreadful kind of a long
moan, and lay still.
“I wonder if you’re dead? I hope so!” I thought, for my head was
swimming. But I wasn’t going to take chances; I had his own example too
close before me for that; and I tried to draw the knife out to give it
him again. The blood came over my hands, I remember, hot as tea; and
with that I fainted clean away, and fell with my head on the man’s
mouth.
When I came to myself it was pitch dark; the cinders had burned out;
there was nothing to be seen but the shine of the dead wood, and I
couldn’t remember where I was nor why I was in such pain nor what I was
all wetted with. Then it came back, and the first thing I attended to
was to give him the knife again a half-a-dozen times up to the handle.
I believe he was dead already, but it did him no harm and did me good.
“I bet you’re dead now,” I said, and then I called to Uma.
Nothing answered, and I made a move to go and grope for her, fouled my
broken leg, and fainted again.
When I came to myself the second time the clouds had all cleared away,
except a few that sailed there, white as cotton. The moon was up—a
tropic moon. The moon at home turns a wood black, but even this old
butt-end of a one showed up that forest, as green as by day. The night
birds—or, rather, they’re a kind of early morning bird—sang out with
their long, falling notes like nightingales. And I could see the dead
man, that I was still half resting on, looking right up into the sky
with his open eyes, no paler than when he was alive; and a little way
off Uma tumbled on her side. I got over to her the best way I was able,
and when I got there she was broad awake, and crying and sobbing to
herself with no more noise than an insect. It appears she was afraid to
cry out loud, because of the _aitus_. Altogether she was not much hurt,
but scared beyond belief; she had come to her senses a long while ago,
cried out to me, heard nothing in reply, made out we were both dead,
and had lain there ever since, afraid to budge a finger. The ball had
ploughed up her shoulder, and she had lost a main quantity of blood;
but I soon had that tied up the way it ought to be with the tail of my
shirt and a scarf I had on, got her head on my sound knee and my back
against a trunk, and settled down to wait for morning. Uma was for
neither use nor ornament, and could only clutch hold of me and shake
and cry. I don’t suppose there was ever anybody worse scared, and, to
do her justice, she had had a lively night of it. As for me, I was in a
good bit of pain and fever, but not so bad when I sat still; and every
time I looked over to Case I could have sung and whistled. Talk about
meat and drink! To see that man lying there dead as a herring filled me
full.
The night birds stopped after a while; and then the light began to
change, the east came orange, the whole wood began to whirr with
singing like a musical box, and there was the broad day.
I didn’t expect Maea for a long while yet; and, indeed, I thought there
was an off-chance he might go back on the whole idea and not come at
all. I was the better pleased when, about an hour after daylight, I
heard sticks smashing and a lot of Kanakas laughing, and singing out to
keep their courage up. Uma sat up quite brisk at the first word of it;
and presently we saw a party come stringing out of the path, Maea in
front, and behind him a white man in a pith helmet. It was Mr.
Tarleton, who had turned up late last night in Falesá, having left his
boat and walked the last stage with a lantern.
They buried Case upon the field of glory, right in the hole where he
had kept the smoking head. I waited till the thing was done; and Mr.
Tarleton prayed, which I thought tomfoolery, but I’m bound to say he
gave a pretty sick view of the dear departed’s prospects, and seemed to
have his own ideas of hell. I had it out with him afterwards, told him
he had scamped his duty, and what he had ought to have done was to up
like a man and tell the Kanakas plainly Case was damned, and a good
riddance; but I never could get him to see it my way. Then they made me
a litter of poles and carried me down to the station. Mr. Tarleton set
my leg, and made a regular missionary splice of it, so that I limp to
this day. That done, he took down my evidence, and Uma’s, and Maea’s,
wrote it all out fine, and had us sign it; and then he got the chiefs
and marched over to Papa Randall’s to seize Case’s papers.
All they found was a bit of a diary, kept for a good many years, and
all about the price of copra, and chickens being stolen, and that; and
the books of the business and the will I told you of in the beginning,
by both of which the whole thing (stock, lock, and barrel) appeared to
belong to the Samoa woman. It was I that bought her out at a mighty
reasonable figure, for she was in a hurry to get home. As for Randall
and the black, they had to tramp; got into some kind of a station on
the Papa-malulu side; did very bad business, for the truth is neither
of the pair was fit for it, and lived mostly on fish, which was the
means of Randall’s death. It seems there was a nice shoal in one day,
and papa went after them with the dynamite; either the match burned too
fast, or papa was full, or both, but the shell went off (in the usual
way) before he threw it, and where was papa’s hand? Well, there’s
nothing to hurt in that; the islands up north are all full of
one-handed men, like the parties in the “Arabian Nights”; but either
Randall was too old, or he drank too much, and the short and the long
of it was that he died. Pretty soon after, the nigger was turned out of
the island for stealing from white men, and went off to the west, where
he found men of his own colour, in case he liked that, and the men of
his own colour took and ate him at some kind of a corroborree, and I’m
sure I hope he was to their fancy!
So there was I, left alone in my glory at Falesá; and when the schooner
came round I filled her up, and gave her a deck-cargo half as high as
the house. I must say Mr. Tarleton did the right thing by us; but he
took a meanish kind of a revenge.
“Now, Mr. Wiltshire,” said he, “I’ve put you all square with everybody
here. It wasn’t difficult to do, Case being gone; but I have done it,
and given my pledge besides that you will deal fairly with the natives.
I must ask you to keep my word.”
Well, so I did. I used to be bothered about my balances, but I reasoned
it out this way: We all have queerish balances; and the natives all
know it, and water their copra in a proportion so that it’s fair all
round; but the truth is, it did use to bother me, and, though I did
well in Falesá, I was half glad when the firm moved me on to another
station, where I was under no kind of a pledge and could look my
balances in the face.
As for the old lady, you know her as well as I do. She’s only the one
fault. If you don’t keep your eye lifting she would give away the roof
off the station. Well, it seems it’s natural in Kanakas. She’s turned a
powerful big woman now, and could throw a London bobby over her
shoulder. But that’s natural in Kanakas too, and there’s no manner of
doubt that she’s an A 1 wife.
Mr. Tarleton’s gone home, his trick being over. He was the best
missionary I ever struck, and now, it seems, he’s parsonising down
Somerset way. Well, that’s best for him; he’ll have no Kanakas there to
get luny over.
My public-house? Not a bit of it, nor ever likely. I’m stuck here, I
fancy. I don’t like to leave the kids, you see: and—there’s no use
talking—they’re better here than what they would be in a white man’s
country, though Ben took the eldest up to Auckland, where he’s being
schooled with the best. But what bothers me is the girls. They’re only
half-castes, of course; I know that as well as you do, and there’s
nobody thinks less of half-castes than I do; but they’re mine, and
about all I’ve got. I can’t reconcile my mind to their taking up with
Kanakas, and I’d like to know where I’m to find the whites?
THE BOTTLE IMP.
Note.—Any student of that very unliterary product, the English drama of
the early part of the century, will here recognise the name and the
root idea of a piece once rendered popular by the redoubtable O. Smith.
The root idea is there and identical, and yet I hope I have made it a
new thing. And the fact that the tale has been designed and written for
a Polynesian audience may lend it some extraneous interest nearer
home.—R. L. S.
There was a man of the Island of Hawaii, whom I shall call Keawe; for
the truth is, he still lives, and his name must be kept secret; but the
place of his birth was not far from Honaunau, where the bones of Keawe
the Great lie hidden in a cave. This man was poor, brave, and active;
he could read and write like a schoolmaster; he was a first-rate
mariner besides, sailed for some time in the island steamers, and
steered a whaleboat on the Hamakua coast. At length it came in Keawe’s
mind to have a sight of the great world and foreign cities, and he
shipped on a vessel bound to San Francisco.
This is a fine town, with a fine harbour, and rich people uncountable;
and, in particular, there is one hill which is covered with palaces.
Upon this hill Keawe was one day taking a walk with his pocket full of
money, viewing the great houses upon either hand with pleasure, “What
fine houses these are!” he was thinking, “and how happy must those
people be who dwell in them, and take no care for the morrow!” The
thought was in his mind when he came abreast of a house that was
smaller than some others, but all finished and beautified like a toy;
the steps of that house shone like silver, and the borders of the
garden bloomed like garlands, and the windows were bright like diamond;
and Keawe stopped and wondered at the excellence of all he saw. So
stopping, he was aware of a man that looked forth upon him through a
window so clear that Keawe could see him as you see a fish in a pool
upon the reef. The man was elderly, with a bald head and a black beard;
and his face was heavy with sorrow, and he bitterly sighed. And the
truth of it is, that as Keawe looked in upon the man, and the man
looked out upon Keawe, each envied the other.
All of a sudden, the man smiled and nodded, and beckoned Keawe to
enter, and met him at the door of the house.
“This is a fine house of mine,” said the man, and bitterly sighed.
“Would you not care to view the chambers?”
So he led Keawe all over it, from the cellar to the roof, and there was
nothing there that was not perfect of its kind, and Keawe was
astonished.
“Truly,” said Keawe, “this is a beautiful house; if I lived in the like
of it, I should be laughing all day long. How comes it, then, that you
should be sighing?”
“There is no reason,” said the man, “why you should not have a house in
all points similar to this, and finer, if you wish. You have some
money, I suppose?”
“I have fifty dollars,” said Keawe; “but a house like this will cost
more than fifty dollars.”
The man made a computation. “I am sorry you have no more,” said he,
“for it may raise you trouble in the future; but it shall be yours at
fifty dollars.”
“The house?” asked Keawe.
“No, not the house,” replied the man; “but the bottle. For, I must tell
you, although I appear to you so rich and fortunate, all my fortune,
and this house itself and its garden, came out of a bottle not much
bigger than a pint. This is it.”
And he opened a lockfast place, and took out a round-bellied bottle
with a long neck; the glass of it was white like milk, with changing
rainbow colours in the grain. Withinsides something obscurely moved,
like a shadow and a fire.
“This is the bottle,” said the man; and, when Keawe laughed, “You do
not believe me?” he added. “Try, then, for yourself. See if you can
break it.”
So Keawe took the bottle up and dashed it on the floor till he was
weary; but it jumped on the floor like a child’s ball, and was not
injured.
“This is a strange thing,” said Keawe. “For by the touch of it, as well
as by the look, the bottle should be of glass.”
“Of glass it is,” replied the man, sighing more heavily than ever; “but
the glass of it was tempered in the flames of hell. An imp lives in it,
and that is the shadow we behold there moving: or so I suppose. If any
man buy this bottle the imp is at his command; all that he
desires—love, fame, money, houses like this house, ay, or a city like
this city—all are his at the word uttered. Napoleon had this bottle,
and by it he grew to be the king of the world; but he sold it at the
last, and fell. Captain Cook had this bottle, and by it he found his
way to so many islands; but he, too, sold it, and was slain upon
Hawaii. For, once it is sold, the power goes and the protection; and
unless a man remain content with what he has, ill will befall him.”
“And yet you talk of selling it yourself?” Keawe said.
“I have all I wish, and I am growing elderly,” replied the man. “There
is one thing the imp cannot do—he cannot prolong life; and, it would
not be fair to conceal from you, there is a drawback to the bottle; for
if a man die before he sells it, he must burn in hell forever.”
“To be sure, that is a drawback and no mistake,” cried Keawe. “I would
not meddle with the thing. I can do without a house, thank God; but
there is one thing I could not be doing with one particle, and that is
to be damned.”
“Dear me, you must not run away with things,” returned the man. “All
you have to do is to use the power of the imp in moderation, and then
sell it to someone else, as I do to you, and finish your life in
comfort.”
“Well, I observe two things,” said Keawe. “All the time you keep
sighing like a maid in love, that is one; and, for the other, you sell
this bottle very cheap.”
“I have told you already why I sigh,” said the man. “It is because I
fear my health is breaking up; and, as you said yourself, to die and go
to the devil is a pity for anyone. As for why I sell so cheap, I must
explain to you there is a peculiarity about the bottle. Long ago, when
the devil brought it first upon earth, it was extremely expensive, and
was sold first of all to Prester John for many millions of dollars; but
it cannot be sold at all, unless sold at a loss. If you sell it for as
much as you paid for it, back it comes to you again like a homing
pigeon. It follows that the price has kept falling in these centuries,
and the bottle is now remarkably cheap. I bought it myself from one of
my great neighbours on this hill, and the price I paid was only ninety
dollars. I could sell it for as high as eighty-nine dollars and
ninety-nine cents, but not a penny dearer, or back the thing must come
to me. Now, about this there are two bothers. First, when you offer a
bottle so singular for eighty odd dollars, people suppose you to be
jesting. And second—but there is no hurry about that—and I need not go
into it. Only remember it must be coined money that you sell it for.”
“How am I to know that this is all true?” asked Keawe.
“Some of it you can try at once,” replied the man. “Give me your fifty
dollars, take the bottle, and wish your fifty dollars back into your
pocket. If that does not happen, I pledge you my honour I will cry off
the bargain and restore your money.”
“You are not deceiving me?” said Keawe.
The man bound himself with a great oath.
“Well, I will risk that much,” said Keawe, “for that can do no harm.”
And he paid over his money to the man, and the man handed him the
bottle.
“Imp of the bottle,” said Keawe, “I want my fifty dollars back.” And
sure enough he had scarce said the word before his pocket was as heavy
as ever.
“To be sure this is a wonderful bottle,” said Keawe.
“And now good-morning to you, my fine fellow, and the devil go with you
for me!” said the man.
“Hold on,” said Keawe, “I don’t want any more of this fun. Here, take
your bottle back.”
“You have bought it for less than I paid for it,” replied the man,
rubbing his hands. “It is yours now; and, for my part, I am only
concerned to see the back of you.” And with that he rang for his
Chinese servant, and had Keawe shown out of the house.
Now, when Keawe was in the street, with the bottle under his arm, he
began to think. “If all is true about this bottle, I may have made a
losing bargain,” thinks he. “But perhaps the man was only fooling me.”
The first thing he did was to count his money; the sum was
exact—forty-nine dollars American money, and one Chili piece. “That
looks like the truth,” said Keawe. “Now I will try another part.”
The streets in that part of the city were as clean as a ship’s decks,
and though it was noon, there were no passengers. Keawe set the bottle
in the gutter and walked away. Twice he looked back, and there was the
milky, round-bellied bottle where he left it. A third time he looked
back, and turned a corner; but he had scarce done so, when something
knocked upon his elbow, and behold! it was the long neck sticking up;
and as for the round belly, it was jammed into the pocket of his
pilot-coat.
“And that looks like the truth,” said Keawe.
The next thing he did was to buy a cork-screw in a shop, and go apart
into a secret place in the fields. And there he tried to draw the cork,
but as often as he put the screw in, out it came again, and the cork as
whole as ever.
“This is some new sort of cork,” said Keawe, and all at once he began
to shake and sweat, for he was afraid of that bottle.
On his way back to the port-side, he saw a shop where a man sold shells
and clubs from the wild islands, old heathen deities, old coined money,
pictures from China and Japan, and all manner of things that sailors
bring in their sea-chests. And here he had an idea. So he went in and
offered the bottle for a hundred dollars. The man of the shop laughed
at him at the first, and offered him five; but, indeed, it was a
curious bottle—such glass was never blown in any human glassworks, so
prettily the colours shone under the milky white, and so strangely the
shadow hovered in the midst; so, after he had disputed awhile after the
manner of his kind, the shop-man gave Keawe sixty silver dollars for
the thing, and set it on a shelf in the midst of his window.
“Now,” said Keawe, “I have sold that for sixty which I bought for
fifty—or, to say truth, a little less, because one of my dollars was
from Chili. Now I shall know the truth upon another point.”
So he went back on board his ship, and, when he opened his chest, there
was the bottle, and had come more quickly than himself. Now Keawe had a
mate on board whose name was Lopaka.
“What ails you?” said Lopaka, “that you stare in your chest?”
They were alone in the ship’s forecastle, and Keawe bound him to
secrecy, and told all.
“This is a very strange affair,” said Lopaka; “and I fear you will be
in trouble about this bottle. But there is one point very clear—that
you are sure of the trouble, and you had better have the profit in the
bargain. Make up your mind what you want with it; give the order, and
if it is done as you desire, I will buy the bottle myself; for I have
an idea of my own to get a schooner, and go trading through the
islands.”
“That is not my idea,” said Keawe; “but to have a beautiful house and
garden on the Kona Coast, where I was born, the sun shining in at the
door, flowers in the garden, glass in the windows, pictures on the
walls, and toys and fine carpets on the tables, for all the world like
the house I was in this day—only a storey higher, and with balconies
all about like the King’s palace; and to live there without care and
make merry with my friends and relatives.”
“Well,” said Lopaka, “let us carry it back with us to Hawaii; and if
all comes true, as you suppose, I will buy the bottle, as I said, and
ask a schooner.”
Upon that they were agreed, and it was not long before the ship
returned to Honolulu, carrying Keawe and Lopaka, and the bottle. They
were scarce come ashore when they met a friend upon the beach, who
began at once to condole with Keawe.
“I do not know what I am to be condoled about,” said Keawe.
“Is it possible you have not heard,” said the friend, “your uncle—that
good old man—is dead, and your cousin—that beautiful boy—was drowned at
sea?”
Keawe was filled with sorrow, and, beginning to weep and to lament, he
forgot about the bottle. But Lopaka was thinking to himself, and
presently, when Keawe’s grief was a little abated, “I have been
thinking,” said Lopaka. “Had not your uncle lands in Hawaii, in the
district of Kau?”
“No,” said Keawe, “not in Kau; they are on the mountain-side—a little
way south of Hookena.”
“These lands will now be yours?” asked Lopaka.
“And so they will,” says Keawe, and began again to lament for his
relatives.
“No,” said Lopaka, “do not lament at present. I have a thought in my
mind. How if this should be the doing of the bottle? For here is the
place ready for your house.”
“If this be so,” cried Keawe, “it is a very ill way to serve me by
killing my relatives. But it may be, indeed; for it was in just such a
station that I saw the house with my mind’s eye.”
“The house, however, is not yet built,” said Lopaka.
“No, nor like to be!” said Keawe; “for though my uncle has some coffee
and ava and bananas, it will not be more than will keep me in comfort;
and the rest of that land is the black lava.”
“Let us go to the lawyer,” said Lopaka; “I have still this idea in my
mind.”
Now, when they came to the lawyer’s, it appeared Keawe’s uncle had
grown monstrous rich in the last days, and there was a fund of money.
“And here is the money for the house!” cried Lopaka.
“If you are thinking of a new house,” said the lawyer, “here is the
card of a new architect, of whom they tell me great things.”
“Better and better!” cried Lopaka. “Here is all made plain for us. Let
us continue to obey orders.”
So they went to the architect, and he had drawings of houses on his
table.
“You want something out of the way,” said the architect. “How do you
like this?” and he handed a drawing to Keawe.
Now, when Keawe set eyes on the drawing, he cried out aloud, for it was
the picture of his thought exactly drawn.
“I am in for this house,” thought he. “Little as I like the way it
comes to me, I am in for it now, and I may as well take the good along
with the evil.”
So he told the architect all that he wished, and how he would have that
house furnished, and about the pictures on the wall and the
knick-knacks on the tables; and he asked the man plainly for how much
he would undertake the whole affair.
The architect put many questions, and took his pen and made a
computation; and when he had done he named the very sum that Keawe had
inherited.
Lopaka and Keawe looked at one another and nodded.
“It is quite clear,” thought Keawe, “that I am to have this house,
whether or no. It comes from the devil, and I fear I will get little
good by that; and of one thing I am sure, I will make no more wishes as
long as I have this bottle. But with the house I am saddled, and I may
as well take the good along with the evil.”
So he made his terms with the architect, and they signed a paper; and
Keawe and Lopaka took ship again and sailed to Australia; for it was
concluded between them they should not interfere at all, but leave the
architect and the bottle imp to build and to adorn that house at their
own pleasure.
The voyage was a good voyage, only all the time Keawe was holding in
his breath, for he had sworn he would utter no more wishes, and take no
more favours from the devil. The time was up when they got back. The
architect told them that the house was ready, and Keawe and Lopaka took
a passage in the _Hall_, and went down Kona way to view the house, and
see if all had been done fitly according to the thought that was in
Keawe’s mind.
Now the house stood on the mountain side, visible to ships. Above, the
forest ran up into the clouds of rain; below, the black lava fell in
cliffs, where the kings of old lay buried. A garden bloomed about that
house with every hue of flowers; and there was an orchard of papaia on
the one hand and an orchard of breadfruit on the other, and right in
front, toward the sea, a ship’s mast had been rigged up and bore a
flag. As for the house, it was three storeys high, with great chambers
and broad balconies on each. The windows were of glass, so excellent
that it was as clear as water and as bright as day. All manner of
furniture adorned the chambers. Pictures hung upon the wall in golden
frames: pictures of ships, and men fighting, and of the most beautiful
women, and of singular places; nowhere in the world are there pictures
of so bright a colour as those Keawe found hanging in his house. As for
the knick-knacks, they were extraordinary fine; chiming clocks and
musical boxes, little men with nodding heads, books filled with
pictures, weapons of price from all quarters of the world, and the most
elegant puzzles to entertain the leisure of a solitary man. And as no
one would care to live in such chambers, only to walk through and view
them, the balconies were made so broad that a whole town might have
lived upon them in delight; and Keawe knew not which to prefer, whether
the back porch, where you got the land breeze, and looked upon the
orchards and the flowers, or the front balcony, where you could drink
the wind of the sea, and look down the steep wall of the mountain and
see the _Hall_ going by once a week or so between Hookena and the hills
of Pele, or the schooners plying up the coast for wood and ava and
bananas.
When they had viewed all, Keawe and Lopaka sat on the porch.
“Well,” asked Lopaka, “is it all as you designed?”
“Words cannot utter it,” said Keawe. “It is better than I dreamed, and
I am sick with satisfaction.”
“There is but one thing to consider,” said Lopaka; “all this may be
quite natural, and the bottle imp have nothing whatever to say to it.
If I were to buy the bottle, and got no schooner after all, I should
have put my hand in the fire for nothing. I gave you my word, I know;
but yet I think you would not grudge me one more proof.”
“I have sworn I would take no more favours,” said Keawe. “I have gone
already deep enough.”
“This is no favour I am thinking of,” replied Lopaka. “It is only to
see the imp himself. There is nothing to be gained by that, and so
nothing to be ashamed of; and yet, if I once saw him, I should be sure
of the whole matter. So indulge me so far, and let me see the imp; and,
after that, here is the money in my hand, and I will buy it.”
“There is only one thing I am afraid of,” said Keawe. “The imp may be
very ugly to view; and if you once set eyes upon him you might be very
undesirous of the bottle.”
“I am a man of my word,” said Lopaka. “And here is the money betwixt
us.”
“Very well,” replied Keawe. “I have a curiosity myself. So come, let us
have one look at you, Mr. Imp.”
Now as soon as that was said, the imp looked out of the bottle, and in
again, swift as a lizard; and there sat Keawe and Lopaka turned to
stone. The night had quite come, before either found a thought to say
or voice to say it with; and then Lopaka pushed the money over and took
the bottle.
“I am a man of my word,” said he, “and had need to be so, or I would
not touch this bottle with my foot. Well, I shall get my schooner and a
dollar or two for my pocket; and then I will be rid of this devil as
fast as I can. For to tell you the plain truth, the look of him has
cast me down.”
“Lopaka,” said Keawe, “do not you think any worse of me than you can
help; I know it is night, and the roads bad, and the pass by the tombs
an ill place to go by so late, but I declare since I have seen that
little face, I cannot eat or sleep or pray till it is gone from me. I
will give you a lantern and a basket to put the bottle in, and any
picture or fine thing in all my house that takes your fancy;—and be
gone at once, and go sleep at Hookena with Nahinu.”
“Keawe,” said Lopaka, “many a man would take this ill; above all, when
I am doing you a turn so friendly, as to keep my word and buy the
bottle; and for that matter, the night and the dark, and the way by the
tombs, must be all tenfold more dangerous to a man with such a sin upon
his conscience, and such a bottle under his arm. But for my part, I am
so extremely terrified myself, I have not the heart to blame you. Here
I go then; and I pray God you may be happy in your house, and I
fortunate with my schooner, and both get to heaven in the end in spite
of the devil and his bottle.”
So Lopaka went down the mountain; and Keawe stood in his front balcony,
and listened to the clink of the horse’s shoes, and watched the lantern
go shining down the path, and along the cliff of caves where the old
dead are buried; and all the time he trembled and clasped his hands,
and prayed for his friend, and gave glory to God that he himself was
escaped out of that trouble.
But the next day came very brightly, and that new house of his was so
delightful to behold that he forgot his terrors. One day followed
another, and Keawe dwelt there in perpetual joy. He had his place on
the back porch; it was there he ate and lived, and read the stories in
the Honolulu newspapers; but when anyone came by they would go in and
view the chambers and the pictures. And the fame of the house went far
and wide; it was called _Ka-Hale Nui_—the Great House—in all Kona; and
sometimes the Bright House, for Keawe kept a Chinaman, who was all day
dusting and furbishing; and the glass, and the gilt, and the fine
stuffs, and the pictures, shone as bright as the morning. As for Keawe
himself, he could not walk in the chambers without singing, his heart
was so enlarged; and when ships sailed by upon the sea, he would fly
his colours on the mast.
So time went by, until one day Keawe went upon a visit as far as Kailua
to certain of his friends. There he was well feasted; and left as soon
as he could the next morning, and rode hard, for he was impatient to
behold his beautiful house; and, besides, the night then coming on was
the night in which the dead of old days go abroad in the sides of Kona;
and having already meddled with the devil, he was the more chary of
meeting with the dead. A little beyond Honaunau, looking far ahead, he
was aware of a woman bathing in the edge of the sea; and she seemed a
well-grown girl, but he thought no more of it. Then he saw her white
shift flutter as she put it on, and then her red holoku; and by the
time he came abreast of her she was done with her toilet, and had come
up from the sea, and stood by the track-side in her red holoku, and she
was all freshened with the bath, and her eyes shone and were kind. Now
Keawe no sooner beheld her than he drew rein.
“I thought I knew everyone in this country,” said he. “How comes it
that I do not know you?”
“I am Kokua, daughter of Kiano,” said the girl, “and I have just
returned from Oahu. Who are you?”
“I will tell you who I am in a little,” said Keawe, dismounting from
his horse, “but not now. For I have a thought in my mind, and if you
knew who I was, you might have heard of me, and would not give me a
true answer. But tell me, first of all, one thing: Are you married?”
At this Kokua laughed out aloud. “It is you who ask questions,” she
said. “Are you married yourself?”
“Indeed, Kokua, I am not,” replied Keawe, “and never thought to be
until this hour. But here is the plain truth. I have met you here at
the roadside, and I saw your eyes, which are like the stars, and my
heart went to you as swift as a bird. And so now, if you want none of
me, say so, and I will go on to my own place; but if you think me no
worse than any other young man, say so, too, and I will turn aside to
your father’s for the night, and to-morrow I will talk with the good
man.”
Kokua said never a word, but she looked at the sea and laughed.
“Kokua,” said Keawe, “if you say nothing, I will take that for the good
answer; so let us be stepping to your father’s door.”
She went on ahead of him, still without speech; only sometimes she
glanced back and glanced away again, and she kept the strings of her
hat in her mouth.
Now, when they had come to the door, Kiano came out on his verandah,
and cried out and welcomed Keawe by name. At that the girl looked over,
for the fame of the great house had come to her ears; and, to be sure,
it was a great temptation. All that evening they were very merry
together; and the girl was as bold as brass under the eyes of her
parents, and made a mock of Keawe, for she had a quick wit. The next
day he had a word with Kiano, and found the girl alone.
“Kokua,” said he, “you made a mock of me all the evening; and it is
still time to bid me go. I would not tell you who I was, because I have
so fine a house, and I feared you would think too much of that house
and too little of the man that loves you. Now you know all, and if you
wish to have seen the last of me, say so at once.”
“No,” said Kokua; but this time she did not laugh, nor did Keawe ask
for more.
This was the wooing of Keawe; things had gone quickly; but so an arrow
goes, and the ball of a rifle swifter still, and yet both may strike
the target. Things had gone fast, but they had gone far also, and the
thought of Keawe rang in the maiden’s head; she heard his voice in the
breach of the surf upon the lava, and for this young man that she had
seen but twice she would have left father and mother and her native
islands. As for Keawe himself, his horse flew up the path of the
mountain under the cliff of tombs, and the sound of the hoofs, and the
sound of Keawe singing to himself for pleasure, echoed in the caverns
of the dead. He came to the Bright House, and still he was singing. He
sat and ate in the broad balcony, and the Chinaman wondered at his
master, to hear how he sang between the mouthfuls. The sun went down
into the sea, and the night came; and Keawe walked the balconies by
lamplight, high on the mountains, and the voice of his singing startled
men on ships.
“Here am I now upon my high place,” he said to himself. “Life may be no
better; this is the mountain top; and all shelves about me toward the
worse. For the first time I will light up the chambers, and bathe in my
fine bath with the hot water and the cold, and sleep alone in the bed
of my bridal chamber.”
So the Chinaman had word, and he must rise from sleep and light the
furnaces; and as he wrought below, beside the boilers, he heard his
master singing and rejoicing above him in the lighted chambers. When
the water began to be hot the Chinaman cried to his master; and Keawe
went into the bathroom; and the Chinaman heard him sing as he filled
the marble basin; and heard him sing, and the singing broken, as he
undressed; until of a sudden, the song ceased. The Chinaman listened,
and listened; he called up the house to Keawe to ask if all were well,
and Keawe answered him “Yes,” and bade him go to bed; but there was no
more singing in the Bright House; and all night long, the Chinaman
heard his master’s feet go round and round the balconies without
repose.
Now the truth of it was this: as Keawe undressed for his bath, he spied
upon his flesh a patch like a patch of lichen on a rock, and it was
then that he stopped singing. For he knew the likeness of that patch,
and knew that he was fallen in the Chinese Evil. [5]
Now, it is a sad thing for any man to fall into this sickness. And it
would be a sad thing for anyone to leave a house so beautiful and so
commodious, and depart from all his friends to the north coast of
Molokai between the mighty cliff and the sea-breakers. But what was
that to the case of the man Keawe, he who had met his love but
yesterday, and won her but that morning, and now saw all his hopes
break, in a moment, like a piece of glass?
Awhile he sat upon the edge of the bath; then sprang, with a cry, and
ran outside; and to and fro, to and fro, along the balcony, like one
despairing.
“Very willingly could I leave Hawaii, the home of my fathers,” Keawe
was thinking. “Very lightly could I leave my house, the high-placed,
the many-windowed, here upon the mountains. Very bravely could I go to
Molokai, to Kalaupapa by the cliffs, to live with the smitten and to
sleep there, far from my fathers. But what wrong have I done, what sin
lies upon my soul, that I should have encountered Kokua coming cool
from the sea-water in the evening? Kokua, the soul ensnarer! Kokua, the
light of my life! Her may I never wed, her may I look upon no longer,
her may I no more handle with my loving hand; and it is for this, it is
for you, O Kokua! that I pour my lamentations!”
Now you are to observe what sort of a man Keawe was, for he might have
dwelt there in the Bright House for years, and no one been the wiser of
his sickness; but he reckoned nothing of that, if he must lose Kokua.
And again, he might have wed Kokua even as he was; and so many would
have done, because they have the souls of pigs; but Keawe loved the
maid manfully, and he would do her no hurt and bring her in no danger.
A little beyond the midst of the night, there came in his mind the
recollection of that bottle. He went round to the back porch, and
called to memory the day when the devil had looked forth; and at the
thought ice ran in his veins.
“A dreadful thing is the bottle,” thought Keawe, “and dreadful is the
imp, and it is a dreadful thing to risk the flames of hell. But what
other hope have I to cure my sickness or to wed Kokua? What!” he
thought, “would I beard the devil once, only to get me a house, and not
face him again to win Kokua?”
Thereupon he called to mind it was the next day the _Hall_ went by on
her return to Honolulu. “There must I go first,” he thought, “and see
Lopaka. For the best hope that I have now is to find that same bottle I
was so pleased to be rid of.”
Never a wink could he sleep; the food stuck in his throat; but he sent
a letter to Kiano, and about the time when the steamer would be coming,
rode down beside the cliff of the tombs. It rained; his horse went
heavily; he looked up at the black mouths of the caves, and he envied
the dead that slept there and were done with trouble; and called to
mind how he had galloped by the day before, and was astonished. So he
came down to Hookena, and there was all the country gathered for the
steamer as usual. In the shed before the store they sat and jested and
passed the news; but there was no matter of speech in Keawe’s bosom,
and he sat in their midst and looked without on the rain falling on the
houses, and the surf beating among the rocks, and the sighs arose in
his throat.
“Keawe of the Bright House is out of spirits,” said one to another.
Indeed, and so he was, and little wonder.
Then the _Hall_ came, and the whaleboat carried him on board. The
after-part of the ship was full of Haoles [6] who had been to visit the
volcano, as their custom is; and the midst was crowded with Kanakas,
and the forepart with wild bulls from Hilo and horses from Kau; but
Keawe sat apart from all in his sorrow, and watched for the house of
Kiano. There it sat, low upon the shore in the black rocks, and shaded
by the cocoa palms, and there by the door was a red holoku, no greater
than a fly, and going to and fro with a fly’s busyness. “Ah, queen of
my heart,” he cried, “I’ll venture my dear soul to win you!”
Soon after, darkness fell, and the cabins were lit up, and the Haoles
sat and played at the cards and drank whiskey as their custom is; but
Keawe walked the deck all night; and all the next day, as they steamed
under the lee of Maui or of Molokai, he was still pacing to and fro
like a wild animal in a menagerie.
Towards evening they passed Diamond Head, and came to the pier of
Honolulu. Keawe stepped out among the crowd and began to ask for
Lopaka. It seemed he had become the owner of a schooner—none better in
the islands—and was gone upon an adventure as far as Pola-Pola or
Kahiki; so there was no help to be looked for from Lopaka. Keawe called
to mind a friend of his, a lawyer in the town (I must not tell his
name), and inquired of him. They said he was grown suddenly rich, and
had a fine new house upon Waikiki shore; and this put a thought in
Keawe’s head, and he called a hack and drove to the lawyer’s house.
The house was all brand new, and the trees in the garden no greater
than walking-sticks, and the lawyer, when he came, had the air of a man
well pleased.
“What can I do to serve you?” said the lawyer.
“You are a friend of Lopaka’s,” replied Keawe, “and Lopaka purchased
from me a certain piece of goods that I thought you might enable me to
trace.”
The lawyer’s face became very dark. “I do not profess to misunderstand
you, Mr. Keawe,” said he, “though this is an ugly business to be
stirring in. You may be sure I know nothing, but yet I have a guess,
and if you would apply in a certain quarter I think you might have
news.”
And he named the name of a man, which, again, I had better not repeat.
So it was for days, and Keawe went from one to another, finding
everywhere new clothes and carriages, and fine new houses and men
everywhere in great contentment, although, to be sure, when he hinted
at his business their faces would cloud over.
“No doubt I am upon the track,” thought Keawe. “These new clothes and
carriages are all the gifts of the little imp, and these glad faces are
the faces of men who have taken their profit and got rid of the
accursed thing in safety. When I see pale cheeks and hear sighing, I
shall know that I am near the bottle.”
So it befell at last that he was recommended to a Haole in Beritania
Street. When he came to the door, about the hour of the evening meal,
there were the usual marks of the new house, and the young garden, and
the electric light shining in the windows; but when the owner came, a
shock of hope and fear ran through Keawe; for here was a young man,
white as a corpse, and black about the eyes, the hair shedding from his
head, and such a look in his countenance as a man may have when he is
waiting for the gallows.
“Here it is, to be sure,” thought Keawe, and so with this man he noways
veiled his errand. “I am come to buy the bottle,” said he.
At the word, the young Haole of Beritania Street reeled against the
wall.
“The bottle!” he gasped. “To buy the bottle!” Then he seemed to choke,
and seizing Keawe by the arm carried him into a room and poured out
wine in two glasses.
“Here is my respects,” said Keawe, who had been much about with Haoles
in his time. “Yes,” he added, “I am come to buy the bottle. What is the
price by now?”
At that word the young man let his glass slip through his fingers, and
looked upon Keawe like a ghost.
“The price,” says he; “the price! You do not know the price?”
“It is for that I am asking you,” returned Keawe. “But why are you so
much concerned? Is there anything wrong about the price?”
“It has dropped a great deal in value since your time, Mr. Keawe,” said
the young man stammering.
“Well, well, I shall have the less to pay for it,” says Keawe. “How
much did it cost you?”
The young man was as white as a sheet. “Two cents,” said he.
“What?” cried Keawe, “two cents? Why, then, you can only sell it for
one. And he who buys it—” The words died upon Keawe’s tongue; he who
bought it could never sell it again, the bottle and the bottle imp must
abide with him until he died, and when he died must carry him to the
red end of hell.
The young man of Beritania Street fell upon his knees. “For God’s sake
buy it!” he cried. “You can have all my fortune in the bargain. I was
mad when I bought it at that price. I had embezzled money at my store;
I was lost else; I must have gone to jail.”
“Poor creature,” said Keawe, “you would risk your soul upon so
desperate an adventure, and to avoid the proper punishment of your own
disgrace; and you think I could hesitate with love in front of me. Give
me the bottle, and the change which I make sure you have all ready.
Here is a five-cent piece.”
It was as Keawe supposed; the young man had the change ready in a
drawer; the bottle changed hands, and Keawe’s fingers were no sooner
clasped upon the stalk than he had breathed his wish to be a clean man.
And, sure enough, when he got home to his room, and stripped himself
before a glass, his flesh was whole like an infant’s. And here was the
strange thing: he had no sooner seen this miracle, than his mind was
changed within him, and he cared naught for the Chinese Evil, and
little enough for Kokua; and had but the one thought, that here he was
bound to the bottle imp for time and for eternity, and had no better
hope but to be a cinder for ever in the flames of hell. Away ahead of
him he saw them blaze with his mind’s eye, and his soul shrank, and
darkness fell upon the light.
When Keawe came to himself a little, he was aware it was the night when
the band played at the hotel. Thither he went, because he feared to be
alone; and there, among happy faces, walked to and fro, and heard the
tunes go up and down, and saw Berger beat the measure, and all the
while he heard the flames crackle, and saw the red fire burning in the
bottomless pit. Of a sudden the band played _Hiki-ao-ao_; that was a
song that he had sung with Kokua, and at the strain courage returned to
him.
“It is done now,” he thought, “and once more let me take the good along
with the evil.”
So it befell that he returned to Hawaii by the first steamer, and as
soon as it could be managed he was wedded to Kokua, and carried her up
the mountain side to the Bright House.
Now it was so with these two, that when they were together, Keawe’s
heart was stilled; but so soon as he was alone he fell into a brooding
horror, and heard the flames crackle, and saw the red fire burn in the
bottomless pit. The girl, indeed, had come to him wholly; her heart
leapt in her side at sight of him, her hand clung to his; and she was
so fashioned from the hair upon her head to the nails upon her toes
that none could see her without joy. She was pleasant in her nature.
She had the good word always. Full of song she was, and went to and fro
in the Bright House, the brightest thing in its three storeys,
carolling like the birds. And Keawe beheld and heard her with delight,
and then must shrink upon one side, and weep and groan to think upon
the price that he had paid for her; and then he must dry his eyes, and
wash his face, and go and sit with her on the broad balconies, joining
in her songs, and, with a sick spirit, answering her smiles.
There came a day when her feet began to be heavy and her songs more
rare; and now it was not Keawe only that would weep apart, but each
would sunder from the other and sit in opposite balconies with the
whole width of the Bright House betwixt. Keawe was so sunk in his
despair, he scarce observed the change, and was only glad he had more
hours to sit alone and brood upon his destiny, and was not so
frequently condemned to pull a smiling face on a sick heart. But one
day, coming softly through the house, he heard the sound of a child
sobbing, and there was Kokua rolling her face upon the balcony floor,
and weeping like the lost.
“You do well to weep in this house, Kokua,” he said. “And yet I would
give the head off my body that you (at least) might have been happy.”
“Happy!” she cried. “Keawe, when you lived alone in your Bright House,
you were the word of the island for a happy man; laughter and song were
in your mouth, and your face was as bright as the sunrise. Then you
wedded poor Kokua; and the good God knows what is amiss in her—but from
that day you have not smiled. Oh!” she cried, “what ails me? I thought
I was pretty, and I knew I loved him. What ails me that I throw this
cloud upon my husband?”
“Poor Kokua,” said Keawe. He sat down by her side, and sought to take
her hand; but that she plucked away. “Poor Kokua,” he said, again. “My
poor child—my pretty. And I had thought all this while to spare you!
Well, you shall know all. Then, at least, you will pity poor Keawe;
then you will understand how much he loved you in the past—that he
dared hell for your possession—and how much he loves you still (the
poor condemned one), that he can yet call up a smile when he beholds
you.”
With that, he told her all, even from the beginning.
“You have done this for me?” she cried “Ah, well, then what do I
care!”—and she clasped and wept upon him.
“Ah, child!” said Keawe, “and yet, when I consider of the fire of hell,
I care a good deal!”
“Never tell me,” said she; “no man can be lost because he loved Kokua,
and no other fault. I tell you, Keawe, I shall save you with these
hands, or perish in your company. What! you loved me, and gave your
soul, and you think I will not die to save you in return?”
“Ah, my dear! you might die a hundred times, and what difference would
that make?” he cried, “except to leave me lonely till the time comes of
my damnation?”