I am no common girl. And I tell you, I shall save my lover. What is
this you say about a cent? But all the world is not American. In
England they have a piece they call a farthing, which is about half a
cent. Ah! sorrow!” she cried, “that makes it scarcely better, for the
buyer must be lost, and we shall find none so brave as my Keawe! But,
then, there is France; they have a small coin there which they call a
centime, and these go five to the cent or there-about. We could not do
better. Come, Keawe, let us go to the French islands; let us go to
Tahiti, as fast as ships can bear us. There we have four centimes,
three centimes, two centimes, one centime; four possible sales to come
and go on; and two of us to push the bargain. Come, my Keawe! kiss me,
and banish care. Kokua will defend you.”
“Gift of God!” he cried. “I cannot think that God will punish me for
desiring aught so good! Be it as you will, then; take me where you
please: I put my life and my salvation in your hands.”
Early the next day Kokua was about her preparations. She took Keawe’s
chest that he went with sailoring; and first she put the bottle in a
corner; and then packed it with the richest of their clothes and the
bravest of the knick-knacks in the house. “For,” said she, “we must
seem to be rich folks, or who will believe in the bottle?” All the time
of her preparation she was as gay as a bird; only when she looked upon
Keawe, the tears would spring in her eye, and she must run and kiss
him. As for Keawe, a weight was off his soul; now that he had his
secret shared, and some hope in front of him, he seemed like a new man,
his feet went lightly on the earth, and his breath was good to him
again. Yet was terror still at his elbow; and ever and again, as the
wind blows out a taper, hope died in him, and he saw the flames toss
and the red fire burn in hell.
It was given out in the country they were gone pleasuring to the
States, which was thought a strange thing, and yet not so strange as
the truth, if any could have guessed it. So they went to Honolulu in
the _Hall_, and thence in the _Umatilla_ to San Francisco with a crowd
of Haoles, and at San Francisco took their passage by the mail
brigantine, the _Tropic Bird_, for Papeete, the chief place of the
French in the south islands. Thither they came, after a pleasant
voyage, on a fair day of the Trade Wind, and saw the reef with the surf
breaking, and Motuiti with its palms, and the schooner riding
within-side, and the white houses of the town low down along the shore
among green trees, and overhead the mountains and the clouds of Tahiti,
the wise island.
It was judged the most wise to hire a house, which they did
accordingly, opposite the British Consul’s, to make a great parade of
money, and themselves conspicuous with carriages and horses. This it
was very easy to do, so long as they had the bottle in their
possession; for Kokua was more bold than Keawe, and, whenever she had a
mind, called on the imp for twenty or a hundred dollars. At this rate
they soon grew to be remarked in the town; and the strangers from
Hawaii, their riding and their driving, the fine holokus and the rich
lace of Kokua, became the matter of much talk.
They got on well after the first with the Tahitian language, which is
indeed like to the Hawaiian, with a change of certain letters; and as
soon as they had any freedom of speech, began to push the bottle. You
are to consider it was not an easy subject to introduce; it was not
easy to persuade people you were in earnest, when you offered to sell
them for four centimes the spring of health and riches inexhaustible.
It was necessary besides to explain the dangers of the bottle; and
either people disbelieved the whole thing and laughed, or they thought
the more of the darker part, became overcast with gravity, and drew
away from Keawe and Kokua, as from persons who had dealings with the
devil. So far from gaining ground, these two began to find they were
avoided in the town; the children ran away from them screaming, a thing
intolerable to Kokua; Catholics crossed themselves as they went by; and
all persons began with one accord to disengage themselves from their
advances.
Depression fell upon their spirits. They would sit at night in their
new house, after a day’s weariness, and not exchange one word, or the
silence would be broken by Kokua bursting suddenly into sobs. Sometimes
they would pray together; sometimes they would have the bottle out upon
the floor, and sit all evening watching how the shadow hovered in the
midst. At such times they would be afraid to go to rest. It was long
ere slumber came to them, and, if either dozed off, it would be to wake
and find the other silently weeping in the dark, or, perhaps, to wake
alone, the other having fled from the house and the neighbourhood of
that bottle, to pace under the bananas in the little garden, or to
wander on the beach by moonlight.
One night it was so when Kokua awoke. Keawe was gone. She felt in the
bed and his place was cold. Then fear fell upon her, and she sat up in
bed. A little moonshine filtered through the shutters. The room was
bright, and she could spy the bottle on the floor. Outside it blew
high, the great trees of the avenue cried aloud, and the fallen leaves
rattled in the verandah. In the midst of this Kokua was aware of
another sound; whether of a beast or of a man she could scarce tell,
but it was as sad as death, and cut her to the soul. Softly she arose,
set the door ajar, and looked forth into the moonlit yard. There, under
the bananas, lay Keawe, his mouth in the dust, and as he lay he moaned.
It was Kokua’s first thought to run forward and console him; her second
potently withheld her. Keawe had borne himself before his wife like a
brave man; it became her little in the hour of weakness to intrude upon
his shame. With the thought she drew back into the house.
“Heaven!” she thought, “how careless have I been—how weak! It is he,
not I, that stands in this eternal peril; it was he, not I, that took
the curse upon his soul. It is for my sake, and for the love of a
creature of so little worth and such poor help, that he now beholds so
close to him the flames of hell—ay, and smells the smoke of it, lying
without there in the wind and moonlight. Am I so dull of spirit that
never till now I have surmised my duty, or have I seen it before and
turned aside? But now, at least, I take up my soul in both the hands of
my affection; now I say farewell to the white steps of heaven and the
waiting faces of my friends. A love for a love, and let mine be
equalled with Keawe’s! A soul for a soul, and be it mine to perish!”
She was a deft woman with her hands, and was soon apparelled. She took
in her hands the change—the precious centimes they kept ever at their
side; for this coin is little used, and they had made provision at a
Government office. When she was forth in the avenue clouds came on the
wind, and the moon was blackened. The town slept, and she knew not
whither to turn till she heard one coughing in the shadow of the trees.
“Old man,” said Kokua, “what do you here abroad in the cold night?”
The old man could scarce express himself for coughing, but she made out
that he was old and poor, and a stranger in the island.
“Will you do me a service?” said Kokua. “As one stranger to another,
and as an old man to a young woman, will you help a daughter of
Hawaii?”
“Ah,” said the old man. “So you are the witch from the eight islands,
and even my old soul you seek to entangle. But I have heard of you, and
defy your wickedness.”
“Sit down here,” said Kokua, “and let me tell you a tale.” And she told
him the story of Keawe from the beginning to the end.
“And now,” said she, “I am his wife, whom he bought with his soul’s
welfare. And what should I do? If I went to him myself and offered to
buy it, he would refuse. But if you go, he will sell it eagerly; I will
await you here; you will buy it for four centimes, and I will buy it
again for three. And the Lord strengthen a poor girl!”
“If you meant falsely,” said the old man, “I think God would strike you
dead.”
“He would!” cried Kokua. “Be sure he would. I could not be so
treacherous—God would not suffer it.”
“Give me the four centimes and await me here,” said the old man.
Now, when Kokua stood alone in the street, her spirit died. The wind
roared in the trees, and it seemed to her the rushing of the flames of
hell; the shadows tossed in the light of the street lamp, and they
seemed to her the snatching hands of evil ones. If she had had the
strength, she must have run away, and if she had had the breath she
must have screamed aloud; but, in truth, she could do neither, and
stood and trembled in the avenue, like an affrighted child.
Then she saw the old man returning, and he had the bottle in his hand.
“I have done your bidding,” said he. “I left your husband weeping like
a child; to-night he will sleep easy.” And he held the bottle forth.
“Before you give it me,” Kokua panted, “take the good with the evil—ask
to be delivered from your cough.”
“I am an old man,” replied the other, “and too near the gate of the
grave to take a favour from the devil. But what is this? Why do you not
take the bottle? Do you hesitate?”
“Not hesitate!” cried Kokua. “I am only weak. Give me a moment. It is
my hand resists, my flesh shrinks back from the accursed thing. One
moment only!”
The old man looked upon Kokua kindly. “Poor child!” said he, “you fear;
your soul misgives you. Well, let me keep it. I am old, and can never
more be happy in this world, and as for the next—”
“Give it me!” gasped Kokua. “There is your money. Do you think I am so
base as that? Give me the bottle.”
“God bless you, child,” said the old man.
Kokua concealed the bottle under her holoku, said farewell to the old
man, and walked off along the avenue, she cared not whither. For all
roads were now the same to her, and led equally to hell. Sometimes she
walked, and sometimes ran; sometimes she screamed out loud in the
night, and sometimes lay by the wayside in the dust and wept. All that
she had heard of hell came back to her; she saw the flames blaze, and
she smelt the smoke, and her flesh withered on the coals.
Near day she came to her mind again, and returned to the house. It was
even as the old man said—Keawe slumbered like a child. Kokua stood and
gazed upon his face.
“Now, my husband,” said she, “it is your turn to sleep. When you wake
it will be your turn to sing and laugh. But for poor Kokua, alas! that
meant no evil—for poor Kokua no more sleep, no more singing, no more
delight, whether in earth or heaven.”
With that she lay down in the bed by his side, and her misery was so
extreme that she fell in a deep slumber instantly.
Late in the morning her husband woke her and gave her the good news. It
seemed he was silly with delight, for he paid no heed to her distress,
ill though she dissembled it. The words stuck in her mouth, it mattered
not; Keawe did the speaking. She ate not a bite, but who was to observe
it? for Keawe cleared the dish. Kokua saw and heard him, like some
strange thing in a dream; there were times when she forgot or doubted,
and put her hands to her brow; to know herself doomed and hear her
husband babble, seemed so monstrous.
All the while Keawe was eating and talking, and planning the time of
their return, and thanking her for saving him, and fondling her, and
calling her the true helper after all. He laughed at the old man that
was fool enough to buy that bottle.
“A worthy old man he seemed,” Keawe said. “But no one can judge by
appearances. For why did the old reprobate require the bottle?”
“My husband,” said Kokua, humbly, “his purpose may have been good.”
Keawe laughed like an angry man.
“Fiddle-de-dee!” cried Keawe. “An old rogue, I tell you; and an old ass
to boot. For the bottle was hard enough to sell at four centimes; and
at three it will be quite impossible. The margin is not broad enough,
the thing begins to smell of scorching—brrr!” said he, and shuddered.
“It is true I bought it myself at a cent, when I knew not there were
smaller coins. I was a fool for my pains; there will never be found
another: and whoever has that bottle now will carry it to the pit.”
“O my husband!” said Kokua. “Is it not a terrible thing to save oneself
by the eternal ruin of another? It seems to me I could not laugh. I
would be humbled. I would be filled with melancholy. I would pray for
the poor holder.”
Then Keawe, because he felt the truth of what she said, grew the more
angry. “Heighty-teighty!” cried he. “You may be filled with melancholy
if you please. It is not the mind of a good wife. If you thought at all
of me, you would sit shamed.”
Thereupon he went out, and Kokua was alone.
What chance had she to sell that bottle at two centimes? None, she
perceived. And if she had any, here was her husband hurrying her away
to a country where there was nothing lower than a cent. And here—on the
morrow of her sacrifice—was her husband leaving her and blaming her.
She would not even try to profit by what time she had, but sat in the
house, and now had the bottle out and viewed it with unutterable fear,
and now, with loathing, hid it out of sight.
By-and-by, Keawe came back, and would have her take a drive.
“My husband, I am ill,” she said. “I am out of heart. Excuse me, I can
take no pleasure.”
Then was Keawe more wroth than ever. With her, because he thought she
was brooding over the case of the old man; and with himself, because he
thought she was right, and was ashamed to be so happy.
“This is your truth,” cried he, “and this your affection! Your husband
is just saved from eternal ruin, which he encountered for the love of
you—and you can take no pleasure! Kokua, you have a disloyal heart.”
He went forth again furious, and wandered in the town all day. He met
friends, and drank with them; they hired a carriage and drove into the
country, and there drank again. All the time Keawe was ill at ease,
because he was taking this pastime while his wife was sad, and because
he knew in his heart that she was more right than he; and the knowledge
made him drink the deeper.
Now there was an old brutal Haole drinking with him, one that had been
a boatswain of a whaler, a runaway, a digger in gold mines, a convict
in prisons. He had a low mind and a foul mouth; he loved to drink and
to see others drunken; and he pressed the glass upon Keawe. Soon there
was no more money in the company.
“Here, you!” says the boatswain, “you are rich, you have been always
saying. You have a bottle or some foolishness.”
“Yes,” says Keawe, “I am rich; I will go back and get some money from
my wife, who keeps it.”
“That’s a bad idea, mate,” said the boatswain. “Never you trust a
petticoat with dollars. They’re all as false as water; you keep an eye
on her.”
Now, this word struck in Keawe’s mind; for he was muddled with what he
had been drinking.
“I should not wonder but she was false, indeed,” thought he. “Why else
should she be so cast down at my release? But I will show her I am not
the man to be fooled. I will catch her in the act.”
Accordingly, when they were back in town, Keawe bade the boatswain wait
for him at the corner, by the old calaboose, and went forward up the
avenue alone to the door of his house. The night had come again; there
was a light within, but never a sound; and Keawe crept about the
corner, opened the back door softly, and looked in.
There was Kokua on the floor, the lamp at her side; before her was a
milk-white bottle, with a round belly and a long neck; and as she
viewed it, Kokua wrung her hands.
A long time Keawe stood and looked in the doorway. At first he was
struck stupid; and then fear fell upon him that the bargain had been
made amiss, and the bottle had come back to him as it came at San
Francisco; and at that his knees were loosened, and the fumes of the
wine departed from his head like mists off a river in the morning. And
then he had another thought; and it was a strange one, that made his
cheeks to burn.
“I must make sure of this,” thought he.
So he closed the door, and went softly round the corner again, and then
came noisily in, as though he were but now returned. And, lo! by the
time he opened the front door no bottle was to be seen; and Kokua sat
in a chair and started up like one awakened out of sleep.
“I have been drinking all day and making merry,” said Keawe. “I have
been with good companions, and now I only come back for money, and
return to drink and carouse with them again.”
Both his face and voice were as stern as judgment, but Kokua was too
troubled to observe.
“You do well to use your own, my husband,” said she, and her words
trembled.
“O, I do well in all things,” said Keawe, and he went straight to the
chest and took out money. But he looked besides in the corner where
they kept the bottle, and there was no bottle there.
At that the chest heaved upon the floor like a sea-billow, and the
house span about him like a wreath of smoke, for he saw he was lost
now, and there was no escape. “It is what I feared,” he thought. “It is
she who has bought it.”
And then he came to himself a little and rose up; but the sweat
streamed on his face as thick as the rain and as cold as the
well-water.
“Kokua,” said he, “I said to you to-day what ill became me. Now I
return to carouse with my jolly companions,” and at that he laughed a
little quietly. “I will take more pleasure in the cup if you forgive
me.”
She clasped his knees in a moment; she kissed his knees with flowing
tears.
“O,” she cried, “I asked but a kind word!”
“Let us never one think hardly of the other,” said Keawe, and was gone
out of the house.
Now, the money that Keawe had taken was only some of that store of
centime pieces they had laid in at their arrival. It was very sure he
had no mind to be drinking. His wife had given her soul for him, now he
must give his for hers; no other thought was in the world with him.
At the corner, by the old calaboose, there was the boatswain waiting.
“My wife has the bottle,” said Keawe, “and, unless you help me to
recover it, there can be no more money and no more liquor to-night.”
“You do not mean to say you are serious about that bottle?” cried the
boatswain.
“There is the lamp,” said Keawe. “Do I look as if I was jesting?”
“That is so,” said the boatswain. “You look as serious as a ghost.”
“Well, then,” said Keawe, “here are two centimes; you must go to my
wife in the house, and offer her these for the bottle, which (if I am
not much mistaken) she will give you instantly. Bring it to me here,
and I will buy it back from you for one; for that is the law with this
bottle, that it still must be sold for a less sum. But whatever you do,
never breathe a word to her that you have come from me.”
“Mate, I wonder are you making a fool of me?” asked the boatswain.
“It will do you no harm if I am,” returned Keawe.
“That is so, mate,” said the boatswain.
“And if you doubt me,” added Keawe, “you can try. As soon as you are
clear of the house, wish to have your pocket full of money, or a bottle
of the best rum, or what you please, and you will see the virtue of the
thing.”
“Very well, Kanaka,” says the boatswain. “I will try; but if you are
having your fun out of me, I will take my fun out of you with a
belaying pin.”
So the whaler-man went off up the avenue; and Keawe stood and waited.
It was near the same spot where Kokua had waited the night before; but
Keawe was more resolved, and never faltered in his purpose; only his
soul was bitter with despair.
It seemed a long time he had to wait before he heard a voice singing in
the darkness of the avenue. He knew the voice to be the boatswain’s;
but it was strange how drunken it appeared upon a sudden.
Next, the man himself came stumbling into the light of the lamp. He had
the devil’s bottle buttoned in his coat; another bottle was in his
hand; and even as he came in view he raised it to his mouth and drank.
“You have it,” said Keawe. “I see that.”
“Hands off!” cried the boatswain, jumping back. “Take a step near me,
and I’ll smash your mouth. You thought you could make a cat’s-paw of
me, did you?”
“What do you mean?” cried Keawe.
“Mean?” cried the boatswain. “This is a pretty good bottle, this is;
that’s what I mean. How I got it for two centimes I can’t make out; but
I’m sure you shan’t have it for one.”
“You mean you won’t sell?” gasped Keawe.
“No, _sir_!” cried the boatswain. “But I’ll give you a drink of the
rum, if you like.”
“I tell you,” said Keawe, “the man who has that bottle goes to hell.”
“I reckon I’m going anyway,” returned the sailor; “and this bottle’s
the best thing to go with I’ve struck yet. No, sir!” he cried again,
“this is my bottle now, and you can go and fish for another.”
“Can this be true?” Keawe cried. “For your own sake, I beseech you,
sell it me!”
“I don’t value any of your talk,” replied the boatswain. “You thought I
was a flat; now you see I’m not; and there’s an end. If you won’t have
a swallow of the rum, I’ll have one myself. Here’s your health, and
good-night to you!”
So off he went down the avenue towards town, and there goes the bottle
out of the story.
But Keawe ran to Kokua light as the wind; and great was their joy that
night; and great, since then, has been the peace of all their days in
the Bright House.
THE ISLE OF VOICES.
Keola was married with Lehua, daughter of Kalamake, the wise man of
Molokai, and he kept his dwelling with the father of his wife. There
was no man more cunning than that prophet; he read the stars, he could
divine by the bodies of the dead, and by the means of evil creatures:
he could go alone into the highest parts of the mountain, into the
region of the hobgoblins, and there he would lay snares to entrap the
spirits of the ancient.
For this reason no man was more consulted in all the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Prudent people bought, and sold, and married, and laid out their lives
by his counsels; and the King had him twice to Kona to seek the
treasures of Kamehameha. Neither was any man more feared: of his
enemies, some had dwindled in sickness by the virtue of his
incantations, and some had been spirited away, the life and the clay
both, so that folk looked in vain for so much as a bone of their
bodies. It was rumoured that he had the art or the gift of the old
heroes. Men had seen him at night upon the mountains, stepping from one
cliff to the next; they had seen him walking in the high forest, and
his head and shoulders were above the trees.
This Kalamake was a strange man to see. He was come of the best blood
in Molokai and Maui, of a pure descent; and yet he was more white to
look upon than any foreigner: his hair the colour of dry grass, and his
eyes red and very blind, so that “Blind as Kalamake, that can see
across to-morrow,” was a byword in the islands.
Of all these doings of his father-in-law, Keola knew a little by the
common repute, a little more he suspected, and the rest he ignored. But
there was one thing troubled him. Kalamake was a man that spared for
nothing, whether to eat or to drink, or to wear; and for all he paid in
bright new dollars. “Bright as Kalamake’s dollars,” was another saying
in the Eight Isles. Yet he neither sold, nor planted, nor took
hire—only now and then from his sorceries—and there was no source
conceivable for so much silver coin.
It chanced one day Keola’s wife was gone upon a visit to Kaunakakai, on
the lee side of the island, and the men were forth at the sea-fishing.
But Keola was an idle dog, and he lay in the verandah and watched the
surf beat on the shore and the birds fly about the cliff. It was a
chief thought with him always—the thought of the bright dollars. When
he lay down to bed he would be wondering why they were so many, and
when he woke at morn he would be wondering why they were all new; and
the thing was never absent from his mind. But this day of all days he
made sure in his heart of some discovery. For it seems he had observed
the place where Kalamake kept his treasure, which was a lock-fast desk
against the parlour wall, under the print of Kamehameha the Fifth, and
a photograph of Queen Victoria with her crown; and it seems again that,
no later than the night before, he found occasion to look in, and
behold! the bag lay there empty. And this was the day of the steamer;
he could see her smoke off Kalaupapa; and she must soon arrive with a
month’s goods, tinned salmon and gin, and all manner of rare luxuries
for Kalamake.
“Now if he can pay for his goods to-day,” Keola thought, “I shall know
for certain that the man is a warlock, and the dollars come out of the
Devil’s pocket.”
While he was so thinking, there was his father-in-law behind him,
looking vexed.
“Is that the steamer?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Keola. “She has but to call at Pelekunu, and then she will
be here.”
“There is no help for it then,” returned Kalamake, “and I must take you
in my confidence, Keola, for the lack of anyone better. Come here
within the house.”
So they stepped together into the parlour, which was a very fine room,
papered and hung with prints, and furnished with a rocking-chair, and a
table and a sofa in the European style. There was a shelf of books
besides, and a family Bible in the midst of the table, and the
lock-fast writing desk against the wall; so that anyone could see it
was the house of a man of substance.
Kalamake made Keola close the shutters of the windows, while he himself
locked all the doors and set open the lid of the desk. From this he
brought forth a pair of necklaces hung with charms and shells, a bundle
of dried herbs, and the dried leaves of trees, and a green branch of
palm.
“What I am about,” said he, “is a thing beyond wonder. The men of old
were wise; they wrought marvels, and this among the rest; but that was
at night, in the dark, under the fit stars and in the desert. The same
will I do here in my own house and under the plain eye of day.”
So saying, he put the bible under the cushion of the sofa so that it
was all covered, brought out from the same place a mat of a wonderfully
fine texture, and heaped the herbs and leaves on sand in a tin pan. And
then he and Keola put on the necklaces and took their stand upon the
opposite corners of the mat.
“The time comes,” said the warlock; “be not afraid.”
With that he set flame to the herbs, and began to mutter and wave the
branch of palm. At first the light was dim because of the closed
shutters; but the herbs caught strongly afire, and the flames beat upon
Keola, and the room glowed with the burning; and next the smoke rose
and made his head swim and his eyes darken, and the sound of Kalamake
muttering ran in his ears. And suddenly, to the mat on which they were
standing came a snatch or twitch, that seemed to be more swift than
lightning. In the same wink the room was gone and the house, the breath
all beaten from Keola’s body. Volumes of light rolled upon his eyes and
head, and he found himself transported to a beach of the sea under a
strong sun, with a great surf roaring: he and the warlock standing
there on the same mat, speechless, gasping and grasping at one another,
and passing their hands before their eyes.
“What was this?” cried Keola, who came to himself the first, because he
was the younger. “The pang of it was like death.”
“It matters not,” panted Kalamake. “It is now done.”
“And, in the name of God, where are we?” cried Keola.
“That is not the question,” replied the sorcerer. “Being here, we have
matter in our hands, and that we must attend to. Go, while I recover my
breath, into the borders of the wood, and bring me the leaves of such
and such a herb, and such and such a tree, which you will find to grow
there plentifully—three handfuls of each. And be speedy. We must be
home again before the steamer comes; it would seem strange if we had
disappeared.” And he sat on the sand and panted.
Keola went up the beach, which was of shining sand and coral, strewn
with singular shells; and he thought in his heart—
“How do I not know this beach? I will come here again and gather
shells.”
In front of him was a line of palms against the sky; not like the palms
of the Eight Islands, but tall and fresh and beautiful, and hanging out
withered fans like gold among the green, and he thought in his heart—
“It is strange I should not have found this grove. I will come here
again, when it is warm, to sleep.” And he thought, “How warm it has
grown suddenly!” For it was winter in Hawaii, and the day had been
chill. And he thought also, “Where are the grey mountains? And where is
the high cliff with the hanging forest and the wheeling birds?” And the
more he considered, the less he might conceive in what quarter of the
islands he was fallen.
In the border of the grove, where it met the beach, the herb was
growing, but the tree further back. Now, as Keola went toward the tree,
he was aware of a young woman who had nothing on her body but a belt of
leaves.
“Well!” thought Keola, “they are not very particular about their dress
in this part of the country.” And he paused, supposing she would
observe him and escape; and seeing that she still looked before her,
stood and hummed aloud. Up she leaped at the sound. Her face was ashen;
she looked this way and that, and her mouth gaped with the terror of
her soul. But it was a strange thing that her eyes did not rest upon
Keola.
“Good day,” said he. “You need not be so frightened; I will not eat
you.” And he had scarce opened his mouth before the young woman fled
into the bush.
“These are strange manners,” thought Keola. And, not thinking what he
did, ran after her.
As she ran, the girl kept crying in some speech that was not practised
in Hawaii, yet some of the words were the same, and he knew she kept
calling and warning others. And presently he saw more people
running—men, women and children, one with another, all running and
crying like people at a fire. And with that he began to grow afraid
himself, and returned to Kalamake bringing the leaves. Him he told what
he had seen.
“You must pay no heed,” said Kalamake. “All this is like a dream and
shadows. All will disappear and be forgotten.”
“It seemed none saw me,” said Keola.
“And none did,” replied the sorcerer. “We walk here in the broad sun
invisible by reason of these charms. Yet they hear us; and therefore it
is well to speak softly, as I do.”
With that he made a circle round the mat with stones, and in the midst
he set the leaves.
“It will be your part,” said he, “to keep the leaves alight, and feed
the fire slowly. While they blaze (which is but for a little moment) I
must do my errand; and before the ashes blacken, the same power that
brought us carries us away. Be ready now with the match; and do you
call me in good time lest the flames burn out and I be left.”
As soon as the leaves caught, the sorcerer leaped like a deer out of
the circle, and began to race along the beach like a hound that has
been bathing. As he ran, he kept stooping to snatch shells; and it
seemed to Keola that they glittered as he took them. The leaves blazed
with a clear flame that consumed them swiftly; and presently Keola had
but a handful left, and the sorcerer was far off, running and stopping.
“Back!” cried Keola. “Back! The leaves are near done.”
At that Kalamake turned, and if he had run before, now he flew. But
fast as he ran, the leaves burned faster. The flame was ready to expire
when, with a great leap, he bounded on the mat. The wind of his leaping
blew it out; and with that the beach was gone, and the sun and the sea,
and they stood once more in the dimness of the shuttered parlour, and
were once more shaken and blinded; and on the mat betwixt them lay a
pile of shining dollars. Keola ran to the shutters; and there was the
steamer tossing in the swell close in.
The same night Kalamake took his son-in-law apart, and gave him five
dollars in his hand.
“Keola,” said he, “if you are a wise man (which I am doubtful of) you
will think you slept this afternoon on the verandah, and dreamed as you
were sleeping. I am a man of few words, and I have for my helpers
people of short memories.”
Never a word more said Kalamake, nor referred again to that affair. But
it ran all the while in Keola’s head—if he were lazy before, he would
now do nothing.
“Why should I work,” thought he, “when I have a father-in-law who makes
dollars of sea-shells?”
Presently his share was spent. He spent it all upon fine clothes. And
then he was sorry:
“For,” thought he, “I had done better to have bought a concertina, with
which I might have entertained myself all day long.” And then he began
to grow vexed with Kalamake.
“This man has the soul of a dog,” thought he. “He can gather dollars
when he pleases on the beach, and he leaves me to pine for a
concertina! Let him beware: I am no child, I am as cunning as he, and
hold his secret.” With that he spoke to his wife Lehua, and complained
of her father’s manners.
“I would let my father be,” said Lehua. “He is a dangerous man to
cross.”
“I care that for him!” cried Keola; and snapped his fingers. “I have
him by the nose. I can make him do what I please.” And he told Lehua
the story.
But she shook her head.
“You may do what you like,” said she; “but as sure as you thwart my
father, you will be no more heard of. Think of this person, and that
person; think of Hua, who was a noble of the House of Representatives,
and went to Honolulu every year; and not a bone or a hair of him was
found. Remember Kamau, and how he wasted to a thread, so that his wife
lifted him with one hand. Keola, you are a baby in my father’s hands;
he will take you with his thumb and finger and eat you like a shrimp.”
Now Keola was truly afraid of Kalamake, but he was vain too; and these
words of his wife’s incensed him.
“Very well,” said he, “if that is what you think of me, I will show how
much you are deceived.” And he went straight to where his father-in-law
was sitting in the parlour.
“Kalamake,” said he, “I want a concertina.”
“Do you, indeed?” said Kalamake.
“Yes,” said he, “and I may as well tell you plainly, I mean to have it.
A man who picks up dollars on the beach can certainly afford a
concertina.”
“I had no idea you had so much spirit,” replied the sorcerer. “I
thought you were a timid, useless lad, and I cannot describe how much
pleased I am to find I was mistaken. Now I begin to think I may have
found an assistant and successor in my difficult business. A
concertina? You shall have the best in Honolulu. And to-night, as soon
as it is dark, you and I will go and find the money.”
“Shall we return to the beach?” asked Keola.
“No, no!” replied Kalamake; “you must begin to learn more of my
secrets. Last time I taught you to pick shells; this time I shall teach
you to catch fish. Are you strong enough to launch Pili’s boat?”
“I think I am,” returned Keola. “But why should we not take your own,
which is afloat already?”
“I have a reason which you will understand thoroughly before
to-morrow,” said Kalamake. “Pili’s boat is the better suited for my
purpose. So, if you please, let us meet there as soon as it is dark;
and in the meanwhile, let us keep our own counsel, for there is no
cause to let the family into our business.”
Honey is not more sweet than was the voice of Kalamake, and Keola could
scarce contain his satisfaction.
“I might have had my concertina weeks ago,” thought he, “and there is
nothing needed in this world but a little courage.”
Presently after he spied Lehua weeping, and was half in a mind to tell
her all was well.
“But no,” thinks he; “I shall wait till I can show her the concertina;
we shall see what the chit will do then. Perhaps she will understand in
the future that her husband is a man of some intelligence.”
As soon as it was dark father and son-in-law launched Pili’s boat and
set the sail. There was a great sea, and it blew strong from the
leeward; but the boat was swift and light and dry, and skimmed the
waves. The wizard had a lantern, which he lit and held with his finger
through the ring; and the two sat in the stern and smoked cigars, of
which Kalamake had always a provision, and spoke like friends of magic
and the great sums of money which they could make by its exercise, and
what they should buy first, and what second; and Kalamake talked like a
father.
Presently he looked all about, and above him at the stars, and back at
the island, which was already three parts sunk under the sea, and he
seemed to consider ripely his position.
“Look!” says he, “there is Molokai already far behind us, and Maui like
a cloud; and by the bearing of these three stars I know I am come where
I desire. This part of the sea is called the Sea of the Dead. It is in
this place extraordinarily deep, and the floor is all covered with the
bones of men, and in the holes of this part gods and goblins keep their
habitation. The flow of the sea is to the north, stronger than a shark
can swim, and any man who shall here be thrown out of a ship it bears
away like a wild horse into the uttermost ocean. Presently he is spent
and goes down, and his bones are scattered with the rest, and the gods
devour his spirit.”
Fear came on Keola at the words, and he looked, and by the light of the
stars and the lantern, the warlock seemed to change.
“What ails you?” cried Keola, quick and sharp.
“It is not I who am ailing,” said the wizard; “but there is one here
very sick.”
With that he changed his grasp upon the lantern, and, behold I as he
drew his finger from the ring, the finger stuck and the ring was burst,
and his hand was grown to be of the bigness of three.
At that sight Keola screamed and covered his face.
But Kalamake held up the lantern. “Look rather at my face!” said he—and
his head was huge as a barrel; and still he grew and grew as a cloud
grows on a mountain, and Keola sat before him screaming, and the boat
raced on the great seas.
“And now,” said the wizard, “what do you think about that concertina?
and are you sure you would not rather have a flute? No?” says he; “that
is well, for I do not like my family to be changeable of purpose. But I
begin to think I had better get out of this paltry boat, for my bulk
swells to a very unusual degree, and if we are not the more careful,
she will presently be swamped.”
With that he threw his legs over the side. Even as he did so, the
greatness of the man grew thirty-fold and forty-fold as swift as sight
or thinking, so that he stood in the deep seas to the armpits, and his
head and shoulders rose like a high isle, and the swell beat and burst
upon his bosom, as it beats and breaks against a cliff. The boat ran
still to the north, but he reached out his hand, and took the gunwale
by the finger and thumb, and broke the side like a biscuit, and Keola
was spilled into the sea. And the pieces of the boat the sorcerer
crushed in the hollow of his hand and flung miles away into the night.
“Excuse me taking the lantern,” said he; “for I have a long wade before
me, and the land is far, and the bottom of the sea uneven, and I feel
the bones under my toes.”
And he turned and went off walking with great strides; and as often as
Keola sank in the trough he could see him no longer; but as often as he
was heaved upon the crest, there he was striding and dwindling, and he
held the lamp high over his head, and the waves broke white about him
as he went.
Since first the islands were fished out of the sea, there was never a
man so terrified as this Keola. He swam indeed, but he swam as puppies
swim when they are cast in to drown, and knew not wherefore. He could
but think of the hugeness of the swelling of the warlock, of that face
which was great as a mountain, of those shoulders that were broad as an
isle, and of the seas that beat on them in vain. He thought, too, of
the concertina, and shame took hold upon him; and of the dead men’s
bones, and fear shook him.
Of a sudden he was aware of something dark against the stars that
tossed, and a light below, and a brightness of the cloven sea; and he
heard speech of men. He cried out aloud and a voice answered; and in a
twinkling the bows of a ship hung above him on a wave like a thing
balanced, and swooped down. He caught with his two hands in the chains
of her, and the next moment was buried in the rushing seas, and the
next hauled on board by seamen.
They gave him gin and biscuit and dry clothes, and asked him how he
came where they found him, and whether the light which they had seen
was the lighthouse, Lae o Ka Laau. But Keola knew white men are like
children and only believe their own stories; so about himself he told
them what he pleased, and as for the light (which was Kalamake’s
lantern) he vowed he had seen none.
This ship was a schooner bound for Honolulu, and then to trade in the
low islands; and by a very good chance for Keola she had lost a man off
the bowsprit in a squall. It was no use talking. Keola durst not stay
in the Eight Islands. Word goes so quickly, and all men are so fond to
talk and carry news, that if he hid in the north end of Kauai or in the
south end of Kau, the wizard would have wind of it before a month, and
he must perish. So he did what seemed the most prudent, and shipped
sailor in the place of the man who had been drowned.
In some ways the ship was a good place. The food was extraordinarily
rich and plenty, with biscuits and salt beef every day, and pea-soup
and puddings made of flour and suet twice a week, so that Keola grew
fat. The captain also was a good man, and the crew no worse than other
whites. The trouble was the mate, who was the most difficult man to
please Keola had ever met with, and beat and cursed him daily, both for
what he did and what he did not. The blows that he dealt were very
sore, for he was strong; and the words he used were very unpalatable,
for Keola was come of a good family and accustomed to respect. And what
was the worst of all, whenever Keola found a chance to sleep, there was
the mate awake and stirring him up with a rope’s end. Keola saw it
would never do; and he made up his mind to run away.
They were about a month out from Honolulu when they made the land. It
was a fine starry night, the sea was smooth as well as the sky fair; it
blew a steady trade; and there was the island on their weather bow, a
ribbon of palm trees lying flat along the sea. The captain and the mate
looked at it with the night glass, and named the name of it, and talked
of it, beside the wheel where Keola was steering. It seemed it was an
isle where no traders came. By the captain’s way, it was an isle
besides where no man dwelt; but the mate thought otherwise.
“I don’t give a cent for the directory,” said he, “I’ve been past here
one night in the schooner _Eugenie_; it was just such a night as this;
they were fishing with torches, and the beach was thick with lights
like a town.”
“Well, well,” says the captain, “its steep-to, that’s the great point;
and there ain’t any outlying dangers by the chart, so we’ll just hug
the lee side of it. Keep her romping full, don’t I tell you!” he cried
to Keola, who was listening so hard that he forgot to steer.
And the mate cursed him, and swore that Kanaka was for no use in the
world, and if he got started after him with a belaying pin, it would be
a cold day for Keola.
And so the captain and mate lay down on the house together, and Keola
was left to himself.
“This island will do very well for me,” he thought; “if no traders deal
there, the mate will never come. And as for Kalamake, it is not
possible he can ever get as far as this.”
With that he kept edging the schooner nearer in. He had to do this
quietly, for it was the trouble with these white men, and above all
with the mate, that you could never be sure of them; they would all be
sleeping sound, or else pretending, and if a sail shook, they would
jump to their feet and fall on you with a rope’s end. So Keola edged
her up little by little, and kept all drawing. And presently the land
was close on board, and the sound of the sea on the sides of it grew
loud.
With that, the mate sat up suddenly upon the house.
“What are you doing?” he roars. “You’ll have the ship ashore!”
And he made one bound for Keola, and Keola made another clean over the
rail and plump into the starry sea. When he came up again, the schooner
had payed off on her true course, and the mate stood by the wheel
himself, and Keola heard him cursing. The sea was smooth under the lee
of the island; it was warm besides, and Keola had his sailor’s knife,
so he had no fear of sharks. A little way before him the trees stopped;
there was a break in the line of the land like the mouth of a harbour;
and the tide, which was then flowing, took him up and carried him
through. One minute he was without, and the next within: had floated
there in a wide shallow water, bright with ten thousand stars, and all
about him was the ring of the land, with its string of palm trees. And
he was amazed, because this was a kind of island he had never heard of.
The time of Keola in that place was in two periods—the period when he
was alone, and the period when he was there with the tribe. At first he
sought everywhere and found no man; only some houses standing in a
hamlet, and the marks of fires. But the ashes of the fires were cold
and the rains had washed them away; and the winds had blown, and some
of the huts were overthrown. It was here he took his dwelling, and he
made a fire drill, and a shell hook, and fished and cooked his fish,
and climbed after green cocoanuts, the juice of which he drank, for in
all the isle there was no water. The days were long to him, and the
nights terrifying. He made a lamp of cocoa-shell, and drew the oil of
the ripe nuts, and made a wick of fibre; and when evening came he
closed up his hut, and lit his lamp, and lay and trembled till morning.
Many a time he thought in his heart he would have been better in the
bottom of the sea, his bones rolling there with the others.
All this while he kept by the inside of the island, for the huts were
on the shore of the lagoon, and it was there the palms grew best, and
the lagoon itself abounded with good fish. And to the outer slide he
went once only, and he looked but the once at the beach of the ocean,
and came away shaking. For the look of it, with its bright sand, and
strewn shells, and strong sun and surf, went sore against his
inclination.
“It cannot be,” he thought, “and yet it is very like. And how do I
know? These white men, although they pretend to know where they are
sailing, must take their chance like other people. So that after all we
may have sailed in a circle, and I may be quite near to Molokai, and
this may be the very beach where my father-in-law gathers his dollars.”
So after that he was prudent, and kept to the land side.
It was perhaps a month later, when the people of the place arrived—the
fill of six great boats. They were a fine race of men, and spoke a
tongue that sounded very different from the tongue of Hawaii, but so
many of the words were the same that it was not difficult to
understand. The men besides were very courteous, and the women very
towardly; and they made Keola welcome, and built him a house, and gave
him a wife; and what surprised him the most, he was never sent to work
with the young men.
And now Keola had three periods. First he had a period of being very
sad, and then he had a period when he was pretty merry. Last of all
came the third, when he was the most terrified man in the four oceans.
The cause of the first period was the girl he had to wife. He was in
doubt about the island, and he might have been in doubt about the
speech, of which he had heard so little when he came there with the
wizard on the mat. But about his wife there was no mistake conceivable,
for she was the same girl that ran from him crying in the wood. So he
had sailed all this way, and might as well have stayed in Molokai; and
had left home and wife and all his friends for no other cause but to
escape his enemy, and the place he had come to was that wizard’s
hunting ground, and the shore where he walked invisible. It was at this
period when he kept the most close to the lagoon side, and as far as he
dared, abode in the cover of his hut.
The cause of the second period was talk he heard from his wife and the
chief islanders. Keola himself said little. He was never so sure of his
new friends, for he judged they were too civil to be wholesome, and
since he had grown better acquainted with his father-in-law the man had
grown more cautious. So he told them nothing of himself, but only his
name and descent, and that he came from the Eight Islands, and what
fine islands they were; and about the king’s palace in Honolulu, and
how he was a chief friend of the king and the missionaries. But he put
many questions and learned much. The island where he was was called the
Isle of Voices; it belonged to the tribe, but they made their home upon
another, three hours’ sail to the southward. There they lived and had
their permanent houses, and it was a rich island, where were eggs and
chickens and pigs, and ships came trading with rum and tobacco. It was
there the schooner had gone after Keola deserted; there, too, the mate
had died, like the fool of a white man as he was. It seems, when the
ship came, it was the beginning of the sickly season in that isle, when
the fish of the lagoon are poisonous, and all who eat of them swell up
and die. The mate was told of it; he saw the boats preparing, because
in that season the people leave that island and sail to the Isle of
Voices; but he was a fool of a white man, who would believe no stories
but his own, and he caught one of these fish, cooked it and ate it, and
swelled up and died, which was good news to Keola. As for the Isle of
Voices, it lay solitary the most part of the year; only now and then a
boat’s crew came for copra, and in the bad season, when the fish at the
main isle were poisonous, the tribe dwelt there in a body. It had its
name from a marvel, for it seemed the seaside of it was all beset with
invisible devils; day and night you heard them talking one with another
in strange tongues; day and night little fires blazed up and were
extinguished on the beach; and what was the cause of these doings no
man might conceive. Keola asked them if it were the same in their own
island where they stayed, and they told him no, not there; nor yet in
any other of some hundred isles that lay all about them in that sea;
but it was a thing peculiar to the Isle of Voices. They told him also
that these fires and voices were ever on the seaside and in the seaward
fringes of the wood, and a man might dwell by the lagoon two thousand
years (if he could live so long) and never be any way troubled; and
even on the seaside the devils did no harm if let alone. Only once a
chief had cast a spear at one of the voices, and the same night he fell
out of a cocoanut palm and was killed.
Keola thought a good bit with himself. He saw he would be all right
when the tribe returned to the main island, and right enough where he
was, if he kept by the lagoon, yet he had a mind to make things righter
if he could. So he told the high chief he had once been in an isle that
was pestered the same way, and the folk had found a means to cure that
trouble.
“There was a tree growing in the bush there,” says he, “and it seems
these devils came to get the leaves of it. So the people of the isle
cut down the tree wherever it was found, and the devils came no more.”
They asked what kind of tree this was, and he showed them the tree of
which Kalamake burned the leaves. They found it hard to believe, yet
the idea tickled them. Night after night the old men debated it in
their councils, but the high chief (though he was a brave man) was
afraid of the matter, and reminded them daily of the chief who cast a
spear against the voices and was killed, and the thought of that
brought all to a stand again.
Though he could not yet bring about the destruction of the trees, Keola
was well enough pleased, and began to look about him and take pleasure
in his days; and, among other things, he was the kinder to his wife, so
that the girl began to love him greatly. One day he came to the hut,
and she lay on the ground lamenting.
“Why,” said Keola, “what is wrong with you now?”
She declared it was nothing.
The same night she woke him. The lamp burned very low, but he saw by
her face she was in sorrow.
“Keola,” she said, “put your ear to my mouth that I may whisper, for no
one must hear us. Two days before the boats begin to be got ready, go
you to the sea-side of the isle and lie in a thicket. We shall choose
that place before-hand, you and I; and hide food; and every night I
shall come near by there singing. So when a night comes and you do not
hear me, you shall know we are clean gone out of the island, and you
may come forth again in safety.”
The soul of Keola died within him.
“What is this?” he cried. “I cannot live among devils. I will not be
left behind upon this isle. I am dying to leave it.”
“You will never leave it alive, my poor Keola,” said the girl; “for to
tell you the truth, my people are eaters of men; but this they keep
secret. And the reason they will kill you before we leave is because in
our island ships come, and Donat-Kimaran comes and talks for the
French, and there is a white trader there in a house with a verandah,
and a catechist. Oh, that is a fine place indeed! The trader has
barrels filled with flour, and a French warship once came in the lagoon
and gave everybody wine and biscuit. Ah, my poor Keola, I wish I could
take you there, for great is my love to you, and it is the finest place
in the seas except Papeete.”
So now Keola was the most terrified man in the four oceans. He had
heard tell of eaters of men in the south islands, and the thing had
always been a fear to him; and here it was knocking at his door. He had
heard besides, by travellers, of their practices, and how when they are
in a mind to eat a man, they cherish and fondle him like a mother with
a favourite baby. And he saw this must be his own case; and that was
why he had been housed, and fed, and wived, and liberated from all
work; and why the old men and the chiefs discoursed with him like a
person of weight. So he lay on his bed and railed upon his destiny; and
the flesh curdled on his bones.
The next day the people of the tribe were very civil, as their way was.
They were elegant speakers, and they made beautiful poetry, and jested
at meals, so that a missionary must have died laughing. It was little
enough Keola cared for their fine ways; all he saw was the white teeth
shining in their mouths, and his gorge rose at the sight; and when they
were done eating, he went and lay in the bush like a dead man.
The next day it was the same, and then his wife followed him.
“Keola,” she said, “if you do not eat, I tell you plainly you will be
killed and cooked to-morrow. Some of the old chiefs are murmuring
already. They think you are fallen sick and must lose flesh.”
With that Keola got to his feet, and anger burned in him.
“It is little I care one way or the other,” said he. “I am between the
devil and the deep sea. Since die I must, let me die the quickest way;
and since I must be eaten at the best of it, let me rather be eaten by
hobgoblins than by men. Farewell,” said he, and he left her standing,
and walked to the sea-side of that island.
It was all bare in the strong sun; there was no sign of man, only the
beach was trodden, and all about him as he went, the voices talked and
whispered, and the little fires sprang up and burned down. All tongues
of the earth were spoken there; the French, the Dutch, the Russian, the
Tamil, the Chinese. Whatever land knew sorcery, there were some of its
people whispering in Keola’s ear. That beach was thick as a cried fair,
yet no man seen; and as he walked he saw the shells vanish before him,
and no man to pick them up. I think the devil would have been afraid to
be alone in such a company; but Keola was past fear and courted death.
When the fires sprang up, he charged for them like a bull. Bodiless
voices called to and fro; unseen hands poured sand upon the flames; and
they were gone from the beach before he reached them.
“It is plain Kalamake is not here,” he thought, “or I must have been
killed long since.”
With that he sat him down in the margin of the wood, for he was tired,
and put his chin upon his hands. The business before his eyes
continued: the beach babbled with voices, and the fires sprang up and
sank, and the shells vanished and were renewed again even while he
looked.
“It was a by-day when I was here before,” he thought, “for it was
nothing to this.”
And his head was dizzy with the thought of these millions and millions
of dollars, and all these hundreds and hundreds of persons culling them
upon the beach and flying in the air higher and swifter than eagles.
“And to think how they have fooled me with their talk of mints,” says
he, “and that money was made there, when it is clear that all the new
coin in all the world is gathered on these sands! But I will know
better the next time!” said he.
And at last, he knew not very well how or when, sleep feel on Keola,
and he forgot the island and all his sorrows.
Early the next day, before the sun was yet up, a bustle woke him. He
awoke in fear, for he thought the tribe had caught him napping: but it
was no such matter. Only, on the beach in front of him, the bodiless
voices called and shouted one upon another, and it seemed they all
passed and swept beside him up the coast of the island.
“What is afoot now?” thinks Keola. And it was plain to him it was
something beyond ordinary, for the fires were not lighted nor the
shells taken, but the bodiless voices kept posting up the beach, and
hailing and dying away; and others following, and by the sound of them
these wizards should be angry.
“It is not me they are angry at,” thought Keola, “for they pass me
close.”
As when hounds go by, or horses in a race, or city folk coursing to a
fire, and all men join and follow after, so it was now with Keola; and
he knew not what he did, nor why he did it, but there, lo and behold!
he was running with the voices.
So he turned one point of the island, and this brought him in view of a
second; and there he remembered the wizard trees to have been growing
by the score together in a wood. From this point there went up a hubbub
of men crying not to be described; and by the sound of them, those that
he ran with shaped their course for the same quarter. A little nearer,
and there began to mingle with the outcry the crash of many axes. And
at this a thought came at last into his mind that the high chief had
consented; that the men of the tribe had set-to cutting down these
trees; that word had gone about the isle from sorcerer to sorcerer, and
these were all now assembling to defend their trees. Desire of strange
things swept him on. He posted with the voices, crossed the beach, and
came into the borders of the wood, and stood astonished. One tree had
fallen, others were part hewed away. There was the tribe clustered.
They were back to back, and bodies lay, and blood flowed among their
feet. The hue of fear was on all their faces; their voices went up to
heaven shrill as a weasel’s cry.
Have you seen a child when he is all alone and has a wooden sword, and
fights, leaping and hewing with the empty air? Even so the man-eaters
huddled back to back, and heaved up their axes, and laid on, and
screamed as they laid on, and behold! no man to contend with them! only
here and there Keola saw an axe swinging over against them without
hands; and time and again a man of the tribe would fall before it,
clove in twain or burst asunder, and his soul sped howling.
For awhile Keola looked upon this prodigy like one that dreams, and
then fear took him by the midst as sharp as death, that he should
behold such doings. Even in that same flash the high chief of the clan
espied him standing, and pointed and called out his name. Thereat the
whole tribe saw him also, and their eyes flashed, and their teeth
clashed.
“I am too long here,” thought Keola, and ran further out of the wood
and down the beach, not caring whither.
“Keola!” said, a voice close by upon the empty sand.
“Lehua! is that you?” he cried, and gasped, and looked in vain for her;
but by the eyesight he was stark alone.
“I saw you pass before,” the voice answered: “but you would not hear
me. Quick! get the leaves and the herbs, and let us free.”
“You are there with the mat?” he asked.
“Here, at your side;” said she. And he felt her arms about him. “Quick!
the leaves and the herbs, before my father can get back!”
So Keola ran for his life, and fetched the wizard fuel; and Lehua
guided him back, and set his feet upon the mat, and made the fire. All
the time of its burning, the sound of the battle towered out of the
wood; the wizards and the man-eaters hard at fight; the wizards, the
viewless ones, roaring out aloud like bulls upon a mountain, and the
men of the tribe replying shrill and savage out of the terror of their
souls. And all the time of the burning, Keola stood there and listened,
and shook, and watched how the unseen hands of Lehua poured the leaves.
She poured them fast, and the flame burned high, and scorched Keola’s
hands; and she speeded and blew the burning with her breath. The last
leaf was eaten, the flame fell, and the shock followed, and there were
Keola and Lehua in the room at home.
Now, when Keola could see his wife at last he was mighty pleased, and
he was mighty pleased to be home again in Molokai and sit down beside a
bowl of poi—for they make no poi on board ships, and there was none in
the Isle of Voices—and he was out of the body with pleasure to be clean
escaped out of the hands of the eaters of men. But there was another
matter not so clear, and Lehua and Keola talked of it all night and
were troubled. There was Kalamake left upon the isle. If, by the
blessing of God, he could but stick there, all were well; but should he
escape and return to Molokai, it would be an ill day for his daughter
and her husband. They spoke of his gift of swelling, and whether he
could wade that distance in the seas. But Keola knew by this time where
that island was—and that is to say, in the Low or Dangerous
Archipelago. So they fetched the atlas and looked upon the distance in
the map, and by what they could make of it, it seemed a far way for an
old gentleman to walk. Still, it would not do to make too sure of a
warlock like Kalamake, and they determined at last to take counsel of a
white missionary.
So the first one that came by, Keola told him everything. And the
missionary was very sharp on him for taking the second wife in the low
island; but for all the rest, he vowed he could make neither head nor
tail of it.
“However,” says he, “if you think this money of your father’s ill
gotten, my advice to you would be, give some of it to the lepers and
some to the missionary fund. And as for this extraordinary rigmarole,
you cannot do better than keep it to yourselves.”
But he warned the police at Honolulu that, by all he could make out,
Kalamake and Keola had been coining false money, and it would not be
amiss to watch them.
Keola and Lehua took his advice, and gave many dollars to the lepers
and the fund. And no doubt the advice must have been good, for from
that day to this, Kalamake has never more been heard of. But whether he
was slain in the battle by the trees, or whether he is still kicking
his heels upon the Isle of Voices, who shall say?
Footnotes:
[1] Please pronounce _pappa_ throughout.
[2] Alas!
[3] Aeolian
[4] Yes.
[5] Leprosy.
[6] Whites.