The intrigue in reality began with Bender’s rise to prominence, though
long before that the elements out of which it finally grew and at
last so rapidly assumed form had taken root and thrived to a greater
or less extent, as the exigencies of the times, without any definite
leadership, seemed to warrant. From the day the first missionary set
foot in the Islands discontent began and did not cease, except at
forced intervals, until the greed of attending interlopers had swept
the whole country into a holocaust of fierce disturbance.
Lunalilo had been the first of the reigning monarchs to let down
effectively the bars to an onrush of pretending capitalists and shady
politicians. In fact his accession to the throne was due entirely to
foreign influence, and in consideration of the favor shown to him
personally he undertook forthwith to conserve as complaisantly as
possible the unreasonable demands of an immediate benefaction.
Interests were thus created and property rights granted out of
all proportion to their simple mode of living and contrary to the
established laws of the land. Nor was this beginning to be an end of
it; the adventurous foreigner and uncouth settler once established in
the enjoyment of a luxury illy adapted to his use, wholly unthought-of
in the land whence he came, began to look upon his suddenly puffed-up
host as a gracious fool, and the differently constituted people as
inferiors and rightful subjects of plunder. The moral influence of a
society and the unsophisticated rules of a government founded upon
self-denial--aimed only at emulating the cardinal virtues and relieved
inherently from the necessity of combating with human depravity--proved
totally inadequate to meet the exigencies of a new and strange order,
not at all welcomed and still less understood.
The respective home governments of these lust-endowed fortune seekers
were too far removed and too little concerned to reach out and thwart
the immoral purposes of well-rid absconders or to interfere with the
domestic affairs of an insignificant nation, however virtuous the
people, or helpless their rulers might prove to be. There was no
restraint; and once the arrogant newcomer secured a firm hold upon
property interests, both government and sentiment were unable to
restrain his gradual absorption of the people’s rights.
In generosity they bade the foreigner welcome; through ignorance of
his social tendencies they permitted him to share their country’s
productiveness; with justice they undertook the hopeless task of
harmonizing the good and the evil; not until danger had irrevocably
fastened itself upon them did they seek to find an effective remedy;
and then, in desperation they sent their sons and daughters broadcast
to the source of other nationalities to discover the means with which
to restitute a tottering civilization.
Thus Kaiuolani, a princess of the blood, sacrificed by birth to the
dangers of an impossible assimilation, was in her tender years sent
away to gain an education and encourage a relation that was hoped
should adapt her to the necessities of a complicated but unalterable
situation. Lord and Lady Xenoav, from philanthropic motives and
associate memories, had taken her up and from childhood bestowed the
best that castle Bairdsraith and European institutions could afford.
They were old acquaintances of Sir Charles, her father,--who being
of a roving, retiring disposition had at an early period in life
wandered from home and Scotland to settle in these health-giving,
peace-inviting islands of the far-away Pacific,--and no sooner had the
dark, bewitching daughter of the West fallen to their care than they
learned to love her and began to guard her nurture with the fondness
of a natural parentage; and when the greater portion of her early
life had been spent there, in England, as a member of their household
and the time had come for a returning to her native land, Lord Xenoav
would not trust her going to the guidance of any except himself and
his lordship’s lady helpmeet. The long and tedious journey was finally
undertaken in Kaiuolani’s behalf, and from the courtesy extended and
the accomplishments attained the returning daughter of a tottering
kingdom became the idolized of many suitors and a fatal object of envy
in the eyes of jealous rivals.
Upon the young princess’s arrival at Honolulu a splendid reception
was tendered to her and her sponsors by no less a personage than
Hans Gutenborj, the planter king, who had then come, through long,
continuous endeavor, to be regarded the most substantial foreign
resident there, if not the most level-headed supporter of law and
order in the land. His vast estate at Kahilui on the island of Maui,
was for the occasion converted into a veritable land of delights, and
without a conscious design Kaiuolani gracefully bore the distinction
and Floyd Young naturally became her choice of gallants.
Four large ships of the sugar king’s own fleet had been drawn into
service to carry the invited guests thither, and the queen in honor
bade them good-speed. The princess Like-Like, a charming lady and
member of the then reigning family, the wife of Sir Charles and mother
of Kaiuolani, chaperoned her daughter, and many of the dignitaries,
including members of both royal families, the ascendant Mauas and the
dethroned Kamehamehas, assisted their host and hostess in receiving the
guests; who, landing at the long wharf in Kahilui, drove thence through
broad palm-set and lantern-lighted avenues to the low, rambling bungalo
on the hillside at the plantation.
Among them were descendants of a once proud line of rulers; wives or
widows and sisters and brothers of deceased or dethroned monarchs;
members of a successfully progressive reigning family; the flower
of royalty and the best of society; merchant princes and leading
statesmen, foreign residents and native citizens alike were there;
the buoyant and the downcast, the hopeful and the disheartened, the
worthy and the unworthy--all joined heartily or sullenly in the
gorgeous splendor that overwhelmed the confident or aroused feelings
of jealousy, hatred and discontent in the minds and hearts of the
disconsolate.
Not alone were these heart-burnings or joyous sentiments confined
to those who danced and dared, but out in the fields, back in the
kitchens, or liveried at the doorstep labored a larger throng, whose
hearts and heads were set upon relations that conjured deeper emotions.
Some had found their level in the wake of subsistence by the hard
grind of ruthless fate, through cunning and neglect, misfortune or
carelessness; others were the product of new conditions, glad for the
privilege of serving, cast thither with the timely trend of progress,
or risen from hope to reality by the forging chain of consequence.
Indomitable, overpowering circumstance opened wide the floodgates of
opportunity, and from the highest to the lowest they waged triumphant
their sphere.
All these contending elements had been drawn together and placed in
juxtaposition at an auspicious moment, and under the most favorable
circumstances, for the most part to harmonize the several contending
factions in national affairs and material interests. How well the
promoters could be expected to succeed might have been inferred from
the queen’s respectfully declining personally to encourage the party
(upon the ground of indisposition), permitting the high chamberlain to
exemplify in his person her majesty’s best wishes.
Liliuokolani, however, occupied a position that compelled her to submit
rather than dictate in matters of discretion, partially sustaining
her dignity by executing the law as she found it; not, possibly, as
she may have willed. This determination on her part to abide the
just performances of her bounden duty had been the cornerstone of
Gutenborj and his allies’ confidence in her ability to rule. It became
an eye-sore in the estimation of glumpy Kamehamehas, and they would
rather she failed than a Maua preserve their crumbling hold upon
respectability. The queen’s plans proved too slow of materialization to
suit the rabid under-element, and whichever way she turned, as prompted
by self’s own heart-will, a dark, ill-shaped mistrust loomed before
her, foreshadowed the dangers that surrounded them.
The gathering at Kaiuolani’s reception bore its certain fruit, and the
hybrid germs clandestinely hatching beneath the scaly fungus quickly
spread throughout the empire. David Kenlikola Ralph, a resident prince
of Kanai, the father of Ihoas, and a staunch believer in the divine
right of the Kamehamehas, had embraced the very good opportunity
to revive memories and exchange ideas with his old-time friend and
confidant, Pauahieu Arnstook, the once powerful Lanaiu leader, whose
fortunes had dwindled to nothing more than a substantial post at the
royal boards. They brooded between them their loss,--the one a fallen
prestige, the other his wasted estates,--and before parting there had
been sworn inviolable a secret pledge that afterwards served well the
purposes of a less scrupulous compact.
Bender, alert and ambitious, had observed from a retiring situation the
heterogeneous proclivities of an unorganized, distrustful following,
and from the many discordant voices there discerned selected the
few that should do him service in the carrying forward of a daring
venture. Prince Kenlikola, with his estates spread over limitless
plains, had been from birth trained and allied to the undercurrent:
the masses were at his beck and call, and his sympathies found vent
through the channels of a natural, if unexalted association; the sheep
herders of Kanai were his friends, and it required no great stretch of
affiliation to cultivate a fast and true liking for the cattle ranger
of Kaiahiua and a lasting coalition of the rough and ready shouters at
the disposition of either. The jealous northerner cemented the bond of
union, the scheming southerner afforded a ready leadership.
The Progressionists were but the instruments of the latter’s bounty; he
had subsidized them, armed the force, augmented their ranks--why not
use them?
Such proved to be the philosophy of a man who aimed to rise to wealth
and power wholly by the aid of conjured wit. He had with a single
stroke wrested from the hands of a decaying, self-ordered lord of the
forest all that made worth the while staid Gutenborj’s pother about
law and order. Necessity compelled him to become his own defender; the
strong arm of government seemed but a mockery and a cheat in the wilds
whence he throve. He may have been content to remain there alone and
supreme had not the trend of society reached out to gather him in, to
make him a part of its never-ending conquest, and to profit at the
expense of universal freedom.
The caldron proved an easy tempter, but no sooner had the trapped
truant been turned loose amid the fold than he began ravenously to
feed upon the best forage at hand. The captors’ threats, the claims
of Young, and the prowess of Kaiuolani only served to whet the roused
rancher’s appetite and before the powers that be could measure his
capacity or gain a shelter he had bid defiance to restraint and gorged
with wide-open opportunity.