"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 corkscrew 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 seachests. 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 glass-works, so prettily

the colours shone under the milky white, and so strangely the shadow

hovered in the midst; so, after he had disputed a while after the manner

of his kind, the shopman 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 story 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--hat

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 Kaue?"

"No," said Keawe, "not in Kaue; 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 bread-fruit 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 stories 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 drove 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 who 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.[6]

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?

A while 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 whale-boat carried him on board. The

after-part of the ship was full of Haoles[7] who had been to visit the

volcano, as their custom is; and the midst was crowded with Kanakas, and

the fore-part with wild bulls from Hilo and horses from Kaue; 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 whisky 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 gaol."

"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 stories, 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. O!" 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?"

"You know nothing," said she. "I was educated in a school in Honolulu; 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 thereabout. 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 withinside, 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 that 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 the 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 there 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 stuck 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 it?" 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Leprosy.

[7] Whites.

THE ISLE OF VOICES

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 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 for 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 lockfast 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 lockfast

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 farther 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 stooping.

"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 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 espied 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! 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 as 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 Kaue, 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, "it's 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 be all

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 cocoa-nuts, 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 side 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 sea-side 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

sea-side 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

cocoa-nut 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. O, that is a fine place indeed! The trader has barrels filled

with flour; and a French war-ship 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 fell 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 a while 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?

END OF VOL. XVII

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