"Which way have they gone, you hag?" I cried, shaking her in my fierce
anger.
The old woman raised one skinny brown finger, and pointed with a grin in
the direction of a zig-zag path which lay to the left of Kalaua's
roadway.
Without waiting one second to deliberate, or question her, I set off at
once upon my crutches, bounding and scurrying over the ground like a
kangaroo by successive leaps, and hastening forward at a brisk rate
which I should have thought beforehand no crutches on earth would
possibly have compassed.
I reached the path, and turned hastily down it. The track was rough and
difficult to traverse, even for an active man with both his legs to go
upon; but for me, in my present halt and maimed condition, it was
terribly hard and all but impracticable. Nevertheless, impelled by
horror and fear for poor Kea's safety, T hurried along at a mad rate
down the steep zig-zag, careless whether I fell or not in my wild haste,
but eager only to prevent I knew not what awful heathenish catastrophe.
I only prayed I might yet be in time to save her life. After many
stumbles and hairbreadth escapes, rolling over and over with my crutches
by my side, I found myself at last on the Floor of the Strangers, not
far from the spot from which I had fallen before, but separated from it
by a narrow chasm in the black basalt--a chasm, riven deep in the solid
rock, and filled below, as I saw at once, with a fiery strait of
white-hot lava.
It was full moonlight. Away off to the left, on the summit of the
mountains, I saw the camp-fires of the naval eclipse parties. They were
standing there, etched out distinctly against the pale sky-line; and I
could recognize every one of their faces with ease through that clear
air in the bright light of a tropical moon. But not a sign of Kea was to
be seen anywhere. I looked anxiously round for her, and met no token
anywhere. The old woman must surely have misdirected me on purpose. Fool
that I was to have believed that hag! Kea and her party could hot have
come this way at all towards the crater.
I saw my mistake. They had sent me wrong by deliberate design! At this
supreme moment Kalaua had intentionally attempted to escape my notice.
Suddenly, as I looked and wondered in awe, a strange procession began
slowly to descend the mountain side opposite, beyond the chasm, into the
mouth of the crater. At its head came the man in the feather mask whom I
had seen that day that I broke my leg on the edge of the precipice, and
whom I now more distinctly than ever recognized as indeed Kalaua. There
was no mistaking his gait and carriage. He stalked on proudly in front
of the procession. Next after him, bearing rods with bunches of feathers
fluttering in the breeze from their tops, came the four acolytes who
had stood by his side that awful morning when he solemnly devoted me to
the devouring volcano. Then four Hawaiian girls in white bridesmaids'
dresses, with long garlands of oleanders strung round their necks,
followed in order, two by two, waving their hands slowly above their
heads, and chanting native _himenés_, as they call their long monotonous
wails and dirges. My heart stood still as I saw with horror that Kea
walked last, with downcast eyes, habited in her full bridal dress, and
with the white veil falling round her in folds almost to her ankles.
Behind her straggled a few hushed and awe-smitten spectators, half
friendly assistants at this ghastly ceremony. I saw them all clearly but
two hundred yards off, though the chasm in the rock with its red mass of
molten lava below separated me from them far more effectually than a
mile of intervening distance could possibly have done.
[Illustration: "A STRANGE PROCESSION BEGAN SLOWLY TO DESCEND."]
My first impulse was to cry aloud with indignation and horror. My next,
for Kea's sake, was to hide myself at once behind a black jagged
pinnacle of hardened lava before they caught sight of me. I did so
almost as soon as the procession began to file slowly past the turn of
the road; and it was by peering with caution round the corner of the
pinnacle that I had observed them all as they descended two by two along
the narrow foot-path.
Step after step they moved gradually down, to the long-drawn music of
those unearthly _himenés_. Kea, in particular, glided on like a ghost,
with downcast eyes and shrinking demeanour, yet not so much in the
manner of a victim as of one who willingly and heroically devotes
herself to some terrible end for the good of her country.
I knew she believed she was averting the wrath of Pélé, and I gasped
with horror at her awful resolution.
Presently, the procession reached the Floor of the Strangers, on whose
platform I myself was already crouched flat, though always separated
from me by that terrific chasm; and advancing still to the lugubrious
sound of these doleful _himenés_. Kalaua placed himself on the edge of
the precipice, at the very spot where I myself had fallen over in
pursuit of the butterfly. Kea, moving forward with slow and solemn
steps, stood at his right hand, in her bridal dress, with her bloodless
fingers clasped downward in front of her.
Then Kalaua began, in a strange cramped voice, to drone out some
horrible dedicatory service. It sounded like the service he had droned
out over myself on the morning of my accident: but I understood Hawaiian
much better now, and could follow the words of his frightful litany with
very little difficulty. Crouching behind the shadow of my broken lava
pinnacle, I saw and heard the whole savage orgy like some unseen
presence in that vast and self-lighted natural cathedral.
"Great Mother Pélé," Kalaua began, intoning his words on a single note
and dividing his address into curious irregular verses--"Great Mother
Pélé, who dwellest in the fire-lake, Queen of the Hawaiians, we, thy
children, bow ourselves down in worship before thee.
"We assemble in thy temple, oh, thou, that delightest in the flesh of
white-skinned chickens: we come into the outer threshold of thy house,
oh, thou, that ridest on the red flaming surges.
"Sugar-cane, and tappa-cloth we offer to thy children: a bride, a wife,
to thy favourite, to Maloka.
"Five sons thou hast borne in thy home, below; and one is humpbacked;
thy favourite Maloka.
"A white man came from the lands beyond the sea: a pale-faced stranger;
a wanderer to Hawaii.
"Of thy own accord thou chosest him a victim for thyself. He fell into
thy trap. The white man's foot trod forbidden ground: the Floor of thy
children, of thy children, the Hawaiians.
"In thy wrath, thou rosest to crumple him to ashes: thy flames soared
upward like tongues of fire; dancing and surf-riding on the billows of
flame, didst thou put forth thy red right hand to seize him.
"Come forward, Kea!"
The trembling girl came forward timidly.
Kalaua continued his awful chant once more, shaking his robe, and slowly
dancing.
"A maiden rescued him: a mortal maiden. She stole the victim from the
clutches of Pélé.
"No hand might save him against thy will: the force of a mortal avails
not against the fiery might of a living goddess.
"Thou, Pélé, lettest him go for very contempt; thou gavest up the prey
from thy fingers willingly.
"For such as her, a law is laid down.
"Victim for victim: life for life: whoever snatches an offering from
Pélé, himself must satisfy the wrath of the goddess.
"Were it not so, thou wouldst deluge the land with lava; thou wouldst
swallow the towns in the jaws of earthquakes: thou wouldst lick up the
cane-fields with red tongues of fire.
"Thy son, Maloka, thy favourite, the humpbacked, he cried aloud to his
mother for the maiden in marriage.
"'Give me this girl, he cried aloud, Oh Pélé: give me this maiden who
snatched away thy victim.'
"Thou, Pélé, madest answer: 'My son, I give her thee.' Thou didst turn
uneasily in thy flaming home, and threaten the Hawaiians with a deadly
vengeance.
"See, we bring her: and we give her to Maloka; willingly, of her own
accord, the maiden comes: on Maloka's night, arrayed as a bride in
snow-white raiment, eager for her fate.
"Come forward, attendants!"
The bridesmaids, in their wreaths and garlands, stepped forward. I
listened, horror-struck.
"Kea, do you take this god, Maloka, for your wedded lord?"
In a stifled voice, tremulous but firm, Kea answered aloud in her soft
Hawaiian, "Kalaua, I take him."
"Maloka, do you take this girl, Kea, for your wedded wife?" And even as
he spoke Kalaua cast something invisible from his hand with a dexterous
throw, into the yawning abyss of lava below him. I then observed, for
the very first time, that while the ceremony went on, the lake of fire
had risen by slow degrees in the crater, and stood flush now with the
Floor of the Hawaiians.
The volcano, as if in response to his direct question, gave a hideous
roar, excited, I suppose, into some minor eruptive effort by the object
he cast into it, which seemed to crash down and break upon a smouldering
smoke-stack. It was as though the mountain had answered back in words,
"Oh, priest, I take her."
Kalaua leaned forward, shaking and agitating his sacrificial robes. "At
the stroke of midnight," he went on solemnly, "at the actual moment when
Maloka the humpbacked climbs aloft to put out the moon, we will take the
bride into the bridegroom's chamber. When Maloka the humpbacked puts out
the moon, then leap, Kea, into the arms of your husband. See, see, how
lovingly he stretches out his fiery arms for you in his chamber below
there! When he rises in his might to put out the lamp that rides in
heaven, then leap into his embrace. 'Tis the signal he gives you! Till
then, sit still, and await your husband!"
Kea sat down by the edge of the precipice, on an isolated block of black
basalt, and leaning her little chin on her small white hand, gazed
below in awe and silent expectation on the flood of lava.
I knew, then, exactly what Kalaua meant. At the precise moment of the
total eclipse, Kea was to leap into the abyss of the volcano.
I took out my watch, and consulted it anxiously, It wanted more than
half-an-hour still to the actual point of absolute totality. I had that
half-hour only to save Kea in. I saw her there seated on the edge of the
abyss. I knew that the moment the moon was finally obscured, she would
rise from her place, and leap madly forward of her own accord, into that
sea of lava. She thought it her duty to appease the goddess. How to
rescue her I could form no plan. Even if I rushed forth in my horror and
managed by some miracle to span with a leap that yawning chasm that
spread so wide between us, what was one lame white man among so many
wild and heathenish Hawaiians? I could do nothing. I was helpless,
powerless. If I set out to call the naval officers to my aid, long
before I reached them, Kea's charred and mangled corpse would be
floating, a mass of blackened ashes, on the fiery flood in the still
rising crater. I trembled with horror. And yet--and yet--
And yet I must do _something_ to rescue Kea!