The Bones of Kahekili
From over the lofty Koolau Mountains, vagrant wisps of the tradewind drifted, faintly swaying the great, unwhipped banana leaves,rustling the palms, and fluttering and setting up a whisperingamong the lace-leaved algaroba trees. Only intermittently did theatmosphere so breathe--for breathing it was, the suspiring of thelanguid, Hawaiian afternoon. In the intervals between the softbreathings, the air grew heavy and balmy with the perfume offlowers and the exhalations of fat, living soil.Of humans about the low bungalow-like house, there were many; butone only of them slept. The rest were on the tense tiptoes ofsilence. At the rear of the house a tiny babe piped up a thinblatting wail that the quickly thrust breast could not appease.The mother, a slender hapa-haole (half-white), clad in a loose-flowing holoku of white muslin, hastened away swiftly among thebanana and papaia trees to remove the babe's noise by distance.Other women, hapa-haole and full native, watched her anxiously asshe fled.At the front of the house, on the grass, squatted a score ofHawaiians. Well-muscled, broad-shouldered, they were all strappingmen. Brown-skinned, with luminous brown eyes and black, theirfeatures large and regular, they showed all the signs of being asgood-natured, merry-hearted, and soft-tempered as the climate. Toall of which a seeming contradiction was given by the ferociousnessof their accoutrement. Into the tops of their rough leatherleggings were thrust long knives, the handles projecting. On theirheels were huge-rowelled Spanish spurs. They had the appearance ofbanditti, save for the incongruous wreaths of flowers and fragrantmaile that encircled the crowns of their flopping cowboy hats. Oneof them, deliciously and roguishly handsome as a faun, with theeyes of a faun, wore a flaming double-hibiscus bloom coquettishlytucked over his ear. Above them, casting a shelter of shade fromthe sun, grew a wide-spreading canopy of Ponciana regia, itself aflame of blossoms, out of each of which sprang pom-poms of featherystamens. From far off, muffled by distance, came the faintstamping of their tethered horses. The eyes of all were intentlyfixed upon the solitary sleeper who lay on his back on a lauhalamat a hundred feet away under the monkey-pod trees.Large as were the Hawaiian cowboys, the sleeper was larger. Also,as his snow-white hair and beard attested, he was much older. Thethickness of his wrist and the greatness of his fingers madeauthentic the mighty frame of him hidden under loose dungaree pantsand cotton shirt, buttonless, open from midriff to Adam's apple,exposing a chest matted with a thatch of hair as white as that ofhis head and face. The depth and breadth of that chest, itsresilience, and its relaxed and plastic muscles, tokened the knottystrength that still resided in him. Further, no bronze and beat ofsun and wind availed to hide the testimony of his skin that he wasall haole--a white man.On his back, his great white beard, thrust skyward, untrimmed ofbarbers, stiffened and subsided with every breath, while with theoutblow of every exhalation the white moustache erectedperpendicularly like the quills of a porcupine and subsided witheach intake. A young girl of fourteen, clad only in a singleshift, or muumuu, herself a grand-daughter of the sleeper, crouchedbeside him and with a feathered fly-flapper brushed away the flies.In her face were depicted solicitude, and nervousness, and awe, asif she attended on a god.And truly, Hardman Pool, the sleeping whiskery one, was to her, andto many and sundry, a god--a source of life, a source of food, afount of wisdom, a giver of law, a smiling beneficence, a blacknessof thunder and punishment--in short, a man-master whose record wasfourteen living and adult sons and daughters, six great-grandchildren, and more grandchildren than could he in his mostlucid moments enumerate.Fifty-one years before, he had landed from an open boat atLaupahoehoe on the windward coast of Hawaii. The boat was the onesurviving one of the whaler Black Prince of New Bedford. HimselfNew Bedford born, twenty years of age, by virtue of his drivingstrength and ability he had served as second mate on the lostwhaleship. Coming to Honolulu and casting about for himself, hehad first married Kalama Mamaiopili, next acted as pilot ofHonolulu Harbour, after that started a saloon and boarding house,and, finally, on the death of Kalama's father, engaged in cattleranching on the broad pasture lands she had inherited.For over half a century he had lived with the Hawaiians, and it wasconceded that he knew their language better than did most of them.By marrying Kalama, he had married not merely her land, but her ownchief rank, and the fealty owed by the commoners to her by virtueof her genealogy was also accorded him. In addition, he possessedof himself all the natural attributes of chiefship: the giganticstature, the fearlessness, the pride; and the high hot temper thatcould brook no impudence nor insult, that could be neither bulliednor awed by any utmost magnificence of power that walked on twolegs, and that could compel service of lesser humans, not by anyignoble purchase by bargaining, but by an unspoken but expectedcondescending of largesse. He knew his Hawaiians from the outsideand the in, knew them better than themselves, their Polynesiancircumlocutions, faiths, customs, and mysteries.And at seventy-one, after a morning in the saddle over the rangesthat began at four o'clock, he lay under the monkey-pods in hiscustomary and sacred siesta that no retainer dared to break, norwould dare permit any equal of the great one to break. Only to theKing was such a right accorded, and, as the King had early learned,to break Hardman Pool's siesta was to gain awake a very irritableand grumpy Hardman Pool who would talk straight from the shoulderand say unpleasant but true things that no king would care to hear.The sun blazed down. The horses stamped remotely. The fadingtrade-wind wisps sighed and rustled between longer intervals ofquiescence. The perfume grew heavier. The woman brought back thebabe, quiet again, to the rear of the house. The monkey-podsfolded their leaves and swooned to a siesta of their own in thesoft air above the sleeper. The girl, breathless as ever from theenormous solemnity of her task, still brushed the flies away; andthe score of cowboys still intently and silently watched.Hardman Pool awoke. The next out-breath, expected of the longrhythm, did not take place. Neither did the white, long moustacherise up. Instead, the cheeks, under the whiskers, puffed; theeyelids lifted, exposing blue eyes, choleric and fully andimmediately conscious; the right hand went out to the half-smokedpipe beside him, while the left hand reached the matches."Get me my gin and milk," he ordered, in Hawaiian, of the littlemaid, who had been startled into a tremble by his awaking.He lighted the pipe, but gave no sign of awareness of the presenceof his waiting retainers until the tumbler of gin and milk had beenbrought and drunk."Well?" he demanded abruptly, and in the pause, while twenty faceswreathed in smiles and twenty pairs of dark eyes glowed luminouslywith well-wishing pleasure, he wiped the lingering drops of gin andmilk from his hairy lips. "What are you hanging around for? Whatdo you want? Come over here."Twenty giants, most of them young, uprose and with a great clankingand jangling of spurs and spur-chains strode over to him. Theygrouped before him in a semicircle, trying bashfully to wedge theirshoulders, one behind another's, their faces a-grin and apologetic,and at the same time expressing a casual and unconsciousdemocraticness. In truth, to them Hardman Pool was more than merechief. He was elder brother, or father, or patriarch; and to allof them he was related, in one way or another, according toHawaiian custom, through his wife and through the many marriages ofhis children and grandchildren. His slightest frown might perturbthem, his anger terrify them, his command compel them to certaindeath; yet, on the other hand, not one of them would have dreamedof addressing him otherwise than intimately by his first name,which name, "Hardman," was transmuted by their tongues into KanakaOolea.At a nod from him, the semicircle seated itself on the manieniegrass, and with further deprecatory smiles waited his pleasure."What do you want?" demanded, in Hawaiian, with a brusqueness andsternness they knew were put on.They smiled more broadly, and deliciously squirmed their broadshoulders and great torsos with the appeasingness of so manywriggling puppies. Hardman Pool singled out one of them."Well, Iliiopoi, what do YOU want?""Ten dollars, Kanaka Oolea.""Ten dollars!" Pool cried, in apparent shock at mention of so vasta sum. "Does it mean you are going to take a second wife?Remember the missionary teaching. One wife at a time, Iliiopoi;one wife at a time. For he who entertains a plurality of wiveswill surely go to hell."Giggles and flashings of laughing eyes from all greeted the joke."No, Kanaka Oolea," came the reply. "The devil knows I am hard putto get kow-kow for one wife and her several relations.""Kow-kow?" Pool repeated the Chinese-introduced word for food whichthe Hawaiians had come to substitute for their own paina. "Didn'tyou boys get kow-kow here this noon?""Yes, Kanaka Oolea," volunteered an old, withered native who hadjust joined the group from the direction of the house. "All ofthem had kow-kow in the kitchen, and plenty of it. They ate likelost horses brought down from the lava.""And what do you want, Kumuhana?" Pool diverted to the old one, atthe same time motioning to the little maid to flap flies from theother side of him."Twelve dollars," said Kumuhana. "I want to buy a Jackass and asecond-hand saddle and bridle. I am growing too old for my legs tocarry me in walking.""You wait," his haole lord commanded. "I will talk with you aboutthe matter, and about other things of importance, when I amfinished with the rest and they are gone."The withered old one nodded and proceeded to light his pipe."The kow-kow in the kitchen was good," Iliiopoi resumed, lickinghis lips. "The poi was one-finger, the pig fat, the salmon-bellyunstinking, the fish of great freshness and plenty, though theopihis" (tiny, rock-clinging shell-fish) "had been salted andthereby made tough. Never should the opihis be salted. Often haveI told you, Kanaka Oolea, that opihis should never be salted. I amfull of good kow-kow. My belly is heavy with it. Yet is my heartnot light of it because there is no kow-kow in my own house, whereis my wife, who is the aunt of your fourth son's second wife, andwhere is my baby daughter, and my wife's old mother, and my wife'sold mother's feeding child that is a cripple, and my wife's sisterwho lives likewise with us along with her three children, thefather being dead of a wicked dropsy--""Will five dollars save all of you from funerals for a day orseveral?" Pool testily cut the tale short."Yes, Kanaka Oolea, and as well it will buy my wife a new comb andsome tobacco for myself."From a gold-sack drawn from the hip-pocket of his dungarees,Hardman Pool drew the gold piece and tossed it accurately into thewaiting hand.To a bachelor who wanted six dollars for new leggings, tobacco, andspurs, three dollars were given; the same to another who needed ahat; and to a third, who modestly asked for two dollars, four weregiven with a flowery-worded compliment anent his prowess in ropinga recent wild bull from the mountains. They knew, as a rule, thathe cut their requisitions in half, therefore they doubled the sizeof their requisitions. And Hardman Pool knew they doubled, andsmiled to himself. It was his way, and, further, it was a verygood way with his multitudinous relatives, and did not reduce hisstature in their esteem."And you, Ahuhu?" he demanded of one whose name meant "poison-wood.""And the price of a pair of dungarees," Ahuhu concluded his list ofneeds. "I have ridden much and hard after your cattle, KanakaOolea, and where my dungarees have pressed against the seat of thesaddle there is no seat to my dungarees. It is not well that it besaid that a Kanaka Oolea cowboy, who is also a cousin of KanakaOolea's wife's half-sister, should be shamed to be seen out of thesaddle save that he walks backward from all that behold him.""The price of a dozen pairs of dungarees be thine, Ahuhu," HardmanPool beamed, tossing to him the necessary sum. "I am proud that myfamily shares my pride. Afterward, Ahuhu, out of the dozendungarees you will give me one, else shall I be compelled to walkbackward, my own and only dungarees being in like manner well wornand shameful."And in laughter of love at their haole chief's final sally, all thesweet-child-minded and physically gorgeous company of them departedto their waiting horses, save the old withered one, Kumuhana, whohad been bidden to wait.For a full five minutes they sat in silence. Then Hardman Poolordered the little maid to fetch a tumbler of gin and milk, which,when she brought it, he nodded her to hand to Kumuhana. The glassdid not leave his lips until it was empty, whereon he gave a greataudible out-breath of "A-a-ah," and smacked his lips."Much awa have I drunk in my time," he said reflectively. "Yet isthe awa but a common man's drink, while the haole liquor is a drinkfor chiefs. The awa has not the liquor's hot willingness, its spurin the ribs of feeling, its biting alive of oneself that is verypleasant since it is pleasant to be alive."Hardman Pool smiled, nodded agreement, and old Kumuhana continued."There is a warmingness to it. It warms the belly and the soul.It warms the heart. Even the soul and the heart grow cold when oneis old.""You ARE old," Pool conceded. "Almost as old as I."Kumuhana shook his head and murmured. "Were I no older than you Iwould be as young as you.""I am seventy-one," said Pool."I do not know ages that way," was the reply. "What happened whenyou were born?""Let me see," Pool calculated. "This is 1880. Subtract seventy-one, and it leaves nine. I was born in 1809, which is the yearKeliimakai died, which is the year the Scotchman, ArchibaldCampbell, lived in Honolulu.""Then am I truly older than you, Kanaka Oolea. I remember theScotchman well, for I was playing among the grass houses ofHonolulu at the time, and already riding a surf-board in thewahine" (woman) "surf at Waikiki. I can take you now to the spotwhere was the Scotchman's grass house. The Seaman's Mission standsnow on the very ground. Yet do I know when I was born. Often mygrandmother and my mother told me of it. I was born when MadamePele" (the Fire Goddess or Volcano Goddess) "became angry with thepeople of Paiea because they sacrificed no fish to her from theirfish-pool, and she sent down a flow of lava from Huulalai andfilled up their pond. For ever was the fish-pond of Paiea filledup. That was when I was born.""That was in 1801, when James Boyd was building ships forKamehameha at Hilo," Pool cast back through the calendar; "whichmakes you seventy-nine, or eight years older than I. You are veryold.""Yes, Kanaka Oolea," muttered Kumuhana, pathetically attempting toswell his shrunken chest with pride."And you are very wise.""Yes, Kanaka Oolea.""And you know many of the secret things that are known only to oldmen.""Yes, Kanaka Oolea.""And then you know--" Hardman Pool broke off, the more effectivelyto impress and hypnotize the other ancient with the set stare ofhis pale-washed blue eyes. "They say the bones of Kahekili weretaken from their hiding-place and lie to-day in the RoyalMausoleum. I have heard it whispered that you alone of all livingmen truly know.""I know," was the proud answer. "I alone know.""Well, do they lie there? Yes or no?""Kahekili was an alii" (high chief). "It is from this straightline that your wife Kalama came. She is an alii." The oldretainer paused and pursed his lean lips in meditation. "I belongto her, as all my people before me belonged to her people beforeher. She only can command the great secrets of me. She is wise,too wise ever to command me to speak this secret. To you, O KanakaOolea, I do not answer yes, I do not answer no. This is a secretof the aliis that even the aliis do not know.""Very good, Kumuhana," Hardman Pool commanded. "Yet do you forgetthat I am an alii, and that what my good Kalama does not dare ask,I command to ask. I can send for her, now, and tell her to commandyour answer. But such would be a foolishness unless you proveyourself doubly foolish. Tell me the secret, and she will neverknow. A woman's lips must pour out whatever flows in through herears, being so made. I am a man, and man is differently made. Asyou well know, my lips suck tight on secrets as a squid sucks tothe salty rock. If you will not tell me alone, then will you tellKalama and me together, and her lips will talk, her lips will talk,so that the latest malahini will shortly know what, otherwise, youand I alone will know."Long time Kumuhana sat on in silence, debating the argument andfinding no way to evade the fact-logic of it."Great is your haole wisdom," he conceded at last."Yes? or no?" Hardman Pool drove home the point of his steel.Kumuhana looked about him first, then slowly let his eyes come torest on the fly-flapping maid."Go," Pool commanded her. "And come not back without you hear aclapping of my hands."Hardman Pool spoke no further, even after the flapper haddisappeared into the house; yet his face adamantly looked: "Yes orno?"Again Kumuhana looked carefully about him, and up into the monkey-pod boughs as if to apprehend a lurking listener. His lips werevery dry. With his tongue he moistened them repeatedly. Twice heessayed to speak, but was inarticulately husky. And finally, withbowed head, he whispered, so low and solemnly that Hardman Poolbent his own head to hear: "No."Pool clapped his hands, and the little maid ran out of the house tohim in tremulous, fluttery haste."Bring a milk and gin for old Kumuhana, here," Pool commanded; and,to Kumuhana: "Now tell me the whole story.""Wait," was the answer. "Wait till the little wahine has come andgone."And when the maid was gone, and the gin and milk had travelled theway predestined of gin and milk when mixed together, Hardman Poolwaited without further urge for the story. Kumuhana pressed hishand to his chest and coughed hollowly at intervals, bidding forencouragement; but in the end, of himself, spoke out."It was a terrible thing in the old days when a great alii died.Kahekili was a great alii. He might have been king had he lived.Who can tell? I was a young man, not yet married. You know,Kanaka Oolea, when Kahekili died, and you can tell me how old Iwas. He died when Governor Boki ran the Blonde Hotel here inHonolulu. You have heard?""I was still on windward Hawaii," Pool answered. "But I haveheard. Boki made a distillery, and leased Manoa lands to growsugar for it, and Kaahumanu, who was regent, cancelled the lease,rooted out the cane, and planted potatoes. And Boki was angry, andprepared to make war, and gathered his fighting men, with a dozenwhaleship deserters and five brass six-pounders, out at Waikiki--""That was the very time Kahekili died," Kumuhana broke in eagerly."You are very wise. You know many things of the old days betterthan we old kanakas.""It was 1829," Pool continued complacently. "You were twenty-eightyears old, and I was twenty, just coming ashore in the open boatafter the burning of the Black Prince.""I was twenty-eight," Kumuhana resumed. "It sounds right. Iremember well Boki's brass guns at Waikiki. Kahekili died, too, atthe time, at Waikiki. The people to this day believe his boneswere taken to the Hale o Keawe" (mausoleum) "at Honaunau, in Kona--""And long afterward were brought to the Royal Mausoleum here inHonolulu," Pool supplemented."Also, Kanaka Oolea, there are some who believe to this day thatQueen Alice has them stored with the rest of her ancestral bones inthe big jars in her taboo room. All are wrong. I know. Thesacred bones of Kahekili are gone and for ever gone. They restnowhere. They have ceased to be. And many kona winds havewhitened the surf at Waikiki since the last man looked upon thelast of Kahekili. I alone remain alive of those men. I am thelast man, and I was not glad to be at the finish."For see! I was a young man, and my heart was white-hot lava forMalia, who was in Kahekili's household. So was Anapuni's heartwhite-hot for her, though the colour of his heart was black, as youshall see. We were at a drinking that night--Anapuni and I--thenight that Kahekili died. Anapuni and I were only commoners, aswere all of us kanakas and wahines who were at the drinking withthe common sailors and whaleship men from before the mast. We weredrinking on the mats by the beach at Waikiki, close to the oldheiau" (temple) "that is not far from what is now the Wilders'beach place. I learned then and for ever what quantities of drinkhaole sailormen can stand. As for us kanakas, our heads were hotand light and rattly as dry gourds with the whisky and the rum."It was past midnight, I remember well, when I saw Malia, whomnever had I seen at a drinking, come across the wet-hard sand ofthe beach. My brain burned like red cinders of hell as I lookedupon Anapuni look upon her, he being nearest to her by being acrossfrom me in the drinking circle. Oh, I know it was whisky and rumand youth that made the heat of me; but there, in that moment, themad mind of me resolved, if she spoke to him and yielded to dancewith him first, that I would put both my hands around his throatand throw him down and under the wahine surf there beside us, anddrown and choke out his life and the obstacle of him that stoodbetween me and her. For know, that she had never decided betweenus, and it was because of him that she was not already and longsince mine."She was a grand young woman with a body generous as that of achiefess and more wonderful, as she came upon us, across the wetsand, in the shimmer of the moonlight. Even the haole sailormenmade pause of silence, and with open mouths stared upon her. Herwalk! I have heard you talk, O Kanaka Oolea, of the woman Helenwho caused the war of Troy. I say of Malia that more men wouldhave stormed the walls of hell for her than went against that old-time city of which it is your custom to talk over much and longwhen you have drunk too little milk and too much gin."Her walk! In the moonlight there, the soft glow-fire of thejelly-fishes in the surf like the kerosene-lamp footlights I haveseen in the new haole theatre! It was not the walk of a girl, buta woman. She did not flutter forward like rippling wavelets on areef-sheltered, placid beach. There was that in her manner of walkthat was big and queenlike, like the motion of the forces ofnature, like the rhythmic flow of lava down the slopes of Kau tothe sea, like the movement of the huge orderly trade-wind seas,like the rise and fall of the four great tides of the year that maybe like music in the eternal ear of God, being too slow ofoccurrence in time to make a tune for ordinary quick-pulsing,brief-living, swift-dying man."Anapuni was nearest. But she looked at me. Have you ever heard acall, Kanaka Oolea, that is without sound yet is louder than theconches of God? So called she to me across that circle of thedrinking. I half arose, for I was not yet full drunken; butAnapuni's arm caught her and drew her, and I sank back on my elbowand watched and raged. He was for making her sit beside him, and Iwaited. Did she sit, and, next, dance with him, I knew that eremorning Anapuni would be a dead man, choked and drowned by me inthe shallow surf."Strange, is it not, Kanaka Oolea, all this heat called 'love'?Yet it is not strange. It must be so in the time of one's youth,else would mankind not go on.""That is why the desire of woman must be greater than the desire oflife," Pool concurred. "Else would there be neither men norwomen.""Yes," said Kumuhana. "But it is many a year now since the last ofsuch heat has gone out of me. I remember it as one remembers anold sunrise--a thing that was. And so one grows old, and cold, anddrinks gin, not for madness, but for warmth. And the milk is verynourishing."But Malia did not sit beside him. I remember her eyes were wild,her hair down and flying, as she bent over him and whispered in hisear. And her hair covered him about and hid him as she whispered,and the sight of it pounded my heart against my ribs and dizzied myhead till scarcely could I half-see. And I willed myself with allthe will of me that if, in short minutes, she did not come over tome, I would go across the circle and get her."It was one of the things never to be. You remember ChiefKonukalani? Himself he strode up to the circle. His face wasblack with anger. He gripped Malia, not by the arm, but by thehair, and dragged her away behind him and was gone. Of that, evennow, can I understand not the half. I, who was for slaying Anapunibecause of her, raised neither hand nor voice of protest whenKonukalani dragged her away by the hair--nor did Anapuni. Ofcourse, we were common men, and he was a chief. That I know. Butwhy should two common men, mad with desire of woman, with desire ofwoman stronger in them than desire of life, let any one chief, eventhe highest in the land, drag the woman away by the hair? Desiringher more than life, why should the two men fear to slay then andimmediately the one chief? Here is something stronger than life,stronger than woman, but what is it? and why?""I will answer you," said Hardman Pool. "It is so because most menare fools, and therefore must be taken care of by the few men whoare wise. Such is the secret of chiefship. In all the world arechiefs over men. In all the world that has been have there everbeen chiefs, who must say to the many fool men: 'Do this; do notdo that. Work, and work as we tell you or your bellies will remainempty and you will perish. Obey the laws we set you or you will bebeasts and without place in the world. You would not have been,save for the chiefs before you who ordered and regulated for yourfathers. No seed of you will come after you, except that we orderand regulate for you now. You must be peace-abiding, and decent,and blow your noses. You must be early to bed of nights, and upearly in the morning to work if you would heave beds to sleep inand not roost in trees like the silly fowls. This is the seasonfor the yam-planting and you must plant now. We say now, to-day,and not picnicking and hulaing to-day and yam-planting to-morrow orsome other day of the many careless days. You must not kill oneanother, and you must leave your neighbours' wives alone. All thisis life for you, because you think but one day at a time, while we,your chiefs, think for you all days and for days ahead.'""Like a cloud on the mountain-top that comes down and wraps aboutyou and that you dimly see is a cloud, so is your wisdom to me,Kanaka Oolea," Kumuhana murmured. "Yet is it sad that I should beborn a common man and live all my days a common man.""That is because you were of yourself common," Hardman Pool assuredhim. "When a man is born common, and is by nature uncommon, herises up and overthrows the chiefs and makes himself chief over thechiefs. Why do you not run my ranch, with its many thousands ofcattle, and shift the pastures by the rain-fall, and pick thebulls, and arrange the bargaining and the selling of the meat tothe sailing ships and war vessels and the people who live in theHonolulu houses, and fight with lawyers, and help make laws, andeven tell the King what is wise for him to do and what isdangerous? Why does not any man do this that I do? Any man of allthe men who work for me, feed out of my hand, and let me do theirthinking for them--me, who work harder than any of them, who eatsno more than any of them, and who can sleep on no more than onelauhala mat at a time like any of them?""I am out of the cloud, Kanaka Oolea," said Kumuhana, with avisible brightening of countenance. "More clearly do I see. Allmy long years have the aliis I was born under thought for me.Ever, when I was hungry, I came to them for food, as I come to yourkitchen now. Many people eat in your kitchen, and the days offeasts when you slay fat steers for all of us are understandable.It is why I come to you this day, an old man whose labour ofstrength is not worth a shilling a week, and ask of you twelvedollars to buy a jackass and a second-hand saddle and bridle. Itis why twice ten fool men of us, under these monkey-pods half anhour ago, asked of you a dollar or two, or four or five, or ten ortwelve. We are the careless ones of the careless days who will notplant the yam in season if our alii does not compel us, who willnot think one day for ourselves, and who, when we age toworthlessness, know that our alii will think kow-kow into ourbellies and a grass thatch over our heads.Hardman Pool bowed his appreciation, and urged:"But the bones of Kahekili. The Chief Konukalani had just draggedaway Malia by the hair of the head, and you and Anapuni sat onwithout protest in the circle of drinking. What was it Maliawhispered in Anapuni's ear, bending over him, her hair hiding theface of him?""That Kahekili was dead. That was what she whispered to Anapuni.That Kahekili was dead, just dead, and that the chiefs, orderingall within the house to remain within, were debating the disposalof the bones and meat of him before word of his death should getabroad. That the high priest Eoppo was deciding them, and that shehad overheard no less than Anapuni and me chosen as the sacrificesto go the way of Kahekili and his bones and to care for himafterward and for ever in the shadowy other world.""The moepuu, the human sacrifice," Pool commented. "Yet it wasnine years since the coming of the missionaries.""And it was the year before their coming that the idols were castdown and the taboos broken," Kumuhana added. "But the chiefs stillpractised the old ways, the custom of hunakele, and hid the bonesof the aliis where no men should find them and make fish-hooks oftheir jaws or arrow heads of their long bones for the slaying oflittle mice in sport. Behold, O Kanaka Oolea!"The old man thrust out his tongue; and, to Pool's amazement, he sawthe surface of that sensitive organ, from root to tip, tattooed inintricate designs."That was done after the missionaries came, several yearsafterward, when Keopuolani died. Also, did I knock out four of myfront teeth, and half-circles did I burn over my body with blazingbark. And whoever ventured out-of-doors that night was slain bythe chiefs. Nor could a light be shown in a house or a whisper ofnoise be made. Even dogs and hogs that made a noise were slain,nor all that night were the ships' bells of the haoles in theharbour allowed to strike. It was a terrible thing in those dayswhen an alii died."But the night that Kahekili died. We sat on in the drinkingcircle after Konukalani dragged Malia away by the hair. Some ofthe haole sailors grumbled; but they were few in the land in thosedays and the kanakas many. And never was Malia seen of men again.Konukalani alone knew the manner of her slaying, and he never told.And in after years what common men like Anapuni and me should dareto question him?"Now she had told Anapuni before she was dragged away. ButAnapuni's heart was black. Me he did not tell. Worthy he was ofthe killing I had intended for him. There was a giant harpooner inthe circle, whose singing was like the bellowing of bulls; and,gazing on him in amazement while he roared some song of the sea,when next I looked across the circle to Anapuni, Anapuni was gone.He had fled to the high mountains where he could hide with thebird-catchers a week of moons. This I learned afterward."I? I sat on, ashamed of my desire of woman that had not been sostrong as my slave-obedience to a chief. And I drowned my shame inlarge drinks of rum and whisky, till the world went round andround, inside my head and out, and the Southern Cross danced a hulain the sky, and the Koolau Mountains bowed their lofty summits toWaikiki and the surf of Waikiki kissed them on their brows. Andthe giant harpooner was still roaring, his the last sounds in myear, as I fell back on the lauhala mat, and was to all things forthe time as one dead."When I awoke was at the faint first beginning of dawn. I wasbeing kicked by a hard naked heel in the ribs. What of theenormousness of the drink I had consumed, the feelings aroused inme by the heel were not pleasant. The kanakas and wahines of thedrinking were gone. I alone remained among the sleeping sailormen,the giant harpooner snoring like a whale, his head upon my feet."More heel-kicks, and I sat up and was sick. But the one whokicked was impatient, and demanded to know where was Anapuni. AndI did not know, and was kicked, this time from both sides by twoimpatient men, because I did not know. Nor did I know thatKahekili was dead. Yet did I guess something serious was afoot,for the two men who kicked me were chiefs, and no common mencrouched behind them to do their bidding. One was Aimoku, ofKaneche; the other Humuhumu, of Manoa."They commanded me to go with them, and they were not kind in theircommanding; and as I uprose, the head of the giant harpooner wasrolled off my feet, past the edge of the mat, into the sand. Hegrunted like a pig, his lips opened, and all of his tongue rolledout of his mouth into the sand. Nor did he draw it back. For thefirst time I knew how long was a man's tongue. The sight of thesand on it made me sick for the second time. It is a terriblething, the next day after a night of drinking. I was afire, dryafire, all the inside of me like a burnt cinder, like aa lava, likethe harpooner's tongue dry and gritty with sand. I bent for ahalf-drunk drinking coconut, but Aimoku kicked it out of my shakingfingers, and Humuhumu smote me with the heel of his hand on myneck."They walked before me, side by side, their faces solemn and black,and I walked at their heels. My mouth stank of the drink, and myhead was sick with the stale fumes of it, and I would have cut offmy right hand for a drink of water, one drink, a mouthful even.And, had I had it, I know it would have sizzled in my belly likewater spilled on heated stones for the roasting. It is terrible,the next day after the drinking. All the life-time of many men whodied young has passed by me since the last I was able to do suchmad drinking of youth when youth knows not capacity and isundeterred."But as we went on, I began to know that some alii was dead. Nokanakas lay asleep in the sand, nor stole home from their love-making; and no canoes were abroad after the early fish mostcatchable then inside the reef at the change of the tide. When wecame, past the hoiau" (temple), "to where the Great Kamehameha usedto haul out his brigs and schooners, I saw, under the canoe-sheds,that the mat-thatches of Kahekili's great double canoe had beentaken off, and that even then, at low tide, many men were launchingit down across the sand into the water. But all these men werechiefs. And, though my eyes swam, and the inside of my head wentaround and around, and the inside of my body was a cinder athirst,I guessed that the alii who was dead was Kahekili. For he was old,and most likely of the aliis to be dead.""It was his death, as I have heard it, more than the intercessionof Kekuanaoa, that spoiled Governor Boki's rebellion," Hardman Poolobserved."It was Kahekili's death that spoiled it," Kumuhana confirmed."All commoners, when the word slipped out that night of his death,fled into the shelter of the grass houses, nor lighted fire norpipes, nor breathed loudly, being therein and thereby taboo fromuse for sacrifice. And all Governor Boki's commoners of fightingmen, as well as the haole deserters from ships, so fled, so thatthe brass guns lay unserved and his handful of chiefs of themselvescould do nothing."Aimoku and Humuhumu made me sit on the sand to the side from thelaunching of the great double-canoe. And when it was afloat allthe chiefs were athirst, not being used to such toil; and I wastold to climb the palms beside the canoe-sheds and throw downdrink-coconuts. They drank and were refreshed, but me they refusedto let drink."Then they bore Kahekili from his house to the canoe in a haolecoffin, oiled and varnished and new. It had been made by a ship'scarpenter, who thought he was making a boat that must not leak. Itwas very tight, and over where the face of Kahekili lay was nothingbut thin glass. The chiefs had not screwed on the outside plank tocover the glass. Maybe they did not know the manner of haolecoffins; but at any rate I was to be glad they did not know, as youshall see."'There is but one moepuu,' said the priest Eoppo, looking at mewhere I sat on the coffin in the bottom of the canoe. Already thechiefs were paddling out through the reef."'The other has run into hiding,' Aimoku answered. 'This one wasall we could get.'"And then I knew. I knew everything. I was to be sacrificed.Anapuni had been planned for the other sacrifice. That was whatMalia had whispered to Anapuni at the drinking. And she had beendragged away before she could tell me. And in his blackness ofheart he had not told me."'There should be two,' said Eoppo. 'It is the law.'"Aimoku stopped paddling and looked back shoreward as if to returnand get a second sacrifice. But several of the chiefs contendedno, saying that all commoners were fled to the mountains or werelying taboo in their houses, and that it might take days beforethey could catch one. In the end Eoppo gave in, though he grumbledfrom time to time that the law required two moepuus."We paddled on, past Diamond Head and abreast of Koko Head, till wewere in the midway of the Molokai Channel. There was quite a searunning, though the trade wind was blowing light. The chiefsrested from their paddles, save for the steersmen who kept thecanoes bow-on to the wind and swell. And, ere they proceededfurther in the matter, they opened more coconuts and drank."'I do not mind so much being the moepuu,' I said to Humuhumu; 'butI should like to have a drink before I am slain.' I got no drink.But I spoke true. I was too sick of the much whisky and rum to beafraid to die. At least my mouth would stink no more, nor my headache, nor the inside of me be as dry-hot sand. Almost worst ofall, I suffered at thought of the harpooner's tongue, as last I hadseen it lying on the sand and covered with sand. O Kanaka Oolea,what animals young men are with the drink! Not until they havegrown old, like you and me, do they control their wantonness ofthirst and drink sparingly, like you and me.""Because we have to," Hardman Pool rejoined. "Old stomachs areworn thin and tender, and we drink sparingly because we dare notdrink more. We are wise, but the wisdom is bitter.""The priest Eoppo sang a long mele about Kahekili's mother and hismother's mother, and all their mothers all the way back to thebeginning of time," Kumuhana resumed. "And it seemed I must die ofmy sand-hot dryness ere he was done. And he called upon all thegods of the under world, the middle world and the over world, tocare for and cherish the dead alii about to be consigned to them,and to carry out the curses--they were terrible curses--he laidupon all living men and men to live after who might tamper with thebones of Kahekili to use them in sport of vermin-slaying."Do you know, Kanaka Oolea, the priest talked a language largelydifferent, and I know it was the priest language, the old language.Maui he did not name Maui, but Maui-Tiki-Tiki and Maui-Po-Tiki.And Hina, the goddess-mother of Maui, he named Ina. And Maui'sgod-father he named sometimes Akalana and sometimes Kanaloa.Strange how one about to die and very thirsty should remember suchthings! And I remember the priest named Hawaii as Vaii, and Lanaias Ngangai.""Those were the Maori names," Hardman Pool explained, "and theSamoan and Tongan names, that the priests brought with them intheir first voyages from the south in the long ago when they foundHawaii and settled to dwell upon it.""Great is your wisdom, O Kanaka Oolea," the old man accordedsolemnly. "Ku, our Supporter of the Heavens, the priest named Tu,and also Ru; and La, our God of the Sun, he named Ra--""And Ra was a sun-god in Egypt in the long ago," Pool interruptedwith a sparkle of interest. "Truly, you Polynesians have travelledfar in time and space since first you began. A far cry it is fromOld Egypt, when Atlantis was still afloat, to Young Hawaii in theNorth Pacific. But proceed, Kumuhana. Do you remember anythingalso of what the priest Eoppo sang?""At the very end," came the confirming nod, "though I was near deadmyself, and nearer to die under the priest's knife, he sang what Ihave remembered every word of. Listen! It was thus."And in quavering falsetto, with the customary broken-notes, the oldman sang."A Maori death-chant unmistakable," Pool exclaimed, "sung by anHawaiian with a tattooed tongue! Repeat it once again, and I shallsay it to you in English."And when it had been repeated, he spoke it slowly in English:"But death is nothing new.Death is and has been ever since old Maui died.Then Pata-tai laughed loudAnd woke the goblin-god,Who severed him in two, and shut him in,So dusk of eve came on.""And at the last," Kumuhana resumed, "I was not slain. Eoppo, thekilling knife in hand and ready to lift for the blow, did not lift.And I? How did I feel and think? Often, Kanaka Oolea, have Isince laughed at the memory of it. I felt very thirsty. I did notwant to die. I wanted a drink of water. I knew I was going todie, and I kept remembering the thousand waterfalls falling towaste down the pans" (precipices) "of the windward KoolauMountains. I did not think of Anapuni. I was too thirsty. I didnot think of Malia. I was too thirsty. But continually, inside myhead, I saw the tongue of the harpooner, covered dry with sand, asI had last seen it, lying in the sand. My tongue was like that,too. And in the bottom of the canoe rolled about many drinkingnuts. Yet I did not attempt to drink, for these were chiefs and Iwas a common man."'No,' said Eoppo, commanding the chiefs to throw overboard thecoffin. 'There are not two moepuus, therefore there shall benone.'"'Slay the one,' the chiefs cried."But Eoppo shook his head, and said: 'We cannot send Kahekili onhis way with only the tops of the taro.'"'Half a fish is better than none,' Aimoku said the old saying."'Not at the burying of an alii,' was the priest's quick reply.'It is the law. We cannot be niggard with Kahekili and cut hisallotment of sacrifice in half.'"So, for the moment, while the coffin went overside, I was notslain. And it was strange that I was glad immediately that I wasto live. And I began to remember Malia, and to begin to plot avengeance on Anapuni. And with the blood of life thus fresheningin me, my thirst multiplied on itself tenfold and my tongue andmouth and throat seemed as sanded as the tongue of the harpooner.The coffin being overboard, I was sitting in the bottom of thecanoe. A coconut rolled between my legs and I closed them on it.But as I picked it up in my hand, Aimoku smote my hand with thepaddle-edge. Behold!"He held up the hand, showing two fingers crooked from never havingbeen set."I had no time to vex over my pain, for worse things were upon me.All the chiefs were crying out in horror. The coffin, head-end up,had not sunk. It bobbed up and down in the sea astern of us. Andthe canoe, without way on it, bow-on to sea and wind, was drifteddown by sea and wind upon the coffin. And the glass of it was tous, so that we could see the face and head of Kahekili through theglass; and he grinned at us through the glass and seemed alivealready in the other world and angry with us, and, with other-worldpower, about to wreak his anger upon us. Up and down he bobbed,and the canoe drifted closer upon him."'Kill him!' 'Bleed him!' 'Thrust to the heart of him!' Thesethings the chiefs were crying out to Eoppo in their fear. 'Overwith the taro tops!' 'Let the alii have the half of a fish!'"Eoppo, priest though he was, was likewise afraid, and his reasonweakened before the sight of Kahekili in his haole coffin thatwould not sink. He seized me by the hair, drew me to my feet, andlifted the knife to plunge to my heart. And there was noresistance in me. I knew again only that I was very thirsty, andbefore my swimming eyes, in mid-air and close up, dangled thesanded tongue of the harpooner."But before the knife could fall and drive in, the thing happenedthat saved me. Akai, half-brother to Governor Boki, as you willremember, was steersman of the canoe, and, therefore, in the stern,was nearest to the coffin and its dead that would not sink. He waswild with fear, and he thrust out with the point of his paddle tofend off the coffined alii that seemed bent to come on board. Thepoint of the paddle struck the glass. The glass broke--""And the coffin immediately sank," Hardman Pool broke in; "the airthat floated it escaping through the broken glass.""The coffin immediately sank, being builded by the ship's carpenterlike a boat," Kumuhana confirmed. "And I, who was a moepuu, becamea man once more. And I lived, though I died a thousand deaths fromthirst before we gained back to the beach at Waikiki."And so, O Kanaka Oolea, the bones of Kahekili do not lie in theRoyal Mausoleum. They are at the bottom of Molokai Channel, ifnot, long since, they have become floating dust of slime, or,builded into the bodies of the coral creatures dead and gone, arebuilded into the coral reef itself. Of men I am the one living whosaw the bones of Kahekili sink into the Molokai Channel."In the pause that followed, wherein Hardman Pool was deep sunk inmeditation, Kumuhana licked his dry lips many times. At the lasthe broke silence:"The twelve dollars, Kanaka Oolea, for the jackass and the second-hand saddle and bridle?""The twelve dollars would be thine," Pool responded, passing to theancient one six dollars and a half, "save that I have in my stablejunk the very bridle and saddle for you which I shall give you.These six dollars and a half will buy you the perfectly suitablejackass of the pake" (Chinese) "at Kokako who told me onlyyesterday that such was the price."They sat on, Pool meditating, conning over and over to himself theMaori death-chant he had heard, and especially the line, "So duskof eve came on," finding in it an intense satisfaction of beauty;Kumuhana licking his lips and tokening that he waited for somethingmore. At last he broke silence."I have talked long, O Kanaka Oolea. There is not the enduringmoistness in my mouth that was when I was young. It seems thatafresh upon me is the thirst that was mine when tormented by thevisioned tongue of the harpooner. The gin and milk is very good, OKanaka Oolea, for a tongue that is like the harpooner's."A shadow of a smile flickered across Pool's face. He clapped hishands, and the little maid came running."Bring one glass of gin and milk for old Kumuhana," commandedHardman Pool.WAIKIKI, HONOLULUJune 28, 1916.
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