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be like music in the eternal ear of God, being too slow of
occurrence 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 a
call, Kanaka Oolea, that is without sound yet is louder than the
conches of God? So called she to me across that circle of the
drinking. I half arose, for I was not yet full drunken; but
Anapuni's arm caught her and drew her, and I sank back on my elbow
and watched and raged. He was for making her sit beside him, and I
waited. Did she sit, and, next, dance with him, I knew that ere
morning Anapuni would be a dead man, choked and drowned by me in
the 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 of
life," Pool concurred. "Else would there be neither men nor
women."
"Yes," said Kumuhana. "But it is many a year now since the last of
such heat has gone out of me. I remember it as one remembers an
old sunrise--a thing that was. And so one grows old, and cold, and
drinks gin, not for madness, but for warmth. And the milk is very
nourishing.
"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 his
ear. 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 my
head till scarcely could I half-see. And I willed myself with all
the will of me that if, in short minutes, she did not come over to
me, I would go across the circle and get her.
"It was one of the things never to be. You remember Chief
Konukalani? Himself he strode up to the circle. His face was
black with anger. He gripped Malia, not by the arm, but by the
hair, and dragged her away behind him and was gone. Of that, even
now, can I understand not the half. I, who was for slaying Anapuni
because of her, raised neither hand nor voice of protest when
Konukalani dragged her away by the hair--nor did Anapuni. Of
course, we were common men, and he was a chief. That I know. But
why should two common men, mad with desire of woman, with desire of
woman stronger in them than desire of life, let any one chief, even
the highest in the land, drag the woman away by the hair? Desiring
her more than life, why should the two men fear to slay then and
immediately 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 men
are fools, and therefore must be taken care of by the few men who
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are wise. Such is the secret of chiefship. In all the world are
chiefs over men. In all the world that has been have there ever
been chiefs, who must say to the many fool men: 'Do this; do not
do that. Work, and work as we tell you or your bellies will remain
empty and you will perish. Obey the laws we set you or you will be
beasts and without place in the world. You would not have been,
save for the chiefs before you who ordered and regulated for your
fathers. No seed of you will come after you, except that we order
and regulate for you now. You must be peace-abiding, and decent,
and blow your noses. You must be early to bed of nights, and up
early in the morning to work if you would heave beds to sleep in
and not roost in trees like the silly fowls. This is the season
for 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 or
some other day of the many careless days. You must not kill one
another, and you must leave your neighbours' wives alone. All this
is life for you, because you think but one day at a time, while we,
"Like a cloud on the mountain-top that comes down and wraps about
you 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 be
born a common man and live all my days a common man."
"That is because you were of yourself common," Hardman Pool assured
him. "When a man is born common, and is by nature uncommon, he
rises up and overthrows the chiefs and makes himself chief over the
chiefs. Why do you not run my ranch, with its many thousands of
cattle, and shift the pastures by the rain-fall, and pick the
bulls, and arrange the bargaining and the selling of the meat to
the sailing ships and war vessels and the people who live in the
Honolulu houses, and fight with lawyers, and help make laws, and
even tell the King what is wise for him to do and what is
dangerous? Why does not any man do this that I do? Any man of all
the men who work for me, feed out of my hand, and let me do their
thinking for them--me, who work harder than any of them, who eats
no more than any of them, and who can sleep on no more than one
lauhala mat at a time like any of them?"
"I am out of the cloud, Kanaka Oolea," said Kumuhana, with a
visible brightening of countenance. "More clearly do I see. All
my 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 your
kitchen now. Many people eat in your kitchen, and the days of
feasts 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 of
strength is not worth a shilling a week, and ask of you twelve
dollars to buy a jackass and a second-hand saddle and bridle. It
is why twice ten fool men of us, under these monkey-pods half an
hour ago, asked of you a dollar or two, or four or five, or ten or
twelve. We are the careless ones of the careless days who will not
plant the yam in season if our alii does not compel us, who will
not think one day for ourselves, and who, when we age to
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worthlessness, know that our alii will think kow-kow into our
bellies and a grass thatch over our heads.
Hardman Pool bowed his appreciation, and urged:
"But the bones of Kahekili. The Chief Konukalani had just dragged
away Malia by the hair of the head, and you and Anapuni sat on
without protest in the circle of drinking. What was it Malia
whispered in Anapuni's ear, bending over him, her hair hiding the
face of him?"
"That Kahekili was dead. That was what she whispered to Anapuni.
That Kahekili was dead, just dead, and that the chiefs, ordering
all within the house to remain within, were debating the disposal
of the bones and
meat of him before word of his death should get
abroad. That the high priest Eoppo was deciding them, and that she
had overheard no less than Anapuni and me chosen as the sacrifices
to go the way of Kahekili and his bones and to care for him
afterward and for ever in the shadowy other world."
"The moepuu, the human sacrifice," Pool commented. "Yet it was
nine years since the coming of the missionaries."
"And it was the year before their coming that the idols were cast
down and the taboos broken," Kumuhana added. "But the chiefs still
practised the old ways, the custom of hunakele, and hid the bones
of the aliis where no men should find them and make fish-hooks of
their jaws or arrow heads of their long bones for the slaying of
little mice in sport. Behold, O Kanaka Oolea!"
The old man thrust out his tongue; and, to Pool's amazement, he saw
the surface of that sensitive organ, from root to tip, tattooed in
intricate designs.
"That was done after the missionaries came, several years
afterward, when Keopuolani died. Also, did I knock out four of my
front teeth, and half-circles did I burn over my body with blazing
bark. And whoever ventured out-of-doors that night was slain by
the chiefs. Nor could a light be shown in a house or a whisper of
noise be made. Even dogs and hogs that made a noise were slain,
nor all that night were the ships' bells of the haoles in the
harbour allowed to strike. It was a terrible thing in those days
when an alii died.
"But the night that Kahekili died. We sat on in the drinking
circle after Konukalani dragged Malia away by the hair. Some of
the haole sailors grumbled; but they were few in the land in those
days 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 dare
to question him?
"Now she had told Anapuni before she was dragged away. But
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Anapuni's heart was black. Me he did not tell. Worthy he was of
the killing I had intended for him. There was a giant harpooner in
the 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 the
bird-catchers a week of moons. This I learned afterward.
"I? I sat on, ashamed of my desire of woman that had not been so
strong as my slave-obedience to a chief. And I drowned my shame in
large drinks of rum and whisky, till the world went round and
round, inside my head and out, and the Southern Cross danced a hula
in the sky, and the Koolau Mountains bowed their lofty summits to
Waikiki and the surf of Waikiki kissed them on their brows. And
the giant harpooner was still roaring, his the last sounds in my
ear, as I fell back on the lauhala mat, and was to all things for
the time as one dead.
"When I awoke was at the faint first beginning of dawn. I was
being kicked by a hard naked heel in the ribs. What of the
enormousness of the drink I had consumed, the feelings aroused in
me by the heel were not pleasant. The kanakas and wahines of the
drinking 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 who
kicked was impatient, and demanded to know where was Anapuni. And
I did not know, and was kicked, this time from both sides by two
impatient men, because I did not know. Nor did I know that
Kahekili was dead. Yet did I guess something serious was afoot,
for the two men who kicked me were chiefs, and no common men
crouched behind them to do their bidding. One was Aimoku, of
Kaneche; the other Humuhumu, of Manoa.
"They commanded me to go with them, and they were not kind in their
commanding; and as I uprose, the head of the giant harpooner was
rolled off my feet, past the edge of the mat, into the sand. He
grunted like a pig, his lips opened, and all of his tongue rolled
out of his mouth into the sand. Nor did he draw it back. For the
first time I knew how long was a man's tongue. The sight of the
sand on it made me sick for the second time. It is a terrible
thing, the next day after a night of drinking. I was afire, dry
afire, all the inside of me like a burnt cinder, like aa lava, like
the harpooner's tongue dry and gritty with sand. I bent for a
half-drunk drinking coconut, but Aimoku kicked it out of my shaking
fingers, and Humuhumu smote me with the heel of his hand on my
neck.
"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 my
head was sick with the stale fumes of it, and I would have cut off
my 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 like
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water spilled on heated stones for the roasting. It is terrible,
the next day after the drinking. All the life-time of many men who
died young has passed by me since the last I was able to do such
mad drinking of youth when youth knows not capacity and is
undeterred.
"But as we went on, I began to know that some alii was dead. No
kanakas lay asleep in the sand, nor stole home from their love-
making; and no canoes were abroad after the early fish most
catchable then inside the reef at the change of the tide. When we
came, past the hoiau" (temple), "to where the Great Kamehameha used
to haul out his brigs and schooners, I saw, under the canoe-sheds,
that the mat-thatches of Kahekili's great double canoe had been
taken off, and that even then, at low tide, many men were launching
it down across the sand into the water. But all these men were
chiefs. And, though my eyes swam, and the inside of my head went
around 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 intercession
of Kekuanaoa, that spoiled Governor Boki's rebellion," Hardman Pool
observed.
"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 nor
pipes, nor breathed loudly, being therein and thereby taboo from
use for sacrifice. And all Governor Boki's commoners of fighting
men, as well as the haole deserters from ships, so fled, so that
the brass guns lay unserved and his handful of chiefs of themselves
could do nothing.
"Aimoku and Humuhumu made me
sit on the sand to the side from the
launching of the great double-canoe. And when it was afloat all
the chiefs were athirst, not being used to such toil; and I was
told to climb the palms beside the canoe-sheds and throw down
drink-coconuts. They drank and were refreshed, but me they refused
to let drink.
"Then they bore Kahekili from his house to the canoe in a haole
coffin, oiled and varnished and new. It had been made by a ship's
carpenter, who thought he was making a boat that must not leak. It
was very tight, and over where the face of Kahekili lay was nothing
but thin glass. The chiefs had not screwed on the outside plank to
cover the glass. Maybe they did not know the manner of haole
coffins; but at any rate I was to be glad they did not know, as you
shall see.
"'There is but one moepuu,' said the priest Eoppo, looking at me
where I sat on the coffin in the bottom of the canoe. Already the
chiefs were paddling out through the reef.
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"'The other has run into hiding,' Aimoku answered. 'This one was
all 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 what
Malia had whispered to Anapuni at the drinking. And she had been
dragged away before she could tell me. And in his blackness of
heart 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 return
and get a second sacrifice. But several of the chiefs contended
no, saying that all commoners were fled to the mountains or were
lying taboo in their houses, and that it might take days before
they could catch one. In the end Eoppo gave in, though he grumbled
from time to time that the law required two moepuus.
"We paddled on, past Diamond Head and abreast of Koko Head, till we
were in the midway of the Molokai Channel. There was quite a sea
running, though the trade wind was blowing light. The chiefs
rested from their paddles, save for the steersmen who kept the
canoes bow-on to the wind and swell. And, ere they proceeded
further in the matter, they opened more coconuts and drank.
"'I do not mind so much being the moepuu,' I said to Humuhumu; 'but
I should like to have a drink before I am slain.' I got no drink.