Island Nights' Entertainments
by
Robert Louis Stevenson

Part 3 out of 3



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, here 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 struck 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?" 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.




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 the 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 from 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 lock-fast 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 lock-fast 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 further 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 stopping.

"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's 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 spied 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 I 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 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 Kau, 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, "its 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 all
be 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 cocoanuts, 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 slide 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 seaside 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 seaside 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
cocoanut 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. Oh, that is a fine place indeed! The
trader has barrels filled with flour, and a French warship 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 feel 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 awhile 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?


Footnotes:

(1) Please pronounce PAPPA throughout.
(2) Alas!
(3) Aeolian
(4) Yes.
(5) Leprosy.
(6) Whites.






 


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