Near day she came to her mind again, and returned to the house.  It was
even as the old man said—Keawe slumbered like a child.  Kokua stood and
gazed upon his face.

“Now, my husband,” said she, “it is your turn to sleep.  When you wake it
will be your turn to sing and laugh.  But for poor Kokua, alas! that
meant no evil—for poor Kokua no more sleep, no more singing, no more
delight, whether in earth or heaven.”

With that she lay down in the bed by his side, and her misery was so
extreme that she fell in a deep slumber instantly.

Late in the morning her husband woke her and gave her the good news.  It
seemed he was silly with delight, for he paid no heed to her distress,
ill though she dissembled it.  The words stuck in her mouth, it mattered
not; Keawe did the speaking.  She ate not a bite, but who was to observe
it? for Keawe cleared the dish.  Kokua saw and heard him, like some
strange thing in a dream; there were times when she forgot or doubted,
and put her hands to her brow; to know herself doomed and hear her
husband babble, seemed so monstrous.

All the while Keawe was eating and talking, and planning the time of
their return, and thanking her for saving him, and fondling her, and
calling her the true helper after all.  He laughed at the old man that
was fool enough to buy that bottle.

“A worthy old man he seemed,” Keawe said.  “But no one can judge by
appearances.  For why did the old reprobate require the bottle?”

“My husband,” said Kokua, humbly, “his purpose may have been good.”

Keawe laughed like an angry man.

“Fiddle-de-dee!” cried Keawe.  “An old rogue, I tell you; and an old ass
to boot.  For the bottle was hard enough to sell at four centimes; and at
three it will be quite impossible.  The margin is not broad enough, the
thing begins to smell of scorching—brrr!” said he, and shuddered.  “It is
true I bought it myself at a cent, when I knew not there were smaller
coins.  I was a fool for my pains; there will never be found another: and
whoever has that bottle now will carry it to the pit.”

“O my husband!” said Kokua.  “Is it not a terrible thing to save oneself
by the eternal ruin of another?  It seems to me I could not laugh.  I
would be humbled.  I would be filled with melancholy.  I would pray for
the poor holder.”

Then Keawe, because he felt the truth of what she said, grew the more
angry.  “Heighty-teighty!” cried he.  “You may be filled with melancholy
if you please.  It is not the mind of a good wife.  If you thought at all
of me, you would sit shamed.”

Thereupon he went out, and Kokua was alone.

What chance had she to sell that bottle at two centimes?  None, she
perceived.  And if she had any, 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.