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diff --git a/old/hsprd10.txt b/old/hsprd10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d38d60 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/hsprd10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3622 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The House of Pride and Other Tales of Hawaii +#89 in our series by Jack London + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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Yet he knew them all--gliding and +revolving there on the broad lanai of the Seaside, the officers in +their fresh-starched uniforms of white, the civilians in white and +black, and the women bare of shoulders and arms. After two years in +Honolulu the Twentieth was departing to its new station in Alaska, +and Percival Ford, as one of the big men of the Islands, could not +help knowing the officers and their women. + +But between knowing and liking was a vast gulf. The army women +frightened him just a little. They were in ways quite different +from the women he liked best--the elderly women, the spinsters and +the bespectacled maidens, and the very serious women of all ages +whom he met on church and library and kindergarten committees, who +came meekly to him for contributions and advice. He ruled those +women by virtue of his superior mentality, his great wealth, and the +high place he occupied in the commercial baronage of Hawaii. And he +was not afraid of them in the least. Sex, with them, was not +obtrusive. Yes, that was it. There was in them something else, or +more, than the assertive grossness of life. He was fastidious; he +acknowledged that to himself; and these army women, with their bare +shoulders and naked arms, their straight-looking eyes, their +vitality and challenging femaleness, jarred upon his sensibilities. + +Nor did he get on better with the army men, who took life lightly, +drinking and smoking and swearing their way through life and +asserting the essential grossness of flesh no less shamelessly than +their women. He was always uncomfortable in the company of the army +men. They seemed uncomfortable, too. And he felt, always, that +they were laughing at him up their sleeves, or pitying him, or +tolerating him. Then, too, they seemed, by mere contiguity, to +emphasize a lack in him, to call attention to that in them which he +did not possess and which he thanked God he did not possess. Faugh! +They were like their women! + +In fact, Percival Ford was no more a woman's man than he was a man's +man. A glance at him told the reason. He had a good constitution, +never was on intimate terms with sickness, nor even mild disorders; +but he lacked vitality. His was a negative organism. No blood with +a ferment in it could have nourished and shaped that long and narrow +face, those thin lips, lean cheeks, and the small, sharp eyes. The +thatch of hair, dust-coloured, straight and sparse, advertised the +niggard soil, as did the nose, thin, delicately modelled, and just +hinting the suggestion of a beak. His meagre blood had denied him +much of life, and permitted him to be an extremist in one thing +only, which thing was righteousness. Over right conduct he pondered +and agonized, and that he should do right was as necessary to his +nature as loving and being loved were necessary to commoner clay. + +He was sitting under the algaroba trees between the lanai and the +beach. His eyes wandered over the dancers and he turned his head +away and gazed seaward across the mellow-sounding surf to the +Southern Cross burning low on the horizon. He was irritated by the +bare shoulders and arms of the women. If he had a daughter he would +never permit it, never. But his hypothesis was the sheerest +abstraction. The thought process had been accompanied by no inner +vision of that daughter. He did not see a daughter with arms and +shoulders. Instead, he smiled at the remote contingency of +marriage. He was thirty-five, and, having had no personal +experience of love, he looked upon it, not as mythical, but as +bestial. Anybody could marry. The Japanese and Chinese coolies, +toiling on the sugar plantations and in the rice-fields, married. +They invariably married at the first opportunity. It was because +they were so low in the scale of life. There was nothing else for +them to do. They were like the army men and women. But for him +there were other and higher things. He was different from them-- +from all of them. He was proud of how he happened to be. He had +come of no petty love-match. He had come of lofty conception of +duty and of devotion to a cause. His father had not married for +love. Love was a madness that had never perturbed Isaac Ford. When +he answered the call to go to the heathen with the message of life, +he had had no thought and no desire for marriage. In this they were +alike, his father and he. But the Board of Missions was economical. +With New England thrift it weighed and measured and decided that +married missionaries were less expensive per capita and more +efficacious. So the Board commanded Isaac Ford to marry. +Furthermore, it furnished him with a wife, another zealous soul with +no thought of marriage, intent only on doing the Lord's work among +the heathen. They saw each other for the first time in Boston. The +Board brought them together, arranged everything, and by the end of +the week they were married and started on the long voyage around the +Horn. + +Percival Ford was proud that he had come of such a union. He had +been born high, and he thought of himself as a spiritual aristocrat. +And he was proud of his father. It was a passion with him. The +erect, austere figure of Isaac Ford had burned itself upon his +pride. On his desk was a miniature of that soldier of the Lord. In +his bedroom hung the portrait of Isaac Ford, painted at the time +when he had served under the Monarchy as prime minister. Not that +Isaac Ford had coveted place and worldly wealth, but that, as prime +minister, and, later, as banker, he had been of greater service to +the missionary cause. The German crowd, and the English crowd, and +all the rest of the trading crowd, had sneered at Isaac Ford as a +commercial soul-saver; but he, his son, knew different. When the +natives, emerging abruptly from their feudal system, with no +conception of the nature and significance of property in land, were +letting their broad acres slip through their fingers, it was Isaac +Ford who had stepped in between the trading crowd and its prey and +taken possession of fat, vast holdings. Small wonder the trading +crowd did not like his memory. But he had never looked upon his +enormous wealth as his own. He had considered himself God's +steward. Out of the revenues he had built schools, and hospitals, +and churches. Nor was it his fault that sugar, after the slump, had +paid forty per cent; that the bank he founded had prospered into a +railroad; and that, among other things, fifty thousand acres of Oahu +pasture land, which he had bought for a dollar an acre, grew eight +tons of sugar to the acre every eighteen months. No, in all truth, +Isaac Ford was an heroic figure, fit, so Percival Ford thought +privately, to stand beside the statue of Kamehameha I. in front of +the Judiciary Building. Isaac Ford was gone, but he, his son, +carried on the good work at least as inflexibly if not as +masterfully. + +He turned his eyes back to the lanai. What was the difference, he +asked himself, between the shameless, grass-girdled hula dances and +the decollete dances of the women of his own race? Was there an +essential difference? or was it a matter of degree? + +As he pondered the problem a hand rested on his shoulder. + +"Hello, Ford, what are you doing here? Isn't this a bit festive?" + +"I try to be lenient, Dr. Kennedy, even as I look on," Percival Ford +answered gravely. "Won't you sit down?" + +Dr. Kennedy sat down, clapping his palms sharply. A white-clad +Japanese servant answered swiftly. + +Scotch and soda was Kennedy's order; then, turning to the other, he +said:- + +"Of course, I don't ask you." + +"But I will take something," Ford said firmly. The doctor's eyes +showed surprise, and the servant waited. "Boy, a lemonade, please." + +The doctor laughed at it heartily, as a joke on himself, and glanced +at the musicians under the hau tree. + +"Why, it's the Aloha Orchestra," he said. "I thought they were with +the Hawaiian Hotel on Tuesday nights. Some rumpus, I guess." + +His eyes paused for a moment, and dwelt upon the one who was playing +a guitar and singing a Hawaiian song to the accompaniment of all the +instruments. + +His face became grave as he looked at the singer, and it was still +grave as he turned it to his companion. + +"Look here, Ford, isn't it time you let up on Joe Garland? I +understand you are in opposition to the Promotion Committee's +sending him to the States on this surf-board proposition, and I've +been wanting to speak to you about it. I should have thought you'd +be glad to get him out of the country. It would be a good way to +end your persecution of him." + +"Persecution?" Percival Ford's eyebrows lifted interrogatively. + +"Call it by any name you please," Kennedy went on. "You've hounded +that poor devil for years. It's not his fault. Even you will admit +that." + +"Not his fault?" Percival Ford's thin lips drew tightly together +for the moment. "Joe Garland is dissolute and idle. He has always +been a wastrel, a profligate." + +"But that's no reason you should keep on after him the way you do. +I've watched you from the beginning. The first thing you did when +you returned from college and found him working on the plantation as +outside luna was to fire him--you with your millions, and he with +his sixty dollars a month." + +"Not the first thing," Percival Ford said judicially, in a tone he +was accustomed to use in committee meetings. "I gave him his +warning. The superintendent said he was a capable luna. I had no +objection to him on that ground. It was what he did outside working +hours. He undid my work faster than I could build it up. Of what +use were the Sunday schools, the night schools, and the sewing +classes, when in the evenings there was Joe Garland with his +infernal and eternal tum-tumming of guitar and ukulele, his strong +drink, and his hula dancing? After I warned him, I came upon him--I +shall never forget it--came upon him, down at the cabins. It was +evening. I could hear the hula songs before I saw the scene. And +when I did see it, there were the girls, shameless in the moonlight +and dancing--the girls upon whom I had worked to teach clean living +and right conduct. And there were three girls there, I remember, +just graduated from the mission school. Of course I discharged Joe +Garland. I know it was the same at Hilo. People said I went out of +my way when I persuaded Mason and Fitch to discharge him. But it +was the missionaries who requested me to do so. He was undoing +their work by his reprehensible example." + +"Afterwards, when he got on the railroad, your railroad, he was +discharged without cause," Kennedy challenged. + +"Not so," was the quick answer. "I had him into my private office +and talked with him for half an hour." + +"You discharged him for inefficiency?" + +"For immoral living, if you please." + +Dr. Kennedy laughed with a grating sound. "Who the devil gave it to +you to be judge and jury? Does landlordism give you control of the +immortal souls of those that toil for you? I have been your +physician. Am I to expect tomorrow your ukase that I give up Scotch +and soda or your patronage? Bah! Ford, you take life too +seriously. Besides, when Joe got into that smuggling scrape (he +wasn't in your employ, either), and he sent word to you, asked you +to pay his fine, you left him to do his six months' hard labour on +the reef. Don't forget, you left Joe Garland in the lurch that +time. You threw him down, hard; and yet I remember the first day +you came to school--we boarded, you were only a day scholar--you had +to be initiated. Three times under in the swimming tank--you +remember, it was the regular dose every new boy got. And you held +back. You denied that you could swim. You were frightened, +hysterical--" + +"Yes, I know," Percival Ford said slowly. "I was frightened. And +it was a lie, for I could swim . . . And I was frightened." + +"And you remember who fought for you? who lied for you harder than +you could lie, and swore he knew you couldn't swim? Who jumped into +the tank and pulled you out after the first under and was nearly +drowned for it by the other boys, who had discovered by that time +that you COULD swim?" + +"Of course I know," the other rejoined coldly. "But a generous act +as a boy does not excuse a lifetime of wrong living." + +"He has never done wrong to you?--personally and directly, I mean?" + +"No," was Percival Ford's answer. "That is what makes my position +impregnable. I have no personal spite against him. He is bad, that +is all. His life is bad--" + +"Which is another way of saying that he does not agree with you in +the way life should be lived," the doctor interrupted. + +"Have it that way. It is immaterial. He is an idler--" + +"With reason," was the interruption, "considering the jobs out of +which you have knocked him." + +"He is immoral--" + +"Oh, hold on now, Ford. Don't go harping on that. You are pure New +England stock. Joe Garland is half Kanaka. Your blood is thin. +His is warm. Life is one thing to you, another thing to him. He +laughs and sings and dances through life, genial, unselfish, +childlike, everybody's friend. You go through life like a +perambulating prayer-wheel, a friend of nobody but the righteous, +and the righteous are those who agree with you as to what is right. +And after all, who shall say? You live like an anchorite. Joe +Garland lives like a good fellow. Who has extracted the most from +life? We are paid to live, you know. When the wages are too meagre +we throw up the job, which is the cause, believe me, of all rational +suicide. Joe Garland would starve to death on the wages you get +from life. You see, he is made differently. So would you starve on +his wages, which are singing, and love--" + +"Lust, if you will pardon me," was the interruption. + +Dr. Kennedy smiled. + +"Love, to you, is a word of four letters and a definition which you +have extracted from the dictionary. But love, real love, dewy and +palpitant and tender, you do not know. If God made you and me, and +men and women, believe me He made love, too. But to come back. +It's about time you quit hounding Joe Garland. It is not worthy of +you, and it is cowardly. The thing for you to do is to reach out +and lend him a hand." + +"Why I, any more than you?" the other demanded. "Why don't you +reach him a hand?" + +"I have. I'm reaching him a hand now. I'm trying to get you not to +down the Promotion Committee's proposition of sending him away. I +got him the job at Hilo with Mason and Fitch. I've got him half a +dozen jobs, out of every one of which you drove him. But never mind +that. Don't forget one thing--and a little frankness won't hurt +you--it is not fair play to saddle another fault on Joe Garland; and +you know that you, least of all, are the man to do it. Why, man, +it's not good taste. It's positively indecent." + +"Now I don't follow you," Percival Ford answered. "You're up in the +air with some obscure scientific theory of heredity and personal +irresponsibility. But how any theory can hold Joe Garland +irresponsible for his wrongdoings and at the same time hold me +personally responsible for them--more responsible than any one else, +including Joe Garland--is beyond me." + +"It's a matter of delicacy, I suppose, or of taste, that prevents +you from following me," Dr. Kennedy snapped out. "It's all very +well, for the sake of society, tacitly to ignore some things, but +you do more than tacitly ignore." + +"What is it, pray, that I tacitly ignore!" + +Dr. Kennedy was angry. A deeper red than that of constitutional +Scotch and soda suffused his face, as he answered: + +"Your father's son." + +"Now just what do you mean?" + +"Damn it, man, you can't ask me to be plainer spoken than that. But +if you will, all right--Isaac Ford's son--Joe Garland--your +brother." + +Percival Ford sat quietly, an annoyed and shocked expression on his +face. Kennedy looked at him curiously, then, as the slow minutes +dragged by, became embarrassed and frightened. + +"My God!" he cried finally, "you don't mean to tell me that you +didn't know!" + +As in answer, Percival Ford's cheeks turned slowly grey. + +"It's a ghastly joke," he said; "a ghastly joke." + +The doctor had got himself in hand. + +"Everybody knows it," he said. "I thought you knew it. And since +you don't know it, it's time you did, and I'm glad of the chance of +setting you straight. Joe Garland and you are brothers--half- +brothers." + +"It's a lie," Ford cried. "You don't mean it. Joe Garland's mother +was Eliza Kunilio." (Dr. Kennedy nodded.) "I remember her well, +with her duck pond and taro patch. His father was Joseph Garland, +the beach-comber." (Dr. Kennedy shook his head.) "He died only two +or three years ago. He used to get drunk. There's where Joe got +his dissoluteness. There's the heredity for you." + +"And nobody told you," Kennedy said wonderingly, after a pause. + +"Dr. Kennedy, you have said something terrible, which I cannot allow +to pass. You must either prove or, or . . . " + +"Prove it yourself. Turn around and look at him. You've got him in +profile. Look at his nose. That's Isaac Ford's. Yours is a thin +edition of it. That's right. Look. The lines are fuller, but they +are all there." + +Percival Ford looked at the Kanaka half-breed who played under the +hau tree, and it seemed, as by some illumination, that he was gazing +on a wraith of himself. Feature after feature flashed up an +unmistakable resemblance. Or, rather, it was he who was the wraith +of that other full-muscled and generously moulded man. And his +features, and that other man's features, were all reminiscent of +Isaac Ford. And nobody had told him. Every line of Isaac Ford's +face he knew. Miniatures, portraits, and photographs of his father +were passing in review through his mind, and here and there, over +and again, in the face before him, he caught resemblances and vague +hints of likeness. It was devil's work that could reproduce the +austere features of Isaac Ford in the loose and sensuous features +before him. Once, the man turned, and for one flashing instant it +seemed to Percival Ford that he saw his father, dead and gone, +peering at him out of the face of Joe Garland. + +"It's nothing at all," he could faintly hear Dr. Kennedy saying, +"They were all mixed up in the old days. You know that. You've +seen it all your life. Sailors married queens and begat princesses +and all the rest of it. It was the usual thing in the Islands." + +"But not with my father," Percival Ford interrupted. + +"There you are." Kennedy shrugged his shoulders. "Cosmic sap and +smoke of life. Old Isaac Ford was straitlaced and all the rest, and +I know there's no explaining it, least of all to himself. He +understood it no more than you do. Smoke of life, that's all. And +don't forget one thing, Ford. There was a dab of unruly blood in +old Isaac Ford, and Joe Garland inherited it--all of it, smoke of +life and cosmic sap; while you inherited all of old Isaac's ascetic +blood. And just because your blood is cold, well-ordered, and well- +disciplined, is no reason that you should frown upon Joe Garland. +When Joe Garland undoes the work you do, remember that it is only +old Isaac Ford on both sides, undoing with one hand what he does +with the other. You are Isaac Ford's right hand, let us say; Joe +Garland is his left hand." + +Percival Ford made no answer, and in the silence Dr. Kennedy +finished his forgotten Scotch and soda. From across the grounds an +automobile hooted imperatively. + +"There's the machine," Dr. Kennedy said, rising. "I've got to run. +I'm sorry I've shaken you up, and at the same time I'm glad. And +know one thing, Isaac Ford's dab of unruly blood was remarkably +small, and Joe Garland got it all. And one other thing. If your +father's left hand offend you, don't smite it off. Besides, Joe is +all right. Frankly, if I could choose between you and him to live +with me on a desert isle, I'd choose Joe." + +Little bare-legged children ran about him, playing, on the grass; +but Percival Ford did not see them. He was gazing steadily at the +singer under the hau tree. He even changed his position once, to +get closer. The clerk of the Seaside went by, limping with age and +dragging his reluctant feet. He had lived forty years on the +Islands. Percival Ford beckoned to him, and the clerk came +respectfully, and wondering that he should be noticed by Percival +Ford. + +"John," Ford said, "I want you to give me some information. Won't +you sit down?" + +The clerk sat down awkwardly, stunned by the unexpected honour. He +blinked at the other and mumbled, "Yes, sir, thank you." + +"John, who is Joe Garland?" + +The clerk stared at him, blinked, cleared his throat, and said +nothing. + +"Go on," Percival Ford commanded. + +"Who is he?" + +"You're joking me, sir," the other managed to articulate. + +"I spoke to you seriously." + +The clerk recoiled from him. + +"You don't mean to say you don't know?" he questioned, his question +in itself the answer. + +"I want to know." + +"Why, he's--" John broke off and looked about him helplessly. +"Hadn't you better ask somebody else? Everybody thought you knew. +We always thought . . . " + +"Yes, go ahead." + +"We always thought that that was why you had it in for him." + +Photographs and miniatures of Isaac Ford were trooping through his +son's brain, and ghosts of Isaac Ford seemed in the air about hint +"I wish you good night, sir," he could hear the clerk saying, and he +saw him beginning to limp away. + +"John," he called abruptly. + +John came back and stood near him, blinking and nervously moistening +his lips. + +"You haven't told me yet, you know." + +"Oh, about Joe Garland?" + +"Yes, about Joe Garland. Who is he?" + +"He's your brother, sir, if I say it who shouldn't." + +"Thank you, John. Good night." + +"And you didn't know?" the old man queried, content to linger, now +that the crucial point was past. + +"Thank you, John. Good night," was the response. + +"Yes, sir, thank you, sir. I think it's going to rain. Good night, +sir." + +Out of the clear sky, filled only with stars and moonlight, fell a +rain so fine and attenuated as to resemble a vapour spray. Nobody +minded it; the children played on, running bare-legged over the +grass and leaping into the sand; and in a few minutes it was gone. +In the south-east, Diamond Head, a black blot, sharply defined, +silhouetted its crater-form against the stars. At sleepy intervals +the surf flung its foam across the sands to the grass, and far out +could be seen the black specks of swimmers under the moon. The +voices of the singers, singing a waltz, died away; and in the +silence, from somewhere under the trees, arose the laugh of a woman +that was a love-cry. It startled Percival Ford, and it reminded him +of Dr. Kennedy's phrase. Down by the outrigger canoes, where they +lay hauled out on the sand, he saw men and women, Kanakas, reclining +languorously, like lotus-eaters, the women in white holokus; and +against one such holoku he saw the dark head of the steersman of the +canoe resting upon the woman's shoulder. Farther down, where the +strip of sand widened at the entrance to the lagoon, he saw a man +and woman walking side by side. As they drew near the light lanai, +he saw the woman's hand go down to her waist and disengage a +girdling arm. And as they passed him, Percival Ford nodded to a +captain he knew, and to a major's daughter. Smoke of life, that was +it, an ample phrase. And again, from under the dark algaroba tree +arose the laugh of a woman that was a love-cry; and past his chair, +on the way to bed, a bare-legged youngster was led by a chiding +Japanese nurse-maid. The voices of the singers broke softly and +meltingly into an Hawaiian love-song, and officers and women, with +encircling arms, were gliding and whirling on the lanai; and once +again the woman laughed under the algaroba trees. + +And Percival Ford knew only disapproval of it all. He was irritated +by the love-laugh of the woman, by the steersman with pillowed head +on the white holoku, by the couples that walked on the beach, by the +officers and women that danced, and by the voices of the singers +singing of love, and his brother singing there with them under the +hau tree. The woman that laughed especially irritated him. A +curious train of thought was aroused. He was Isaac Ford's son, and +what had happened with Isaac Ford might happen with him. He felt in +his cheeks the faint heat of a blush at the thought, and experienced +a poignant sense of shame. He was appalled by what was in his +blood. It was like learning suddenly that his father had been a +leper and that his own blood might bear the taint of that dread +disease. Isaac Ford, the austere soldier of the Lord--the old +hypocrite! What difference between him and any beach-comber? The +house of pride that Percival Ford had builded was tumbling about his +ears. + +The hours passed, the army people laughed and danced, the native +orchestra played on, and Percival Ford wrestled with the abrupt and +overwhelming problem that had been thrust upon him. He prayed +quietly, his elbow on the table, his head bowed upon his hand, with +all the appearance of any tired onlooker. Between the dances the +army men and women and the civilians fluttered up to him and buzzed +conventionally, and when they went back to the lanai he took up his +wrestling where he had left it off. + +He began to patch together his shattered ideal of Isaac Ford, and +for cement he used a cunning and subtle logic. It was of the sort +that is compounded in the brain laboratories of egotists, and it +worked. It was incontrovertible that his father had been made of +finer clay than those about him; but still, old Isaac had been only +in the process of becoming, while he, Percival Ford, had become. As +proof of it, he rehabilitated his father and at the same time +exalted himself. His lean little ego waxed to colossal proportions. +He was great enough to forgive. He glowed at the thought of it. +Isaac Ford had been great, but he was greater, for he could forgive +Isaac Ford and even restore him to the holy place in his memory, +though the place was not quite so holy as it had been. Also, he +applauded Isaac Ford for having ignored the outcome of his one step +aside. Very well, he, too, would ignore it. + +The dance was breaking up. The orchestra had finished "Aloha Oe" +and was preparing to go home. Percival Ford clapped his hands for +the Japanese servant. + +"You tell that man I want to see him," he said, pointing out Joe +Garland. "Tell him to come here, now." + +Joe Garland approached and halted respectfully several paces away, +nervously fingering the guitar which he still carried. The other +did not ask him to sit down. + +"You are my brother," he said. + +"Why, everybody knows that," was the reply, in tones of wonderment. + +"Yes, so I understand," Percival Ford said dryly. "But I did not +know it till this evening." + +The half-brother waited uncomfortably in the silence that followed, +during which Percival Ford coolly considered his next utterance. + +"You remember that first time I came to school and the boys ducked +me?" he asked. "Why did you take my part?" + +The half-brother smiled bashfully. + +"Because you knew?" + +"Yes, that was why." + +"But I didn't know," Percival Ford said in the same dry fashion. + +"Yes," the other said. + +Another silence fell. Servants were beginning to put out the lights +on the lanai. + +"You know . . . now," the half-brother said simply. + +Percival Ford frowned. Then he looked the other over with a +considering eye. + +"How much will you take to leave the Islands and never come back?" +he demanded. + +"And never come back?" Joe Garland faltered. "It is the only land I +know. Other lands are cold. I do not know other lands. I have +many friends here. In other lands there would not be one voice to +say, 'Aloha, Joe, my boy.'" + +"I said never to come back," Percival Ford reiterated. "The Alameda +sails tomorrow for San Francisco." + +Joe Garland was bewildered. + +"But why?" he asked. "You know now that we are brothers." + +"That is why," was the retort. "As you said yourself, everybody +knows. I will make it worth your while." + +All awkwardness and embarrassment disappeared from Joe Garland. +Birth and station were bridged and reversed. + +"You want me to go?" he demanded. + +"I want you to go and never come back," Percival Ford answered. + +And in that moment, flashing and fleeting, it was given him to see +his brother tower above him like a mountain, and to feel himself +dwindle and dwarf to microscopic insignificance. But it is not well +for one to see himself truly, nor can one so see himself for long +and live; and only for that flashing moment did Percival Ford see +himself and his brother in true perspective. The next moment he was +mastered by his meagre and insatiable ego. + +"As I said, I will make it worth your while. You will not suffer. +I will pay you well." + +"All right," Joe Garland said. "I'll go." + +He started to turn away. + +"Joe," the other called. "You see my lawyer tomorrow morning. Five +hundred down and two hundred a month as long as you stay away." + +"You are very kind," Joe Garland answered softly. "You are too +kind. And anyway, I guess I don't want your money. I go tomorrow +on the Alameda." + +He walked away, but did not say goodbye. + +Percival Ford clapped his hands. + +"Boy," he said to the Japanese, "a lemonade." + +And over the lemonade he smiled long and contentedly to himself. + + + +KOOLAU THE LEPER + + + +"Because we are sick they take away our liberty. We have obeyed the +law. We have done no wrong. And yet they would put us in prison. +Molokai is a prison. That you know. Niuli, there, his sister was +sent to Molokai seven years ago. He has not seen her since. Nor +will he ever see her. She must stay there until she dies. This is +not her will. It is not Niuli's will. It is the will of the white +men who rule the land. And who are these white men? + +"We know. We have it from our fathers and our fathers' fathers. +They came like lambs, speaking softly. Well might they speak +softly, for we were many and strong, and all the islands were ours. +As I say, they spoke softly. They were of two kinds. The one kind +asked our permission, our gracious permission, to preach to us the +word of God. The other kind asked our permission, our gracious +permission, to trade with us. That was the beginning. Today all +the islands are theirs, all the land, all the cattle--everything is +theirs. They that preached the word of God and they that preached +the word of Rum have fore-gathered and become great chiefs. They +live like kings in houses of many rooms, with multitudes of servants +to care for them. They who had nothing have everything, and if you, +or I, or any Kanaka be hungry, they sneer and say, 'Well, why don't +you work? There are the plantations.' + +Koolau paused. He raised one hand, and with gnarled and twisted +fingers lifted up the blazing wreath of hibiscus that crowned his +black hair. The moonlight bathed the scene in silver. It was a +night of peace, though those who sat about him and listened had all +the seeming of battle-wrecks. Their faces were leonine. Here a +space yawned in a face where should have been a nose, and there an +arm-stump showed where a hand had rotted off. They were men and +women beyond the pale, the thirty of them, for upon them had been +placed the mark of the beast. + +They sat, flower-garlanded, in the perfumed, luminous night, and +their lips made uncouth noises and their throats rasped approval of +Koolau's speech. They were creatures who once had been men and +women. But they were men and women no longer. They were monsters-- +in face and form grotesque caricatures of everything human. They +were hideously maimed and distorted, and had the seeming of +creatures that had been racked in millenniums of hell. Their hands, +when they possessed them, were like harpy claws. Their faces were +the misfits and slips, crushed and bruised by some mad god at play +in the machinery of life. Here and there were features which the +mad god had smeared half away, and one woman wept scalding tears +from twin pits of horror, where her eyes once had been. Some were +in pain and groaned from their chests. Others coughed, making +sounds like the tearing of tissue. Two were idiots, more like huge +apes marred in the making, until even an ape were an angel. They +mowed and gibbered in the moonlight, under crowns of drooping, +golden blossoms. One, whose bloated ear-lobe flapped like a fan +upon his shoulder, caught up a gorgeous flower of orange and scarlet +and with it decorated the monstrous ear that flip-flapped with his +every movement. + +And over these things Koolau was king. And this was his kingdom,--a +flower-throttled gorge, with beetling cliffs and crags, from which +floated the blattings of wild goats. On three sides the grim walls +rose, festooned in fantastic draperies of tropic vegetation and +pierced by cave-entrances--the rocky lairs of Koolau's subjects. On +the fourth side the earth fell away into a tremendous abyss, and, +far below, could be seen the summits of lesser peaks and crags, at +whose bases foamed and rumbled the Pacific surge. In fine weather a +boat could land on the rocky beach that marked the entrance of +Kalalau Valley, but the weather must be very fine. And a cool- +headed mountaineer might climb from the beach to the head of Kalalau +Valley, to this pocket among the peaks where Koolau ruled; but such +a mountaineer must be very cool of head, and he must know the wild- +goat trails as well. The marvel was that the mass of human wreckage +that constituted Koolau's people should have been able to drag its +helpless misery over the giddy goat-trails to this inaccessible +spot. + +"Brothers," Koolau began. + +But one of the mowing, apelike travesties emitted a wild shriek of +madness, and Koolau waited while the shrill cachination was tossed +back and forth among the rocky walls and echoed distantly through +the pulseless night. + +"Brothers, is it not strange? Ours was the land, and behold, the +land is not ours. What did these preachers of the word of God and +the word of Rum give us for the land? Have you received one dollar, +as much as one dollar, any one of you, for the land? Yet it is +theirs, and in return they tell us we can go to work on the land, +their land, and that what we produce by our toil shall be theirs. +Yet in the old days we did not have to work. Also, when we are +sick, they take away our freedom." + +"Who brought the sickness, Koolau?" demanded Kiloliana, a lean and +wiry man with a face so like a laughing faun's that one might expect +to see the cloven hoofs under him. They were cloven, it was true, +but the cleavages were great ulcers and livid putrefactions. Yet +this was Kiloliana, the most daring climber of them all, the man who +knew every goat-trail and who had led Koolau and his wretched +followers into the recesses of Kalalau. + +"Ay, well questioned," Koolau answered. "Because we would not work +the miles of sugar-cane where once our horses pastured, they brought +the Chinese slaves from overseas. And with them came the Chinese +sickness--that which we suffer from and because of which they would +imprison us on Molokai. We were born on Kauai. We have been to the +other islands, some here and some there, to Oahu, to Maui, to +Hawaii, to Honolulu. Yet always did we come back to Kauai. Why did +we come back? There must be a reason. Because we love Kauai. We +were born here. Here we have lived. And here shall we die--unless- +-unless--there be weak hearts amongst us. Such we do not want. +They are fit for Molokai. And if there be such, let them not +remain. Tomorrow the soldiers land on the shore. Let the weak +hearts go down to them. They will be sent swiftly to Molokai. As +for us, we shall stay and fight. But know that we will not die. We +have rifles. You know the narrow trails where men must creep, one +by one. I, alone, Koolau, who was once a cowboy on Niihau, can hold +the trail against a thousand men. Here is Kapalei, who was once a +judge over men and a man with honour, but who is now a hunted rat, +like you and me. Hear him. He is wise." + +Kapalei arose. Once he had been a judge. He had gone to college at +Punahou. He had sat at meat with lords and chiefs and the high +representatives of alien powers who protected the interests of +traders and missionaries. Such had been Kapalei. But now, as +Koolau had said, he was a hunted rat, a creature outside the law, +sunk so deep in the mire of human horror that he was above the law +as well as beneath it. His face was featureless, save for gaping +orifices and for the lidless eyes that burned under hairless brows. + +"Let us not make trouble," he began. "We ask to be left alone. But +if they do not leave us alone, then is the trouble theirs and the +penalty. My fingers are gone, as you see." He held up his stumps +of hands that all might see. "Yet have I the joint of one thumb +left, and it can pull a trigger as firmly as did its lost neighbour +in the old days. We love Kauai. Let us live here, or die here, but +do not let us go to the prison of Molokai. The sickness is not +ours. We have not sinned. The men who preached the word of God and +the word of Rum brought the sickness with the coolie slaves who work +the stolen land. I have been a judge. I know the law and the +justice, and I say to you it is unjust to steal a man's land, to +make that man sick with the Chinese sickness, and then to put that +man in prison for life." + +"Life is short, and the days are filled with pain," said Koolau. +"Let us drink and dance and be happy as we can." + +From one of the rocky lairs calabashes were produced and passed +round. The calabashes were filled with the fierce distillation of +the root of the ti-plant; and as the liquid fire coursed through +them and mounted to their brains, they forgot that they had once +been men and women, for they were men and women once more. The +woman who wept scalding tears from open eye-pits was indeed a woman +apulse with life as she plucked the strings of an ukulele and lifted +her voice in a barbaric love-call such as might have come from the +dark forest-depths of the primeval world. The air tingled with her +cry, softly imperious and seductive. Upon a mat, timing his rhythm +to the woman's song Kiloliana danced. It was unmistakable. Love +danced in all his movements, and, next, dancing with him on the mat, +was a woman whose heavy hips and generous breast gave the lie to her +disease-corroded face. It was a dance of the living dead, for in +their disintegrating bodies life still loved and longed. Ever the +woman whose sightless eyes ran scalding tears chanted her love-cry, +ever the dancers of love danced in the warm night, and ever the +calabashes went around till in all their brains were maggots +crawling of memory and desire. And with the woman on the mat danced +a slender maid whose face was beautiful and unmarred, but whose +twisted arms that rose and fell marked the disease's ravage. And +the two idiots, gibbering and mouthing strange noises, danced apart, +grotesque, fantastic, travestying love as they themselves had been +travestied by life. + +But the woman's love-cry broke midway, the calabashes were lowered, +and the dancers ceased, as all gazed into the abyss above the sea, +where a rocket flared like a wan phantom through the moonlit air. + +"It is the soldiers," said Koolau. "Tomorrow there will be +fighting. It is well to sleep and be prepared." + +The lepers obeyed, crawling away to their lairs in the cliff, until +only Koolau remained, sitting motionless in the moonlight, his rifle +across his knees, as he gazed far down to the boats landing on the +beach. + +The far head of Kalalau Valley had been well chosen as a refuge. +Except Kiloliana, who knew back-trails up the precipitous walls, no +man could win to the gorge save by advancing across a knife-edged +ridge. This passage was a hundred yards in length. At best, it was +a scant twelve inches wide. On either side yawned the abyss. A +slip, and to right or left the man would fall to his death. But +once across he would find himself in an earthly paradise. A sea of +vegetation laved the landscape, pouring its green billows from wall +to wall, dripping from the cliff-lips in great vine-masses, and +flinging a spray of ferns and air-plants in to the multitudinous +crevices. During the many months of Koolau's rule, he and his +followers had fought with this vegetable sea. The choking jungle, +with its riot of blossoms, had been driven back from the bananas, +oranges, and mangoes that grew wild. In little clearings grew the +wild arrowroot; on stone terraces, filled with soil scrapings, were +the taro patches and the melons; and in every open space where the +sunshine penetrated were papaia trees burdened with their golden +fruit. + +Koolau had been driven to this refuge from the lower valley by the +beach. And if he were driven from it in turn, he knew of gorges +among the jumbled peaks of the inner fastnesses where he could lead +his subjects and live. And now he lay with his rifle beside him, +peering down through a tangled screen of foliage at the soldiers on +the beach. He noted that they had large guns with them, from which +the sunshine flashed as from mirrors. The knife-edged passage lay +directly before him. Crawling upward along the trail that led to it +he could see tiny specks of men. He knew they were not the +soldiers, but the police. When they failed, then the soldiers would +enter the game. + +He affectionately rubbed a twisted hand along his rifle barrel and +made sure that the sights were clean. He had learned to shoot as a +wild-cattle hunter on Niihau, and on that island his skill as a +marksman was unforgotten. As the toiling specks of men grew nearer +and larger, he estimated the range, judged the deflection of the +wind that swept at right angles across the line of fire, and +calculated the chances of overshooting marks that were so far below +his level. But he did not shoot. Not until they reached the +beginning of the passage did he make his presence known. He did not +disclose himself, but spoke from the thicket. + +"What do you want?" he demanded. + +"We want Koolau, the leper," answered the man who led the native +police, himself a blue-eyed American. + +"You must go back," Koolau said. + +He knew the man, a deputy sheriff, for it was by him that he had +been harried out of Niihau, across Kauai, to Kalalau Valley, and out +of the valley to the gorge. + +"Who are you?" the sheriff asked. + +"I am Koolau, the leper," was the reply. + +"Then come out. We want you. Dead or alive, there is a thousand +dollars on your head. You cannot escape." + +Koolau laughed aloud in the thicket. + +"Come out!" the sheriff commanded, and was answered by silence. + +He conferred with the police, and Koolau saw that they were +preparing to rush him. + +"Koolau," the sheriff called. "Koolau, I am coming across to get +you." + +"Then look first and well about you at the sun and sea and sky, for +it will be the last time you behold them." + +"That's all right, Koolau," the sheriff said soothingly. "I know +you're a dead shot. But you won't shoot me. I have never done you +any wrong." + +Koolau grunted in the thicket. + +"I say, you know, I've never done you any wrong, have I?" the +sheriff persisted. + +"You do me wrong when you try to put me in prison," was the reply. +"And you do me wrong when you try for the thousand dollars on my +head. If you will live, stay where you are." + +"I've got to come across and get you. I'm sorry. But it is my +duty." + +"You will die before you get across." + +The sheriff was no coward. Yet was he undecided. He gazed into the +gulf on either side and ran his eyes along the knife-edge he must +travel. Then he made up his mind. + +"Koolau," he called. + +But the thicket remained silent. + +"Koolau, don't shoot. I am coming." + +The sheriff turned, gave some orders to the police, then started on +his perilous way. He advanced slowly. It was like walking a tight +rope. He had nothing to lean upon but the air. The lava rock +crumbled under his feet, and on either side the dislodged fragments +pitched downward through the depths. The sun blazed upon him, and +his face was wet with sweat. Still he advanced, until the halfway +point was reached. + +"Stop!" Koolau commanded from the thicket. "One more step and I +shoot." + +The sheriff halted, swaying for balance as he stood poised above the +void. His face was pale, but his eyes were determined. He licked +his dry lips before he spoke. + +"Koolau, you won't shoot me. I know you won't." + +He started once more. The bullet whirled him half about. On his +face was an expression of querulous surprise as he reeled to the +fall. He tried to save himself by throwing his body across the +knife-edge; but at that moment he knew death. The next moment the +knife-edge was vacant. Then came the rush, five policemen, in +single file, with superb steadiness, running along the knife-edge. +At the same instant the rest of the posse opened fire on the +thicket. It was madness. Five times Koolau pulled the trigger, so +rapidly that his shots constituted a rattle. Changing his position +and crouching low under the bullets that were biting and singing +through the bushes, he peered out. Four of the police had followed +the sheriff. The fifth lay across the knife-edge still alive. On +the farther side, no longer firing, were the surviving police. On +the naked rock there was no hope for them. Before they could +clamber down Koolau could have picked off the last man. But he did +not fire, and, after a conference, one of them took off a white +undershirt and waved it as a flag. Followed by another, he advanced +along the knife-edge to their wounded comrade. Koolau gave no sign, +but watched them slowly withdraw and become specks as they descended +into the lower valley. + +Two hours later, from another thicket, Koolau watched a body of +police trying to make the ascent from the opposite side of the +valley. He saw the wild goats flee before them as they climbed +higher and higher, until he doubted his judgment and sent for +Kiloliana, who crawled in beside him. + +"No, there is no way," said Kiloliana. + +"The goats?" Koolau questioned. + +"They come over from the next valley, but they cannot pass to this. +There is no way. Those men are not wiser than goats. They may fall +to their deaths. Let us watch." + +"They are brave men," said Koolau. "Let us watch." + +Side by side they lay among the morning-glories, with the yellow +blossoms of the hau dropping upon them from overhead, watching the +motes of men toil upward, till the thing happened, and three of +them, slipping, rolling, sliding, dashed over a cliff-lip and fell +sheer half a thousand feet. + +Kiloliana chuckled. + +"We will be bothered no more," he said. + +"They have war guns," Koolau made answer. "The soldiers have not +yet spoken." + +In the drowsy afternoon, most of the lepers lay in their rock dens +asleep. Koolau, his rifle on his knees, fresh-cleaned and ready, +dozed in the entrance to his own den. The maid with the twisted +arms lay below in the thicket and kept watch on the knife-edge +passage. Suddenly Koolau was startled wide awake by the sound of an +explosion on the beach. The next instant the atmosphere was +incredibly rent asunder. The terrible sound frightened him. It was +as if all the gods had caught the envelope of the sky in their hands +and were ripping it apart as a woman rips apart a sheet of cotton +cloth. But it was such an immense ripping, growing swiftly nearer. +Koolau glanced up apprehensively, as if expecting to see the thing. +Then high up on the cliff overhead the shell burst in a fountain of +black smoke. The rock was shattered, the fragments falling to the +foot of the cliff. + +Koolau passed his hand across his sweaty brow. He was terribly +shaken. He had had no experience with shell-fire, and this was more +dreadful than anything he had imagined. + +"One," said Kapahei, suddenly bethinking himself to keep count. + +A second and a third shell flew screaming over the top of the wall, +bursting beyond view. Kapahei methodically kept the count. The +lepers crowded into the open space before the caves. At first they +were frightened, but as the shells continued their flight overhead +the leper folk became reassured and began to admire the spectacle. + +The two idiots shrieked with delight, prancing wild antics as each +air-tormenting shell went by. Koolau began to recover his +confidence. No damage was being done. Evidently they could not aim +such large missiles at such long range with the precision of a +rifle. + +But a change came over the situation. The shells began to fall +short. One burst below in the thicket by the knife-edge. Koolau +remembered the maid who lay there on watch, and ran down to see. +The smoke was still rising from the bushes when he crawled in. He +was astounded. The branches were splintered and broken. Where the +girl had lain was a hole in the ground. The girl herself was in +shattered fragments. The shell had burst right on her. + +First peering out to make sure no soldiers were attempting the +passage, Koolau started back on the run for the caves. All the time +the shells were moaning, whining, screaming by, and the valley was +rumbling and reverberating with the explosions. As he came in sight +of the caves, he saw the two idiots cavorting about, clutching each +other's hands with their stumps of fingers. Even as he ran, Koolau +saw a spout of black smoke rise from the ground, near to the idiots. +They were flung apart bodily by the explosion. One lay motionless, +but the other was dragging himself by his hands toward the cave. +His legs trailed out helplessly behind him, while the blood was +pouring from his body. He seemed bathed in blood, and as he crawled +he cried like a little dog. The rest of the lepers, with the +exception of Kapahei, had fled into the caves. + +"Seventeen," said Kapahei. "Eighteen," he added. + +This last shell had fairly entered into one of the caves. The +explosion caused the caves to empty. But from the particular cave +no one emerged. Koolau crept in through the pungent, acrid smoke. +Four bodies, frightfully mangled, lay about. One of them was the +sightless woman whose tears till now had never ceased. + +Outside, Koolau found his people in a panic and already beginning to +climb the goat-trail that led out of the gorge and on among the +jumbled heights and chasms. The wounded idiot, whining feebly and +dragging himself along on the ground by his hands, was trying to +follow. But at the first pitch of the wall his helplessness +overcame him and he fell back. + +"It would be better to kill him," said Koolau to Kapahei, who still +sat in the same place. + +"Twenty-two," Kapahei answered. "Yes, it would be a wise thing to +kill him. Twenty-three--twenty-four." + +The idiot whined sharply when he saw the rifle levelled at him. +Koolau hesitated, then lowered the gun. + +"It is a hard thing to do," he said. + +"You are a fool, twenty-six, twenty-seven," said Kapahei. "Let me +show you." + +He arose, and with a heavy fragment of rock in his hand, approached +the wounded thing. As he lifted his arm to strike, a shell burst +full upon him, relieving him of the necessity of the act and at the +same time putting an end to his count. + +Koolau was alone in the gorge. He watched the last of his people +drag their crippled bodies over the brow of the height and +disappear. Then he turned and went down to the thicket where the +maid had keen killed. The shell-fire still continued, but he +remained; for far below he could see the soldiers climbing up. A +shell burst twenty feet away. Flattening himself into the earth, he +heard the rush of the fragments above his body. A shower of hau +blossoms rained upon him. He lifted his head to peer down the +trail, and sighed. He was very much afraid. Bullets from rifles +would not have worried him, but this shell-fire was abominable. +Each time a shell shrieked by he shivered and crouched; but each +time he lifted his head again to watch the trail. + +At last the shells ceased. This, he reasoned, was because the +soldiers were drawing near. They crept along the trail in single +file, and he tried to count them until he lost track. At any rate, +there were a hundred or so of them--all come after Koolau the leper. +He felt a fleeting prod of pride. With war guns and rifles, police +and soldiers, they came for him, and he was only one man, a crippled +wreck of a man at that. They offered a thousand dollars for him, +dead or alive. In all his life he had never possessed that much +money. The thought was a bitter one. Kapahei had been right. He, +Koolau, had done no wrong. Because the haoles wanted labour with +which to work the stolen land, they had brought in the Chinese +coolies, and with them had come the sickness. And now, because he +had caught the sickness, he was worth a thousand dollars--but not to +himself. It was his worthless carcass, rotten with disease or dead +from a bursting shell, that was worth all that money. + +When the soldiers reached the knife-edged passage, he was prompted +to warn them. But his gaze fell upon the body of the murdered maid, +and he kept silent. When six had ventured on the knife-edge, he +opened fire. Nor did he cease when the knife-edge was bare. He +emptied his magazine, reloaded, and emptied it again. He kept on +shooting. All his wrongs were blazing in his brain, and he was in a +fury of vengeance. All down the goat-trail the soldiers were +firing, and though they lay flat and sought to shelter themselves in +the shallow inequalities of the surface, they were exposed marks to +him. Bullets whistled and thudded about him, and an occasional +ricochet sang sharply through the air. One bullet ploughed a crease +through his scalp, and a second burned across his shoulder-blade +without breaking the skin. + +It was a massacre, in which one man did the killing. The soldiers +began to retreat, helping along their wounded. As Koolau picked +them off he became aware of the smell of burnt meat. He glanced +about him at first, and then discovered that it was his own hands. +The heat of the rifle was doing it. The leprosy had destroyed most +of the nerves in his hands. Though his flesh burned and he smelled +it, there was no sensation. + +He lay in the thicket, smiling, until he remembered the war guns. +Without doubt they would open upon him again, and this time upon the +very thicket from which he had inflicted the danger. Scarcely had +he changed his position to a nook behind a small shoulder of the +wall where he had noted that no shells fell, than the bombardment +recommenced. He counted the shells. Sixty more were thrown into +the gorge before the war-guns ceased. The tiny area was pitted with +their explosions, until it seemed impossible that any creature could +have survived. So the soldiers thought, for, under the burning +afternoon sun, they climbed the goat-trail again. And again the +knife-edged passage was disputed, and again they fell back to the +beach. + +For two days longer Koolau held the passage, though the soldiers +contented themselves with flinging shells into his retreat. Then +Pahau, a leper boy, came to the top of the wall at the back of the +gorge and shouted down to him that Kiloliana, hunting goats that +they might eat, had been killed by a fall, and that the women were +frightened and knew not what to do. Koolau called the boy down and +left him with a spare gun with which to guard the passage. Koolau +found his people disheartened. The majority of them were too +helpless to forage food for themselves under such forbidding +circumstances, and all were starving. He selected two women and a +man who were not too far gone with the disease, and sent them back +to the gorge to bring up food and mats. The rest he cheered and +consoled until even the weakest took a hand in building rough +shelters for themselves. + +But those he had dispatched for food did not return, and he started +back for the gorge. As he came out on the brow of the wall, half a +dozen rifles cracked. A bullet tore through the fleshy part of his +shoulder, and his cheek was cut by a sliver of rock where a second +bullet smashed against the cliff. In the moment that this happened, +and he leaped back, he saw that the gorge was alive with soldiers. +His own people had betrayed him. The shell-fire had been too +terrible, and they had preferred the prison of Molokai. + +Koolau dropped back and unslung one of his heavy cartridge-belts. +Lying among the rocks, he allowed the head and shoulders of the +first soldier to rise clearly into view before pulling trigger. +Twice this happened, and then, after some delay, in place of a head +and shoulders a white flag was thrust above the edge of the wall. + +"What do you want?" be demanded. + +"I want you, if you are Koolau the leper," came the answer. + +Koolau forgot where he was, forgot everything, as he lay and +marvelled at the strange persistence of these haoles who would have +their will though the sky fell in. Aye, they would have their will +over all men and all things, even though they died in getting it. +He could not but admire them, too, what of that will in them that +was stronger than life and that bent all things to their bidding. +He was convinced of the hopelessness of his struggle. There was no +gainsaying that terrible will of the haoles. Though he killed a +thousand, yet would they rise like the sands of the sea and come +upon him, ever more and more. They never knew when they were +beaten. That was their fault and their virtue. It was where his +own kind lacked. He could see, now, how the handful of the +preachers of God and the preachers of Rum had conquered the land. +It was because - + +"Well, what have you got to say? Will you come with me?" + +It was he voice of the invisible man under the white flag. There he +was, like any haole, driving straight toward the end determined. + +"Let us talk," said Koolau. + +The man's head and shoulders arose, then his whole body. He was a +smooth-faced, blue-eyed youngster of twenty-five, slender and natty +in his captain's uniform. He advanced until halted, then seated +himself a dozen feet away. + +"You are a brave man," said Koolau wonderingly. "I could kill you +like a fly." + +"No, you couldn't," was the answer. + +"Why not?" + +"Because you are a man, Koolau, though a bad one. I know your +story. You kill fairly." + +Koolau grunted, but was secretly pleased. + +"What have you done with my people?" he demanded. "The boy, the two +women, and the man?" + +"They gave themselves up, as I have now come for you to do." + +Koolau laughed incredulously. + +"I am a free man," he announced. "I have done no wrong. All I ask +is to be left alone. I have lived free, and I shall die free. I +will never give myself up." + +"Then your people are wiser than you," answered the young captain. +"Look--they are coming now." + +Koolau turned and watched the remnant of his band approach. +Groaning and sighing, a ghastly procession, it dragged its +wretchedness past. It was given to Koolau to taste a deeper +bitterness, for they hurled imprecations and insults at him as they +went by; and the panting hag who brought up the rear halted, and +with skinny, harpy-claws extended, shaking her snarling death's head +from side to side, she laid a curse upon him. One by one they +dropped over the lip-edge and surrendered to the hiding soldiers. + +"You can go now," said Koolau to the captain. "I will never give +myself up. That is my last word. Good-bye." + +The captain slipped over the cliff to his soldiers. The next +moment, and without a flag of truce, he hoisted his hat on his +scabbard, and Koolau's bullet tore through it. That afternoon they +shelled him out from the beach, and as he retreated into the high +inaccessible pockets beyond, the soldiers followed him. + +For six weeks they hunted him from pocket to pocket, over the +volcanic peaks and along the goat-trails. When he hid in the +lantana jungle, they formed lines of beaters, and through lantana +jungle and guava scrub they drove him like a rabbit. But ever he +turned and doubled and eluded. There was no cornering him. When +pressed too closely, his sure rifle held them back and they carried +their wounded down the goat-trails to the beach. There were times +when they did the shooting as his brown body showed for a moment +through the underbrush. Once, five of them caught him on an exposed +goat-trail between pockets. They emptied their rifles at him as he +limped and climbed along his dizzy way. Afterwards they found +bloodstains and knew that he was wounded. At the end of six weeks +they gave up. The soldiers and police returned to Honolulu, and +Kalalau Valley was left to him for his own, though head-hunters +ventured after him from time to time and to their own undoing. + +Two years later, and for the last time, Koolau crawled into a +thicket and lay down among the ti-leaves and wild ginger blossoms. +Free he had lived, and free he was dying. A slight drizzle of rain +began to fall, and he drew a ragged blanket about the distorted +wreck of his limbs. His body was covered with an oilskin coat. +Across his chest he laid his Mauser rifle, lingering affectionately +for a moment to wipe the dampness from the barrel. The hand with +which he wiped had no fingers left upon it with which to pull the +trigger. + +He closed his eyes, for, from the weakness in his body and the fuzzy +turmoil in his brain, he knew that his end was near. Like a wild +animal he had crept into hiding to die. Half-conscious, aimless and +wandering, he lived back in his life to his early manhood on Niihau. +As life faded and the drip of the rain grew dim in his ears it +seemed to him that he was once more in the thick of the horse- +breaking, with raw colts rearing and bucking under him, his stirrups +tied together beneath, or charging madly about the breaking corral +and driving the helping cowboys over the rails. The next instant, +and with seeming naturalness, he found himself pursuing the wild +bulls of the upland pastures, roping them and leading them down to +the valleys. Again the sweat and dust of the branding pen stung his +eyes and bit his nostrils. + +All his lusty, whole-bodied youth was his, until the sharp pangs of +impending dissolution brought him back. He lifted his monstrous +hands and gazed at them in wonder. But how? Why? Why should the +wholeness of that wild youth of his change to this? Then he +remembered, and once again, and for a moment, he was Koolau, the +leper. His eyelids fluttered wearily down and the drip of the rain +ceased in his ears. A prolonged trembling set up in his body. +This, too, ceased. He half-lifted his head, but it fell back. Then +his eyes opened, and did not close. His last thought was of his +Mauser, and he pressed it against his chest with his folded, +fingerless hands. + + + +GOOD-BYE, JACK + + + +Hawaii is a queer place. Everything socially is what I may call +topsy-turvy. Not but what things are correct. They are almost too +much so. But still things are sort of upside down. The most ultra- +exclusive set there is the "Missionary Crowd." It comes with rather +a shock to learn that in Hawaii the obscure martyrdom-seeking +missionary sits at the head of the table of the moneyed aristocracy. +But it is true. The humble New Englanders who came out in the third +decade of the nineteenth century, came for the lofty purpose of +teaching the kanakas the true religion, the worship of the one only +genuine and undeniable God. So well did they succeed in this, and +also in civilizing the kanaka, that by the second or third +generation he was practically extinct. This being the fruit of the +seed of the Gospel, the fruit of the seed of the missionaries (the +sons and the grandsons) was the possession of the islands +themselves,--of the land, the ports, the town sites, and the sugar +plantations: The missionary who came to give the bread of life +remained to gobble up the whole heathen feast. + +But that is not the Hawaiian queerness I started out to tell. Only +one cannot speak of things Hawaiian without mentioning the +missionaries. There is Jack Kersdale, the man I wanted to tell +about; he came of missionary stock. That is, on his grandmother's +side. His grandfather was old Benjamin Kersdale, a Yankee trader, +who got his start for a million in the old days by selling cheap +whiskey and square-face gin. There's another queer thing. The old +missionaries and old traders were mortal enemies. You see, their +interests conflicted. But their children made it up by +intermarrying and dividing the island between them. + +Life in Hawaii is a song. That's the way Stoddard put it in his +"Hawaii Noi":- + + +"Thy life is music--Fate the notes prolong! +Each isle a stanza, and the whole a song." + + +And he was right. Flesh is golden there. The native women are sun- +ripe Junos, the native men bronzed Apollos. They sing, and dance, +and all are flower-bejewelled and flower-crowned. And, outside the +rigid "Missionary Crowd," the white men yield to the climate and the +sun, and no matter how busy they may be, are prone to dance and sing +and wear flowers behind their ears and in their hair. Jack Kersdale +was one of these fellows. He was one of the busiest men I ever met. +He was a several-times millionaire. He was a sugar-king, a coffee +planter, a rubber pioneer, a cattle rancher, and a promoter of three +out of every four new enterprises launched in the islands. He was a +society man, a club man, a yachtsman, a bachelor, and withal as +handsome a man as was ever doted upon by mammas with marriageable +daughters. Incidentally, he had finished his education at Yale, and +his head was crammed fuller with vital statistics and scholarly +information concerning Hawaii Nei than any other islander I ever +encountered. He turned off an immense amount of work, and he sang +and danced and put flowers in his hair as immensely as any of the +idlers. + + He had grit, and had fought two duels--both, political--when he +was no more than a raw youth essaying his first adventures in +politics. In fact, he played a most creditable and courageous part +in the last revolution, when the native dynasty was overthrown; and +he could not have been over sixteen at the time. I am pointing out +that he was no coward, in order that you may appreciate what happens +later on. I've seen him in the breaking yard at the Haleakala +Ranch, conquering a four-year-old brute that for two years had +defied the pick of Von Tempsky's cow-boys. And I must tell of one +other thing. It was down in Kona,--or up, rather, for the Kona +people scorn to live at less than a thousand feet elevation. We +were all on the lanai of Doctor Goodhue's bungalow. I was talking +with Dottie Fairchild when it happened. A big centipede--it was +seven inches, for we measured it afterwards--fell from the rafters +overhead squarely into her coiffure. I confess, the hideousness of +it paralysed me. I couldn't move. My mind refused to work. There, +within two feet of me, the ugly venomous devil was writhing in her +hair. It threatened at any moment to fall down upon her exposed +shoulders--we had just come out from dinner. + +"What is it?" she asked, starting to raise her hand to her head. + +"Don't!" I cried. "Don't!" + +"But what is it?" she insisted, growing frightened by the fright she +read in my eyes and on my stammering lips. + +My exclamation attracted Kersdale's attention. He glanced our way +carelessly, but in that glance took in everything. He came over to +us, but without haste. + +"Please don't move, Dottie," he said quietly. + +He never hesitated, nor did he hurry and make a bungle of it. + +"Allow me," he said. + +And with one hand he caught her scarf and drew it tightly around her +shoulders so that the centipede could not fall inside her bodice. +With the other hand--the right--he reached into her hair, caught the +repulsive abomination as near as he was able by the nape of the +neck, and held it tightly between thumb and forefinger as he +withdrew it from her hair. It was as horrible and heroic a sight as +man could wish to see. It made my flesh crawl. The centipede, +seven inches of squirming legs, writhed and twisted and dashed +itself about his hand, the body twining around the fingers and the +legs digging into the skin and scratching as the beast endeavoured +to free itself. It bit him twice--I saw it--though he assured the +ladies that he was not harmed as he dropped it upon the walk and +stamped it into the gravel. But I saw him in the surgery five +minutes afterwards, with Doctor Goodhue scarifying the wounds and +injecting permanganate of potash. The next morning Kersdale's arm +was as big as a barrel, and it was three weeks before the swelling +went down. + +All of which has nothing to do with my story, but which I could not +avoid giving in order to show that Jack Kersdale was anything but a +coward. It was the cleanest exhibition of grit I have ever seen. +He never turned a hair. The smile never left his lips. And he +dived with thumb and forefinger into Dottie Fairchild's hair as +gaily as if it had been a box of salted almonds. Yet that was the +man I was destined to see stricken with a fear a thousand times more +hideous even than the fear that was mine when I saw that writhing +abomination in Dottie Fairchild's hair, dangling over her eyes and +the trap of her bodice. + +I was interested in leprosy, and upon that, as upon every other +island subject, Kersdale had encyclopedic knowledge. In fact, +leprosy was one of his hobbies. He was an ardent defender of the +settlement at Molokai, where all the island lepers were segregated. +There was much talk and feeling among the natives, fanned by the +demagogues, concerning the cruelties of Molokai, where men and +women, not alone banished from friends and family, were compelled to +live in perpetual imprisonment until they died. There were no +reprieves, no commutations of sentences. "Abandon hope" was written +over the portal of Molokai. + +"I tell you they are happy there," Kersdale insisted. "And they are +infinitely better off than their friends and relatives outside who +have nothing the matter with them. The horrors of Molokai are all +poppycock. I can take you through any hospital or any slum in any +of the great cities of the world and show you a thousand times worse +horrors. The living death! The creatures that once were men! +Bosh! You ought to see those living deaths racing horses on the +Fourth of July. Some of them own boats. One has a gasoline launch. +They have nothing to do but have a good time. Food, shelter, +clothes, medical attendance, everything, is theirs. They are the +wards of the Territory. They have a much finer climate than +Honolulu, and the scenery is magnificent. I shouldn't mind going +down there myself for the rest of my days. It is a lovely spot." + +So Kersdale on the joyous leper. He was not afraid of leprosy. He +said so himself, and that there wasn't one chance in a million for +him or any other white man to catch it, though he confessed +afterward that one of his school chums, Alfred Starter, had +contracted it, gone to Molokai, and there died. + +"You know, in the old days," Kersdale explained, "there was no +certain test for leprosy. Anything unusual or abnormal was +sufficient to send a fellow to Molokai. The result was that dozens +were sent there who were no more lepers than you or I. But they +don't make that mistake now. The Board of Health tests are +infallible. The funny thing is that when the test was discovered +they immediately went down to Molokai and applied it, and they found +a number who were not lepers. These were immediately deported. +Happy to get away? They wailed harder at leaving the settlement +than when they left Honolulu to go to it. Some refused to leave, +and really had to be forced out. One of them even married a leper +woman in the last stages and then wrote pathetic letters to the +Board of Health, protesting against his expulsion on the ground that +no one was so well able as he to take care of his poor old wife." + +"What is this infallible test?" I demanded. + +"The bacteriological test. There is no getting away from it. +Doctor Hervey--he's our expert, you know--was the first man to apply +it here. He is a wizard. He knows more about leprosy than any +living man, and if a cure is ever discovered, he'll be that +discoverer. As for the test, it is very simple. They have +succeeded in isolating the bacillus leprae and studying it. They +know it now when they see it. All they do is to snip a bit of skin +from the suspect and subject it to the bacteriological test. A man +without any visible symptoms may be chock full of the leprosy +bacilli." + +"Then you or I, for all we know," I suggested, "may be full of it +now." + +Kersdale shrugged his shoulders and laughed. + +"Who can say? It takes seven years for it to incubate. If you have +any doubts go and see Doctor Hervey. He'll just snip out a piece of +your skin and let you know in a jiffy." + +Later on he introduced me to Dr. Hervey, who loaded me down with +Board of Health reports and pamphlets on the subject, and took me +out to Kalihi, the Honolulu receiving station, where suspects were +examined and confirmed lepers were held for deportation to Molokai. +These deportations occurred about once a month, when, the last good- +byes said, the lepers were marched on board the little steamer, the +Noeau, and carried down to the settlement. + +One afternoon, writing letters at the club, Jack Kersdale dropped in +on me. + +"Just the man I want to see," was his greeting. "I'll show you the +saddest aspect of the whole situation--the lepers wailing as they +depart for Molokai. The Noeau will be taking them on board in a few +minutes. But let me warn you not to let your feelings be harrowed. +Real as their grief is, they'd wail a whole sight harder a year +hence if the Board of Health tried to take them away from Molokai. +We've just time for a whiskey and soda. I've a carriage outside. +It won't take us five minutes to get down to the wharf." + +To the wharf we drove. Some forty sad wretches, amid their mats, +blankets, and luggage of various sorts, were squatting on the +stringer piece. The Noeau had just arrived and was making fast to a +lighter that lay between her and the wharf. A Mr. McVeigh, the +superintendent of the settlement, was overseeing the embarkation, +and to him I was introduced, also to Dr. Georges, one of the Board +of Health physicians whom I had already met at Kalihi. The lepers +were a woebegone lot. The faces of the majority were hideous--too +horrible for me to describe. But here and there I noticed fairly +good-looking persons, with no apparent signs of the fell disease +upon them. One, I noticed, a little white girl, not more than +twelve, with blue eyes and golden hair. One cheek, however, showed +the leprous bloat. On my remarking on the sadness of her alien +situation among the brown-skinned afflicted ones, Doctor Georges +replied:- + +"Oh, I don't know. It's a happy day in her life. She comes from +Kauai. Her father is a brute. And now that she has developed the +disease she is going to join her mother at the settlement. Her +mother was sent down three years ago--a very bad case." + +"You can't always tell from appearances," Mr. McVeigh explained. +That man there, that big chap, who looks the pink of condition, with +nothing the matter with him, I happen to know has a perforating +ulcer in his foot and another in his shoulder-blade. Then there are +others--there, see that girl's hand, the one who is smoking the +cigarette. See her twisted fingers. That's the anaesthetic form. +It attacks the nerves. You could cut her fingers off with a dull +knife, or rub them off on a nutmeg-grater, and she would not +experience the slightest sensation." + +"Yes, but that fine-looking woman, there," I persisted; "surely, +surely, there can't be anything the matter with her. She is too +glorious and gorgeous altogether." + +"A sad case," Mr. McVeigh answered over his shoulder, already +turning away to walk down the wharf with Kersdale. + +She was a beautiful woman, and she was pure Polynesian. From my +meagre knowledge of the race and its types I could not but conclude +that she had descended from old chief stock. She could not have +been more than twenty-three or four. Her lines and proportions were +magnificent, and she was just beginning to show the amplitude of the +women of her race. + +"It was a blow to all of us," Dr. Georges volunteered. "She gave +herself up voluntarily, too. No one suspected. But somehow she had +contracted the disease. It broke us all up, I assure you. We've +kept it out of the papers, though. Nobody but us and her family +knows what has become of her. In fact, if you were to ask any man +in Honolulu, he'd tell you it was his impression that she was +somewhere in Europe. It was at her request that we've been so quiet +about it. Poor girl, she has a lot of pride." + +"But who is she?" I asked. "Certainly, from the way you talk about +her, she must be somebody." + +"Did you ever hear of Lucy Mokunui?" he asked. + +"Lucy Mokunui?" I repeated, haunted by some familiar association. I +shook my head. "It seems to me I've heard the name, but I've +forgotten it." + +"Never heard of Lucy Mokunui! The Hawaiian nightingale! I beg your +pardon. Of course you are a malahini, {1} and could not be expected +to know. Well, Lucy Mokunui was the best beloved of Honolulu--of +all Hawaii, for that matter." + +"You say WAS," I interrupted. + +"And I mean it. She is finished." He shrugged his shoulders +pityingly. "A dozen haoles--I beg your pardon, white men--have lost +their hearts to her at one time or another. And I'm not counting in +the ruck. The dozen I refer to were haoles of position and +prominence." + +"She could have married the son of the Chief Justice if she'd wanted +to. You think she's beautiful, eh? But you should hear her sing. +Finest native woman singer in Hawaii Nei. Her throat is pure silver +and melted sunshine. We adored her. She toured America first with +the Royal Hawaiian Band. After that she made two more trips on her +own--concert work." + +"Oh!" I cried. "I remember now. I heard her two years ago at the +Boston Symphony. So that is she. I recognize her now." + +I was oppressed by a heavy sadness. Life was a futile thing at +best. A short two years and this magnificent creature, at the +summit of her magnificent success, was one of the leper squad +awaiting deportation to Molokai. Henley's lines came into my mind:- + + +"The poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers; +Life is, I think, a blunder and a shame." + + +I recoiled from my own future. If this awful fate fell to Lucy +Mokunui, what might my lot not be?--or anybody's lot? I was +thoroughly aware that in life we are in the midst of death--but to +be in the midst of living death, to die and not be dead, to be one +of that draft of creatures that once were men, aye, and women, like +Lucy Mokunui, the epitome of all Polynesian charms, an artist as +well, and well beloved of men -. I am afraid I must have betrayed +my perturbation, for Doctor Georges hastened to assure me that they +were very happy down in the settlement. + +It was all too inconceivably monstrous. I could not bear to look at +her. A short distance away, behind a stretched rope guarded by a +policeman, were the lepers' relatives and friends. They were not +allowed to come near. There were no last embraces, no kisses of +farewell. They called back and forth to one another--last messages, +last words of love, last reiterated instructions. And those behind +the rope looked with terrible intensity. It was the last time they +would behold the faces of their loved ones, for they were the living +dead, being carted away in the funeral ship to the graveyard of +Molokai. + +Doctor Georges gave the command, and the unhappy wretches dragged +themselves to their feet and under their burdens of luggage began to +stagger across the lighter and aboard the steamer. It was the +funeral procession. At once the wailing started from those behind +the rope. It was blood-curdling; it was heart-rending. I never +heard such woe, and I hope never to again. Kersdale and McVeigh +were still at the other end of the wharf, talking earnestly-- +politics, of course, for both were head-over-heels in that +particular game. When Lucy Mokunui passed me, I stole a look at +her. She WAS beautiful. She was beautiful by our standards, as +well--one of those rare blossoms that occur but once in generations. +And she, of all women, was doomed to Molokai. She straight on +board, and aft on the open deck where the lepers huddled by the +rail, wailing now, to their dear ones on shore. + +The lines were cast off, and the Noeau began to move away from the +wharf. The wailing increased. Such grief and despair! I was just +resolving that never again would I be a witness to the sailing of +the Noeau, when McVeigh and Kersdale returned. The latter's eyes +were sparkling, and his lips could not quite hide the smile of +delight that was his. Evidently the politics they had talked had +been satisfactory. The rope had been flung aside, and the lamenting +relatives now crowded the stringer piece on either side of us. + +"That's her mother," Doctor Georges whispered, indicating an old +woman next to me, who was rocking back and forth and gazing at the +steamer rail out of tear-blinded eyes. I noticed that Lucy Mokunui +was also wailing. She stopped abruptly and gazed at Kersdale. Then +she stretched forth her arms in that adorable, sensuous way that +Olga Nethersole has of embracing an audience. And with arms +outspread, she cried: + +"Good-bye, Jack! Good-bye!" + +He heard the cry, and looked. Never was a man overtaken by more +crushing fear. He reeled on the stringer piece, his face went white +to the roots of his hair, and he seemed to shrink and wither away +inside his clothes. He threw up his hands and groaned, "My God! My +God!" Then he controlled himself by a great effort. + +"Good-bye, Lucy! Good-bye!" he called. + +And he stood there on the wharf, waving his hands to her till the +Noeau was clear away and the faces lining her after-rail were vague +and indistinct. + +"I thought you knew," said McVeigh, who had been regarding him +curiously. "You, of all men, should have known. I thought that was +why you were here." + +"I know now," Kersdale answered with immense gravity. "Where's the +carriage?" + +He walked rapidly--half-ran--to it. I had to half-run myself to +keep up with him. + +"Drive to Doctor Hervey's," he told the driver. "Drive as fast as +you can." + +He sank down in a seat, panting and gasping. The pallor of his face +had increased. His lips were compressed and the sweat was standing +out on his forehead and upper lip. He seemed in some horrible +agony. + +"For God's sake, Martin, make those horses go!" he broke out +suddenly. "Lay the whip into them!--do you hear?--lay the whip into +them!" + +"They'll break, sir," the driver remonstrated. + +"Let them break," Kersdale answered. "I'll pay your fine and square +you with the police. Put it to them. That's right. Faster! +Faster!" + +"And I never knew, I never knew," he muttered, sinking back in the +seat and with trembling hands wiping the sweat away. + +The carriage was bouncing, swaying and lurching around corners at +such a wild pace as to make conversation impossible. Besides, there +was nothing to say. But I could hear him muttering over and over, +"And I never knew. I never knew." + + + +ALOHA OE + + + +Never are there such departures as from the dock at Honolulu. The +great transport lay with steam up, ready to pull out. A thousand +persons were on her decks; five thousand stood on the wharf. Up and +down the long gangway passed native princes and princesses, sugar +kings and the high officials of the Territory. Beyond, in long +lines, kept in order by the native police, were the carriages and +motor-cars of the Honolulu aristocracy. On the wharf the Royal +Hawaiian Band played "Aloha Oe," and when it finished, a stringed +orchestra of native musicians on board the transport took up the +same sobbing strains, the native woman singer's voice rising +birdlike above the instruments and the hubbub of departure. It was +a silver reed, sounding its clear, unmistakable note in the great +diapason of farewell. + +Forward, on the lower deck, the rail was lined six deep with khaki- +clad young boys, whose bronzed faces told of three years' +campaigning under the sun. But the farewell was not for them. Nor +was it for the white-clad captain on the lofty bridge, remote as the +stars, gazing down upon the tumult beneath him. Nor was the +farewell for the young officers farther aft, returning from the +Philippines, nor for the white-faced, climate-ravaged women by their +sides. Just aft the gangway, on the promenade deck, stood a score +of United States Senators with their wives and daughters--the +Senatorial junketing party that for a month had been dined and +wined, surfeited with statistics and dragged up volcanic hill and +down lava dale to behold the glories and resources of Hawaii. It +was for the junketing party that the transport had called in at +Honolulu, and it was to the junketing party that Honolulu was saying +good-bye. + +The Senators were garlanded and bedecked with flowers. Senator +Jeremy Sambrooke's stout neck and portly bosom were burdened with a +dozen wreaths. Out of this mass of bloom and blossom projected his +head and the greater portion of his freshly sunburned and perspiring +face. He thought the flowers an abomination, and as he looked out +over the multitude on the wharf it was with a statistical eye that +saw none of the beauty, but that peered into the labour power, the +factories, the railroads, and the plantations that lay back of the +multitude and which the multitude expressed. He saw resources and +thought development, and he was too busy with dreams of material +achievement and empire to notice his daughter at his side, talking +with a young fellow in a natty summer suit and straw hat, whose +eager eyes seemed only for her and never left her face. Had Senator +Jeremy had eyes for his daughter, he would have seen that, in place +of the young girl of fifteen he had brought to Hawaii a short month +before, he was now taking away with him a woman. + +Hawaii has a ripening climate, and Dorothy Sambrooke had been +exposed to it under exceptionally ripening circumstances. Slender, +pale, with blue eyes a trifle tired from poring over the pages of +books and trying to muddle into an understanding of life--such she +had been the month before. But now the eyes were warm instead of +tired, the cheeks were touched with the sun, and the body gave the +first hint and promise of swelling lines. During that month she had +left books alone, for she had found greater joy in reading from the +book of life. She had ridden horses, climbed volcanoes, and learned +surf swimming. The tropics had entered into her blood, and she was +aglow with the warmth and colour and sunshine. And for a month she +had been in the company of a man--Stephen Knight, athlete, surf- +board rider, a bronzed god of the sea who bitted the crashing +breakers, leaped upon their backs, and rode them in to shore. + +Dorothy Sambrooke was unaware of the change. Her consciousness was +still that of a young girl, and she was surprised and troubled by +Steve's conduct in this hour of saying good-bye. She had looked +upon him as her playfellow, and for the month he had been her +playfellow; but now he was not parting like a playfellow. He talked +excitedly and disconnectedly, or was silent, by fits and starts. +Sometimes he did not hear what she was saying, or if he did, failed +to respond in his wonted manner. She was perturbed by the way he +looked at her. She had not known before that he had such blazing +eyes. There was something in his eyes that was terrifying. She +could not face it, and her own eyes continually drooped before it. +Yet there was something alluring about it, as well, and she +continually returned to catch a glimpse of that blazing, imperious, +yearning something that she had never seen in human eyes before. +And she was herself strangely bewildered and excited. + +The transport's huge whistle blew a deafening blast, and the flower- +crowned multitude surged closer to the side of the dock. Dorothy +Sambrooke's fingers were pressed to her ears; and as she made a moue +of distaste at the outrage of sound, she noticed again the +imperious, yearning blaze in Steve's eyes. He was not looking at +her, but at her ears, delicately pink and transparent in the +slanting rays of the afternoon sun. Curious and fascinated, she +gazed at that strange something in his eyes until he saw that he had +been caught. She saw his cheeks flush darkly and heard him utter +inarticulately. He was embarrassed, and she was aware of +embarrassment herself. Stewards were going about nervously begging +shore-going persons to be gone. Steve put out his hand. When she +felt the grip of the fingers that had gripped hers a thousand times +on surf-boards and lava slopes, she heard the words of the song with +a new understanding as they sobbed in the Hawaiian woman's silver +throat: + + +"Ka halia ko aloha kai hiki mai, +Ke hone ae nei i ku'u manawa, +O oe no kan aloha +A loko e hana nei." + + +Steve had taught her air and words and meaning--so she had thought, +till this instant; and in this instant of the last finger clasp and +warm contact of palms she divined for the first time the real +meaning of the song. She scarcely saw him go, nor could she note +him on the crowded gangway, for she was deep in a memory maze, +living over the four weeks just past, rereading events in the light +of revelation. + +When the Senatorial party had landed, Steve had been one of the +committee of entertainment. It was he who had given them their +first exhibition of surf riding, out at Waikiki Beach, paddling his +narrow board seaward until he became a disappearing speck, and then, +suddenly reappearing, rising like a sea-god from out of the welter +of spume and churning white--rising swiftly higher and higher, +shoulders and chest and loins and limbs, until he stood poised on +the smoking crest of a mighty, mile-long billow, his feet buried in +the flying foam, hurling beach-ward with the speed of an express +train and stepping calmly ashore at their astounded feet. That had +been her first glimpse of Steve. He had been the youngest man on +the committee, a youth, himself, of twenty. He had not entertained +by speechmaking, nor had he shone decoratively at receptions. It +was in the breakers at Waikiki, in the wild cattle drive on Manna +Kea, and in the breaking yard of the Haleakala Ranch that he had +performed his share of the entertaining. + +She had not cared for the interminable statistics and eternal +speechmaking of the other members of the committee. Neither had +Steve. And it was with Steve that she had stolen away from the +open-air feast at Hamakua, and from Abe Louisson, the coffee +planter, who had talked coffee, coffee, nothing but coffee, for two +mortal hours. It was then, as they rode among the tree ferns, that +Steve had taught her the words of "Aloha Oe," the song that had been +sung to the visiting Senators at every village, ranch, and +plantation departure. + +Steve and she had been much together from the first. He had been +her playfellow. She had taken possession of him while her father +had been occupied in taking possession of the statistics of the +island territory. She was too gentle to tyrannize over her +playfellow, yet she had ruled him abjectly, except when in canoe, or +on horse or surf-board, at which times he had taken charge and she +had rendered obedience. And now, with this last singing of the +song, as the lines were cast off and the big transport began backing +slowly out from the dock, she knew that Steve was something more to +her than playfellow. + +Five thousand voices were singing "Aloha Oe,"--"MY LOVE BE WITH YOU +TILL WE MEET AGAIN,"--and in that first moment of known love she +realized that she and Steve were being torn apart. When would they +ever meet again? He had taught her those words himself. She +remembered listening as he sang them over and over under the hau +tree at Waikiki. Had it been prophecy? And she had admired his +singing, had told him that he sang with such expression. She +laughed aloud, hysterically, at the recollection. With such +expression!--when he had been pouring his heart out in his voice. +She knew now, and it was too late. Why had he not spoken? Then she +realized that girls of her age did not marry. But girls of her age +did marry--in Hawaii--was her instant thought. Hawaii had ripened +her--Hawaii, where flesh is golden and where all women are ripe and +sun-kissed. + +Vainly she scanned the packed multitude on the dock. What had +become of him? She felt she could pay any price for one more +glimpse of him, and she almost hoped that some mortal sickness would +strike the lonely captain on the bridge and delay departure. For +the first time in her life she looked at her father with a +calculating eye, and as she did she noted with newborn fear the +lines of will and determination. It would be terrible to oppose +him. And what chance would she have in such a struggle? But why +had Steve not spoken? Now it was too late. Why had he not spoken +under the hau tree at Waikiki? + +And then, with a great sinking of the heart, it came to her that she +knew why. What was it she had heard one day? Oh, yes, it was at +Mrs. Stanton's tea, that afternoon when the ladies of the +"Missionary Crowd" had entertained the ladies of the Senatorial +party. It was Mrs. Hodgkins, the tall blonde woman, who had asked +the question. The scene came back to her vividly--the broad lanai, +the tropic flowers, the noiseless Asiatic attendants, the hum of the +voices of the many women and the question Mrs. Hodgkins had asked in +the group next to her. Mrs. Hodgkins had been away on the mainland +for years, and was evidently inquiring after old island friends of +her maiden days. "What has become of Susie Maydwell?" was the +question she had asked. "Oh, we never see her any more; she married +Willie Kupele," another island woman answered. And Senator +Behrend's wife laughed and wanted to know why matrimony had affected +Susie Maydwell's friendships. + +"Hapa-haole," was the answer; "he was a half-caste, you know, and we +of the Islands have to think about our children." + +Dorothy turned to her father, resolved to put it to the test. + +"Papa, if Steve ever comes to the United States, mayn't he come and +see us some time?" + +"Who? Steve?" + +"Yes, Stephen Knight--you know him. You said good-bye to him not +five minutes ago. Mayn't he, if he happens to be in the United +States some time, come and see us?" + +"Certainly not," Jeremy Sambrooke answered shortly. "Stephen Knight +is a hapa-haole and you know what that means." + +"Oh," Dorothy said faintly, while she felt a numb despair creep into +her heart. + +Steve was not a hapa-haole--she knew that; but she did not know that +a quarter-strain of tropic sunshine streamed in his veins, and she +knew that that was sufficient to put him outside the marriage pale. +It was a strange world. There was the Honourable A. S. Cleghorn, +who had married a dusky princess of the Kamehameha blood, yet men +considered it an honour to know him, and the most exclusive women of +the ultra-exclusive "Missionary Crowd" were to be seen at his +afternoon teas. And there was Steve. No one had disapproved of his +teaching her to ride a surf-board, nor of his leading her by the +hand through the perilous places of the crater of Kilauea. He could +have dinner with her and her father, dance with her, and be a member +of the entertainment committee; but because there was tropic +sunshine in his veins he could not marry her. + +And he didn't show it. One had to be told to know. And he was so +good-looking. The picture of him limned itself on her inner vision, +and before she was aware she was pleasuring in the memory of the +grace of his magnificent body, of his splendid shoulders, of the +power in him that tossed her lightly on a horse, bore her safely +through the thundering breakers, or towed her at the end of an +alpenstock up the stern lava crest of the House of the Sun. There +was something subtler and mysterious that she remembered, and that +she was even then just beginning to understand--the aura of the male +creature that is man, all man, masculine man. She came to herself +with a shock of shame at the thoughts she had been thinking. Her +cheeks were dyed with the hot blood which quickly receded and left +them pale at the thought that she would never see him again. The +stem of the transport was already out in the stream, and the +promenade deck was passing abreast of the end of the dock. + +"There's Steve now," her father said. "Wave good-bye to him, +Dorothy." + +Steve was looking up at her with eager eyes, and he saw in her face +what he had not seen before. By the rush of gladness into his own +face she knew that he knew. The air was throbbing with the song - + + +My love to you. +My love be with you till we meet again. + + +There was no need for speech to tell their story. About her, +passengers were flinging their garlands to their friends on the +dock. Steve held up his hands and his eyes pleaded. She slipped +her own garland over her head, but it had become entangled in the +string of Oriental pearls that Mervin, an elderly sugar king, had +placed around her neck when he drove her and her father down to the +steamer. + +She fought with the pearls that clung to the flowers. The transport +was moving steadily on. Steve was already beneath her. This was +the moment. The next moment and he would be past. She sobbed, and +Jeremy Sambrooke glanced at her inquiringly. + +"Dorothy!" he cried sharply. + +She deliberately snapped the string, and, amid a shower of pearls, +the flowers fell to the waiting lover. She gazed at him until the +tears blinded her and she buried her face on the shoulder of Jeremy +Sambrooke, who forgot his beloved statistics in wonderment at girl +babies that insisted on growing up. The crowd sang on, the song +growing fainter in the distance, but still melting with the sensuous +love-languor of Hawaii, the words biting into her heart like acid +because of their untruth. + + +Aloha oe, Aloha oe, e ke onaona no ho ika lipo, +A fond embrace, ahoi ae au, until we meet again. + + + +CHUN AH CHUN + + + +There was nothing striking in the appearance of Chun Ah Chun. He +was rather undersized, as Chinese go, and the Chinese narrow +shoulders and spareness of flesh were his. The average tourist, +casually glimpsing him on the streets of Honolulu, would have +concluded that he was a good-natured little Chinese, probably the +proprietor of a prosperous laundry or tailorshop. In so far as good +nature and prosperity went, the judgment would be correct, though +beneath the mark; for Ah Chun was as good-natured as he was +prosperous, and of the latter no man knew a tithe the tale. It was +well known that he was enormously wealthy, but in his case +"enormous" was merely the symbol for the unknown. + +Ah Chun had shrewd little eyes, black and beady and so very little +that they were like gimlet-holes. But they were wide apart, and +they sheltered under a forehead that was patently the forehead of a +thinker. For Ah Chun had his problems, and had had them all his +life. Not that he ever worried over them. He was essentially a +philosopher, and whether as coolie, or multi-millionaire and master +of many men, his poise of soul was the same. He lived always in the +high equanimity of spiritual repose, undeterred by good fortune, +unruffled by ill fortune. All things went well with him, whether +they were blows from the overseer in the cane field or a slump in +the price of sugar when he owned those cane fields himself. Thus, +from the steadfast rock of his sure content he mastered problems +such as are given to few men to consider, much less to a Chinese +peasant. + +He was precisely that--a Chinese peasant, born to labour in the +fields all his days like a beast, but fated to escape from the +fields like the prince in a fairy tale. Ah Chun did not remember +his father, a small farmer in a district not far from Canton; nor +did he remember much of his mother, who had died when he was six. +But he did remember his respected uncle, Ah Kow, for him had he +served as a slave from his sixth year to his twenty-fourth. It was +then that he escaped by contracting himself as a coolie to labour +for three years on the sugar plantations of Hawaii for fifty cents a +day. + +Ah Chun was observant. He perceived little details that not one man +in a thousand ever noticed. Three years he worked in the field, at +the end of which time he knew more about cane-growing than the +overseers or even the superintendent, while the superintendent would +have been astounded at the knowledge the weazened little coolie +possessed of the reduction processes in the mill. But Ah Chun did +not study only sugar processes. He studied to find out how men came +to be owners of sugar mills and plantations. One judgment he +achieved early, namely, that men did not become rich from the labour +of their own hands. He knew, for he had laboured for a score of +years himself. The men who grew rich did so from the labour of the +hands of others. That man was richest who had the greatest number +of his fellow creatures toiling for him. + +So, when his term of contract was up, Ah Chun invested his savings +in a small importing store, going into partnership with one, Ah +Yung. The firm ultimately became the great one of "Ah Chun and Ah +Yung," which handled anything from India silks and ginseng to guano +islands and blackbird brigs. In the meantime, Ah Chun hired out as +cook. He was a good cook, and in three years he was the highest- +paid chef in Honolulu. His career was assured, and he was a fool to +abandon it, as Dantin, his employer, told him; but Ah Chun knew his +own mind best, and for knowing it was called a triple-fool and given +a present of fifty dollars over and above the wages due him. + +The firm of Ah Chun and Ah Yung was prospering. There was no need +for Ah Chun longer to be a cook. There were boom times in Hawaii. +Sugar was being extensively planted, and labour was needed. Ah Chun +saw the chance, and went into the labour-importing business. He +brought thousands of Cantonese coolies into Hawaii, and his wealth +began to grow. He made investments. His beady black eyes saw +bargains where other men saw bankruptcy. He bought a fish-pond for +a song, which later paid five hundred per cent and was the opening +wedge by which he monopolized the fish market of Honolulu. He did +not talk for publication, nor figure in politics, nor play at +revolutions, but he forecast events more clearly and farther ahead +than did the men who engineered them. In his mind's eye he saw +Honolulu a modern, electric-lighted city at a time when it +straggled, unkempt and sand-tormented, over a barren reef of +uplifted coral rock. So he bought land. He bought land from +merchants who needed ready cash, from impecunious natives, from +riotous traders' sons, from widows and orphans and the lepers +deported to Molokai; and, somehow, as the years went by, the pieces +of land he had bought proved to be needed for warehouses, or coffee +buildings, or hotels. He leased, and rented, sold and bought, and +resold again. + +But there were other things as well. He put his confidence and his +money into Parkinson, the renegade captain whom nobody would trust. +And Parkinson sailed away on mysterious voyages in the little Vega. +Parkinson was taken care of until he died, and years afterward +Honolulu was astonished when the news leaked out that the Drake and +Acorn guano islands had been sold to the British Phosphate Trust for +three-quarters of a million. Then there were the fat, lush days of +King Kalakaua, when Ah Chun paid three hundred thousand dollars for +the opium licence. If he paid a third of a million for the drug +monopoly, the investment was nevertheless a good one, for the +dividends bought him the Kalalau Plantation, which, in turn, paid +him thirty per cent for seventeen years and was ultimately sold by +him for a million and a half. + +It was under the Kamehamehas, long before, that he had served his +own country as Chinese Consul--a position that was not altogether +unlucrative; and it was under Kamehameha IV that he changed his +citizenship, becoming an Hawaiian subject in order to marry Stella +Allendale, herself a subject of the brown-skinned king, though more +of Anglo-Saxon blood ran in her veins than of Polynesian. In fact, +the random breeds in her were so attenuated that they were valued at +eighths and sixteenths. In the latter proportions was the blood of +her great-grandmother, Paahao--the Princess Paahao, for she came of +the royal line. Stella Allendale's great-grandfather had been a +Captain Blunt, an English adventurer who took service under +Kamehameha I and was made a tabu chief himself. Her grandfather had +been a New Bedford whaling captain, while through her own father had +been introduced a remote blend of Italian and Portuguese which had +been grafted upon his own English stock. Legally a Hawaiian, Ah +Chun's spouse was more of any one of three other nationalities. + +And into this conglomerate of the races, Ah Chun introduced the +Mongolian mixture. Thus, his children by Mrs. Ah Chun were one +thirty-second Polynesian, one-sixteenth Italian, one sixteenth +Portuguese, one-half Chinese, and eleven thirty-seconds English and +American. It might well be that Ah Chun would have refrained from +matrimony could he have foreseen the wonderful family that was to +spring from this union. It was wonderful in many ways. First, +there was its size. There were fifteen sons and daughters, mostly +daughters. The sons had come first, three of them, and then had +followed, in unswerving sequence, a round dozen of girls. The blend +of the race was excellent. Not alone fruitful did it prove, for the +progeny, without exception, was healthy and without blemish. But +the most amazing thing about the family was its beauty. All the +girls were beautiful--delicately, ethereally beautiful. Mamma Ah +Chun's rotund lines seemed to modify papa Ah Chun's lean angles, so +that the daughters were willowy without being lathy, round-muscled +without being chubby. In every feature of every face were haunting +reminiscences of Asia, all manipulated over and disguised by Old +England, New England, and South of Europe. No observer, without +information, would have guessed, the heavy Chinese strain in their +veins; nor could any observer, after being informed, fail to note +immediately the Chinese traces. + +As beauties, the Ah Chun girls were something new. Nothing like +them had been seen before. They resembled nothing so much as they +resembled one another, and yet each girl was sharply individual. +There was no mistaking one for another. On the other hand, Maud, +who was blue-eyed and yellow-haired, would remind one instantly of +Henrietta, an olive brunette with large, languishing dark eyes and +hair that was blue-black. The hint of resemblance that ran through +them all, reconciling every differentiation, was Ah Chun's +contribution. He had furnished the groundwork upon which had been +traced the blended patterns of the races. He had furnished the +slim-boned Chinese frame, upon which had been builded the delicacies +and subtleties of Saxon, Latin, and Polynesian flesh. + +Mrs. Ah Chun had ideas of her own to which Ah Chun gave credence, +though never permitting them expression when they conflicted with +his own philosophic calm. She had been used all her life to living +in European fashion. Very well. Ah Chun gave her a European +mansion. Later, as his sons and daughters grew able to advise, he +built a bungalow, a spacious, rambling affair, as unpretentious as +it was magnificent. Also, as time went by, there arose a mountain +house on Tantalus, to which the family could flee when the "sick +wind" blew from the south. And at Waikiki he built a beach +residence on an extensive site so well chosen that later on, when +the United States government condemned it for fortification +purposes, an immense sum accompanied the condemnation. In all his +houses were billiard and smoking rooms and guest rooms galore, for +Ah Chun's wonderful progeny was given to lavish entertainment. The +furnishing was extravagantly simple. Kings' ransoms were expended +without display--thanks to the educated tastes of the progeny. + +Ah Chun had been liberal in the matter of education. "Never mind +expense," he had argued in the old days with Parkinson when that +slack mariner could see no reason for making the Vega seaworthy; +"you sail the schooner, I pay the bills." And so with his sons and +daughters. It had been for them to get the education and never mind +the expense. Harold, the eldest-born, had gone to Harvard and +Oxford; Albert and Charles had gone through Yale in the same +classes. And the daughters, from the eldest down, had undergone +their preparation at Mills Seminary in California and passed on to +Vassar, Wellesley, or Bryn Mawr. Several, having so desired, had +had the finishing touches put on in Europe. And from all the world +Ah Chun's sons and daughters returned to him to suggest and advise +in the garnishment of the chaste magnificence of his residences. Ah +Chun himself preferred the voluptuous glitter of Oriental display; +but he was a philosopher, and he clearly saw that his children's +tastes were correct according to Western standards. + +Of course, his children were not known as the Ah Chun children. As +he had evolved from a coolie labourer to a multi-millionaire, so had +his name evolved. Mamma Ah Chun had spelled it A'Chun, but her +wiser offspring had elided the apostrophe and spelled it Achun. Ah +Chun did not object. The spelling of his name interfered no whit +with his comfort nor his philosophic calm. Besides, he was not +proud. But when his children arose to the height of a starched +shirt, a stiff collar, and a frock coat, they did interfere with his +comfort and calm. Ah Chun would have none of it. He preferred the +loose-flowing robes of China, and neither could they cajole nor +bully him into making the change. They tried both courses, and in +the latter one failed especially disastrously. They had not been to +America for nothing. They had learned the virtues of the boycott as +employed by organized labour, and he, their father, Chun Ah Chun, +they boycotted in his own house, Mamma Achun aiding and abetting. +But Ah Chun himself, while unversed in Western culture, was +thoroughly conversant with Western labour conditions. An extensive +employer of labour himself, he knew how to cope with its tactics. +Promptly he imposed a lockout on his rebellious progeny and erring +spouse. He discharged his scores of servants, locked up his +stables, closed his houses, and went to live in the Royal Hawaiian +Hotel, in which enterprise he happened to be the heaviest +stockholder. The family fluttered distractedly on visits about with +friends, while Ah Chun calmly managed his many affairs, smoked his +long pipe with the tiny silver bowl, and pondered the problem of his +wonderful progeny. + +This problem did not disturb his calm. He knew in his philosopher's +soul that when it was ripe he would solve it. In the meantime he +enforced the lesson that complacent as he might be, he was +nevertheless the absolute dictator of the Achun destinies. The +family held out for a week, then returned, along with Ah Chun and +the many servants, to occupy the bungalow once more. And thereafter +no question was raised when Ah Chun elected to enter his brilliant +drawing-room in blue silk robe, wadded slippers, and black silk +skull-cap with red button peak, or when he chose to draw at his +slender-stemmed silver-bowled pipe among the cigarette- and cigar- +smoking officers and civilians on the broad verandas or in the +smoking room. + +Ah Chun occupied a unique position in Honolulu. Though he did not +appear in society, he was eligible anywhere. Except among the +Chinese merchants of the city, he never went out; but he received, +and he always was the centre of his household and the head of his +table. Himself peasant, born Chinese, he presided over an +atmosphere of culture and refinement second to none in all the +islands. Nor were there any in all the islands too proud to cross +his threshold and enjoy his hospitality. First of all, the Achun +bungalow was of irreproachable tone. Next, Ah Chun was a power. +And finally, Ah Chun was a moral paragon and an honest business man. +Despite the fact that business morality was higher than on the +mainland, Ah Chun outshone the business men of Honolulu in the +scrupulous rigidity of his honesty. It was a saying that his word +was as good as his bond. His signature was never needed to bind +him. He never broke his word. Twenty years after Hotchkiss, of +Hotchkiss, Morterson Company, died, they found among mislaid papers +a memorandum of a loan of thirty thousand dollars to Ah Chun. It +had been incurred when Ah Chun was Privy Councillor to Kamehameha +II. In the bustle and confusion of those heyday, money-making +times, the affair had slipped Ah Chun's mind. There was no note, no +legal claim against him, but he settled in full with the Hotchkiss' +Estate, voluntarily paying a compound interest that dwarfed the +principal. Likewise, when he verbally guaranteed the disastrous +Kakiku Ditch Scheme, at a time when the least sanguine did not dream +a guarantee necessary--"Signed his cheque for two hundred thousand +without a quiver, gentlemen, without a quiver," was the report of +the secretary of the defunct enterprise, who had been sent on the +forlorn hope of finding out Ah Chun's intentions. And on top of the +many similar actions that were true of his word, there was scarcely +a man of repute in the islands that at one time or another had not +experienced the helping financial hand of Ah Chun. + +So it was that Honolulu watched his wonderful family grow up into a +perplexing problem and secretly sympathized with him, for it was +beyond any of them to imagine what he was going to do with it. But +Ah Chun saw the problem more clearly than they. No one knew as he +knew the extent to which he was an alien in his family. His own +family did not guess it. He saw that there was no place for him +amongst this marvellous seed of his loins, and he looked forward to +his declining years and knew that he would grow more and more alien. +He did not understand his children. Their conversation was of +things that did not interest him and about which he knew nothing. +The culture of the West had passed him by. He was Asiatic to the +last fibre, which meant that he was heathen. Their Christianity was +to him so much nonsense. But all this he would have ignored as +extraneous and irrelevant, could he have but understood the young +people themselves. When Maud, for instance, told him that the +housekeeping bills for the month were thirty thousand--that he +understood, as he understood Albert's request for five thousand with +which to buy the schooner yacht Muriel and become a member of the +Hawaiian Yacht Club. But it was their remoter, complicated desires +and mental processes that obfuscated him. He was not slow in +learning that the mind of each son and daughter was a secret +labyrinth which he could never hope to tread. Always he came upon +the wall that divides East from West. Their souls were inaccessible +to him, and by the same token he knew that his soul was inaccessible +to them. + +Besides, as the years came upon him, he found himself harking back +more and more to his own kind. The reeking smells of the Chinese +quarter were spicy to him. He sniffed them with satisfaction as he +passed along the street, for in his mind they carried him back to +the narrow tortuous alleys of Canton swarming with life and +movement. He regretted that he had cut off his queue to please +Stella Allendale in the prenuptial days, and he seriously considered +the advisability of shaving his crown and growing a new one. The +dishes his highly paid chef concocted for him failed to tickle his +reminiscent palate in the way that the weird messes did in the +stuffy restaurant down in the Chinese quarter. He enjoyed vastly +more a half-hour's smoke and chat with two or three Chinese chums, +than to preside at the lavish and elegant dinners for which his +bungalow was famed, where the pick of the Americans and Europeans +sat at the long table, men and women on equality, the women with +jewels that blazed in the subdued light against white necks and +arms, the men in evening dress, and all chattering and laughing over +topics and witticisms that, while they were not exactly Greek to +him, did not interest him nor entertain. + +But it was not merely his alienness and his growing desire to return +to his Chinese flesh-pots that constituted the problem. There was +also his wealth. He had looked forward to a placid old age. He had +worked hard. His reward should have been peace and repose. But he +knew that with his immense fortune peace and repose could not +possibly be his. Already there were signs and omens. He had seen +similar troubles before. There was his old employer, Dantin, whose +children had wrested from him, by due process of law, the management +of his property, having the Court appoint guardians to administer it +for him. Ah Chun knew, and knew thoroughly well, that had Dantin +been a poor man, it would have been found that he could quite +rationally manage his own affairs. And old Dantin had had only +three children and half a million, while he, Chun Ah Chun, had +fifteen children and no one but himself knew how many millions. + +"Our daughters are beautiful women," he said to his wife, one +evening. "There are many young men. The house is always full of +young men. My cigar bills are very heavy. Why are there no +marriages?" + +Mamma Achun shrugged her shoulders and waited. + +"Women are women and men are men--it is strange there are no +marriages. Perhaps the young men do not like our daughters." + +"Ah, they like them well enough," Mamma Chun answered; "but you see, +they cannot forget that you are your daughters' father." + +"Yet you forgot who my father was," Ah Chun said gravely. "All you +asked was for me to cut off my queue." + +"The young men are more particular than I was, I fancy." + +"What is the greatest thing in the world?" Ah Chun demanded with +abrupt irrelevance. + +Mamma Achun pondered for a moment, then replied: "God." + +He nodded. "There are gods and gods. Some are paper, some are +wood, some are bronze. I use a small one in the office for a paper- +weight. In the Bishop Museum are many gods of coral rock and lava +stone." + +"But there is only one God," she announced decisively, stiffening +her ample frame argumentatively. + +Ah Chun noted the danger signal and sheered off. + +"What is greater than God, then?" he asked. "I will tell you. It +is money. In my time I have had dealings with Jews and Christians, +Mohammedans and Buddhists, and with little black men from the +Solomons and New Guinea who carried their god about them, wrapped in +oiled paper. They possessed various gods, these men, but they all +worshipped money. There is that Captain Higginson. He seems to +like Henrietta." + +"He will never marry her," retorted Mamma Achun. "He will be an +admiral before he dies--" + +"A rear-admiral," Ah Chun interpolated. + +"Yes, I know. That is the way they retire." + +"His family in the United States is a high one. They would not like +it if he married . . . if he did not marry an American girl." + +Ah Chun knocked the ashes out of his pipe, thoughtfully refilling +the silver bowl with a tiny pleget of tobacco. He lighted it and +smoked it out before he spoke. + +"Henrietta is the oldest girl. The day she marries I will give her +three hundred thousand dollars. That will fetch that Captain +Higginson and his high family along with him. Let the word go out +to him. I leave it to you." + +And Ah Chun sat and smoked on, and in the curling smoke-wreaths he +saw take shape the face and figure of Toy Shuey--Toy Shuey, the maid +of all work in his uncle's house in the Cantonese village, whose +work was never done and who received for a whole year's work one +dollar. And he saw his youthful self arise in the curling smoke, +his youthful self who had toiled eighteen years in his uncle's field +for little more. And now he, Ah Chun, the peasant, dowered his +daughter with three hundred thousand years of such toil. And she +was but one daughter of a dozen. He was not elated at the thought. +It struck him that it was a funny, whimsical world, and he chuckled +aloud and startled Mamma Achun from a revery which he knew lay deep +in the hidden crypts of her being where he had never penetrated. + +But Ah Chun's word went forth, as a whisper, and Captain Higginson +forgot his rear-admiralship and his high family and took to wife +three hundred thousand dollars and a refined and cultured girl who +was one thirty-second Polynesian, one-sixteenth Italian, one- +sixteenth Portuguese, eleven thirty-seconds English and Yankee, and +one-half Chinese. + +Ah Chun's munificence had its effect. His daughters became suddenly +eligible and desirable. Clara was the next, but when the Secretary +of the Territory formally proposed for her, Ah Chun informed him +that he must wait his turn, that Maud was the oldest and that she +must be married first. It was shrewd policy. The whole family was +made vitally interested in marrying off Maud, which it did in three +months, to Ned Humphreys, the United States immigration +commissioner. Both he and Maud complained, for the dowry was only +two hundred thousand. Ah Chun explained that his initial generosity +had been to break the ice, and that after that his daughters could +not expect otherwise than to go more cheaply. + +Clara followed Maud, and thereafter, for a space of two years; there +was a continuous round of weddings in the bungalow. In the meantime +Ah Chun had not been idle. Investment after investment was called +in. He sold out his interests in a score of enterprises, and step +by step, so as not to cause a slump in the market, he disposed of +his large holdings in real estate. Toward the last he did +precipitate a slump and sold at sacrifice. What caused this haste +were the squalls he saw already rising above the horizon. By the +time Lucille was married, echoes of bickerings and jealousies were +already rumbling in his ears. The air was thick with schemes and +counter-schemes to gain his favour and to prejudice him against one +or another or all but one of his sons-in-law. All of which was not +conducive to the peace and repose he had planned for his old age. + +He hastened his efforts. For a long time he had been in +correspondence with the chief banks in Shanghai and Macao. Every +steamer for several years had carried away drafts drawn in favour of +one, Chun Ah Chun, for deposit in those Far Eastern banks. The +drafts now became heavier. His two youngest daughters were not yet +married. He did not wait, but dowered them with a hundred thousand +each, which sums lay in the Bank of Hawaii, drawing interest and +awaiting their wedding day. Albert took over the business of the +firm of Ah Chun and Ah Yung, Harold, the eldest, having elected to +take a quarter of a million and go to England to live. Charles, the +youngest, took a hundred thousand, a legal guardian, and a course in +a Keeley institute. To Mamma Achun was given the bungalow, the +mountain House on Tantalus, and a new seaside residence in place of +the one Ah Chun sold to the government. Also, to Mamma Achun was +given half a million in money well invested. + +Ah Chun was now ready to crack the nut of the problem. One fine +morning when the family was at breakfast--he had seen to it that all +his sons-in-law and their wives were present--he announced that he +was returning to his ancestral soil. In a neat little homily he +explained that he had made ample provision for his family, and he +laid down various maxims that he was sure, he said, would enable +them to dwell together in peace and harmony. Also, he gave business +advice to his sons-in-law, preached the virtues of temperate living +and safe investments, and gave them the benefit of his encyclopedic +knowledge of industrial and business conditions in Hawaii. Then he +called for his carriage, and, in the company of the weeping Mamma +Achun, was driven down to the Pacific Mail steamer, leaving behind +him a panic in the bungalow. Captain Higginson clamoured wildly for +an injunction. The daughters shed copious tears. One of their +husbands, an ex-Federal judge, questioned Ah Chun's sanity, and +hastened to the proper authorities to inquire into it. He returned +with the information that Ah Chun had appeared before the commission +the day before, demanded an examination, and passed with flying +colours. There was nothing to be done, so they went down and said +good-bye to the little old man, who waved farewell from the +promenade deck as the big steamer poked her nose seaward through the +coral reef. + +But the little old man was not bound for Canton. He knew his own +country too well, and the squeeze of the Mandarins, to venture into +it with the tidy bulk of wealth that remained to him. He went to +Macao. Now Ah Chun had long exercised the power of a king and he +was as imperious as a king. When he landed at Macao and went into +the office of the biggest European hotel to register, the clerk +closed the book on him. Chinese were not permitted. Ah Chun called +for the manager and was treated with contumely. He drove away, but +in two hours he was back again. He called the clerk and manager in, +gave them a month's salary, and discharged them. He had made +himself the owner of the hotel; and in the finest suite he settled +down during the many months the gorgeous palace in the suburbs was +building for him. In the meantime, with the inevitable ability that +was his, he increased the earnings of his big hotel from three per +cent to thirty. + +The troubles Ah Chun had flown began early. There were sons-in-law +that made bad investments, others that played ducks and drakes with +the Achun dowries. Ah Chun being out of it, they looked at Mamma Ah +Chun and her half million, and, looking, engendered not the best of +feeling toward one another. Lawyers waxed fat in the striving to +ascertain the construction of trust deeds. Suits, cross-suits, and +counter-suits cluttered the Hawaiian courts. Nor did the police +courts escape. There were angry encounters in which harsh words and +harsher blows were struck. There were such things as flower pots +being thrown to add emphasis to winged words. And suits for libel +arose that dragged their way through the courts and kept Honolulu +agog with excitement over the revelations of the witnesses. + +In his palace, surrounded by all dear delights of the Orient, Ah +Chun smokes his placid pipe and listens to the turmoil overseas. By +each mail steamer, in faultless English, typewritten on an American +machine, a letter goes from Macao to Honolulu, in which, by +admirable texts and precepts, Ah Chun advises his family to live in +unity and harmony. As for himself, he is out of it all, and well +content. He has won to peace and repose. At times he chuckles and +rubs his hands, and his slant little black eyes twinkle merrily at +the thought of the funny world. For out of all his living and +philosophizing, that remains to him--the conviction that it is a +very funny world. + + + +THE SHERIFF OF KONA + + + +"You cannot escape liking the climate," Cudworth said, in reply to +my panegyric on the Kona coast. "I was a young fellow, just out of +college, when I came here eighteen years ago. I never went back, +except, of course, to visit. And I warn you, if you have some spot +dear to you on earth, not to linger here too long, else you will +find this dearer." + +We had finished dinner, which had been served on the big lanai, the +one with a northerly exposure, though exposure is indeed a misnomer +in so delectable a climate. + +The candles had been put out, and a slim, white-clad Japanese +slipped like a ghost through the silvery moonlight, presented us +with cigars, and faded away into the darkness of the bungalow. I +looked through a screen of banana and lehua trees, and down across +the guava scrub to the quiet sea a thousand feet beneath. For a +week, ever since I had landed from the tiny coasting-steamer, I had +been stopping with Cudworth, and during that time no wind had +ruffled that unvexed sea. True, there had been breezes, but they +were the gentlest zephyrs that ever blew through summer isles. They +were not winds; they were sighs--long, balmy sighs of a world at +rest. + +"A lotus land," I said. + +"Where each day is like every day, and every day is a paradise of +days," he answered. "Nothing ever happens. It is not too hot. It +is not too cold. It is always just right. Have you noticed how the +land and the sea breathe turn and turn about?" + +Indeed, I had noticed that delicious rhythmic, breathing. Each +morning I had watched the sea-breeze begin at the shore and slowly +extend seaward as it blew the mildest, softest whiff of ozone to the +land. It played over the sea, just faintly darkening its surface, +with here and there and everywhere long lanes of calm, shifting, +changing, drifting, according to the capricious kisses of the +breeze. And each evening I had watched the sea breath die away to +heavenly calm, and heard the land breath softly make its way through +the coffee trees and monkey-pods. + +"It is a land of perpetual calm," I said. "Does it ever blow here?- +-ever really blow? You know what I mean." + +Cudworth shook his head and pointed eastward. + +"How can it blow, with a barrier like that to stop it?" + +Far above towered the huge bulks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, seeming +to blot out half the starry sky. Two miles and a half above our +heads they reared their own heads, white with snow that the tropic +sun had failed to melt. + +"Thirty miles away, right now, I'll wager, it is blowing forty miles +an hour." + +I smiled incredulously. + +Cudworth stepped to the lanai telephone. He called up, in +succession, Waimea, Kohala, and Hamakua. Snatches of his +conversation told me that the wind was blowing: "Rip-snorting and +back-jumping, eh? . . . How long? . . . Only a week? . . . Hello, +Abe, is that you? . . . Yes, yes . . . You WILL plant coffee on the +Hamakua coast . . . Hang your wind-breaks! You should see MY +trees." + +"Blowing a gale," he said to me, turning from hanging up the +receiver. "I always have to joke Abe on his coffee. He has five +hundred acres, and he's done marvels in wind-breaking, but how he +keeps the roots in the ground is beyond me. Blow? It always blows +on the Hamakua side. Kohala reports a schooner under double reefs +beating up the channel between Hawaii and Maui, and making heavy +weather of it." + +"It is hard to realize," I said lamely. "Doesn't a little whiff of +it ever eddy around somehow, and get down here?" + +"Not a whiff. Our land-breeze is absolutely of no kin, for it +begins this side of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. You see, the land +radiates its heat quicker than the sea, and so, at night, the land +breathes over the sea. In the day the land becomes warmer than the +sea, and the sea breathes over the land . . . Listen! Here comes +the land-breath now, the mountain wind." + +I could hear it coming, rustling softly through the coffee trees, +stirring the monkey-pods, and sighing through the sugar-cane. On +the lanai the hush still reigned. Then it came, the first feel of +the mountain wind, faintly balmy, fragrant and spicy, and cool, +deliciously cool, a silken coolness, a wine-like coolness--cool as +only the mountain wind of Kona can be cool. + +"Do you wonder that I lost my heart to Kona eighteen years ago?" he +demanded. "I could never leave it now. I think I should die. It +would be terrible. There was another man who loved it, even as I. +I think he loved it more, for he was born here on the Kona coast. +He was a great man, my best friend, my more than brother. But he +left it, and he did not die." + +"Love?" I queried. "A woman?" + +Cudworth shook his head. + +"Nor will he ever come back, though his heart will be here until he +dies." + +He paused and gazed down upon the beachlights of Kailua. I smoked +silently and waited. + +"He was already in love . . . with his wife. Also, he had three +children, and he loved them. They are in Honolulu now. The boy is +going to college." + +"Some rash act?" I questioned, after a time, impatiently. + +He shook his head. "Neither guilty of anything criminal, nor +charged with anything criminal. He was the Sheriff of Kona." + +"You choose to be paradoxical," I said. + +"I suppose it does sound that way," he admitted, "and that is the +perfect hell of it." + +He looked at me searchingly for a moment, and then abruptly took up +the tale. + +"He was a leper. No, he was not born with it--no one is born with +it; it came upon him. This man--what does it matter? Lyte Gregory +was his name. Every kamaina knows the story. He was straight +American stock, but he was built like the chieftains of old Hawaii. +He stood six feet three. His stripped weight was two hundred and +twenty pounds, not an ounce of which was not clean muscle or bone. +He was the strongest man I have ever seen. He was an athlete and a +giant. He was a god. He was my friend. And his heart and his soul +were as big and as fine as his body. + +"I wonder what you would do if you saw your friend, your brother, on +the slippery lip of a precipice, slipping, slipping, and you were +able to do nothing. That was just it. I could do nothing. I saw +it coming, and I could do nothing. My God, man, what could I do? +There it was, malignant and incontestable, the mark of the thing on +his brow. No one else saw it. It was because I loved him so, I do +believe, that I alone saw it. I could not credit the testimony of +my senses. It was too incredibly horrible. Yet there it was, on +his brow, on his ears. I had seen it, the slight puff of the +earlobes--oh, so imperceptibly slight. I watched it for months. +Then, next, hoping against hope, the darkening of the skin above +both eyebrows--oh, so faint, just like the dimmest touch of sunburn. +I should have thought it sunburn but that there was a shine to it, +such an invisible shine, like a little highlight seen for a moment +and gone the next. I tried to believe it was sunburn, only I could +not. I knew better. No one noticed it but me. No one ever noticed +it except Stephen Kaluna, and I did not know that till afterward. +But I saw it coming, the whole damnable, unnamable awfulness of it; +but I refused to think about the future. I was afraid. I could +not. And of nights I cried over it. + +"He was my friend. We fished sharks on Niihau together. We hunted +wild cattle on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. We broke horses and branded +steers on the Carter Ranch. We hunted goats through Haleakala. He +taught me diving and surfing until I was nearly as clever as he, and +he was cleverer than the average Kanaka. I have seen him dive in +fifteen fathoms, and he could stay down two minutes. He was an +amphibian and a mountaineer. He could climb wherever a goat dared +climb. He was afraid of nothing. He was on the wrecked Luga, and +he swam thirty miles in thirty-six hours in a heavy sea. He could +fight his way out through breaking combers that would batter you and +me to a jelly. He was a great, glorious man-god. We went through +the Revolution together. We were both romantic loyalists. He was +shot twice and sentenced to death. But he was too great a man for +the republicans to kill. He laughed at them. Later, they gave him +honour and made him Sheriff of Kona. He was a simple man, a boy +that never grew up. His was no intricate brain pattern. He had no +twists nor quirks in his mental processes. He went straight to the +point, and his points were always simple. + +"And he was sanguine. Never have I known so confident a man, nor a +man so satisfied and happy. He did not ask anything from life. +There was nothing left to be desired. For him life had no arrears. +He had been paid in full, cash down, and in advance. What more +could he possibly desire than that magnificent body, that iron +constitution, that immunity from all ordinary ills, and that lowly +wholesomeness of soul? Physically he was perfect. He had never +been sick in his life. He did not know what a headache was. When I +was so afflicted he used to look at me in wonder, and make me laugh +with his clumsy attempts at sympathy. He did not understand such a +thing as a headache. He could not understand. Sanguine? No +wonder. How could he be otherwise with that tremendous vitality and +incredible health? + +"Just to show you what faith he had in his glorious star, and, also, +what sanction he had for that faith. He was a youngster at the +time--I had just met him--when he went into a poker game at Wailuku. +There was a big German in it, Schultz his name was, and he played a +brutal, domineering game. He had had a run of luck as well, and he +was quite insufferable, when Lyte Gregory dropped in and took a +hand. The very first hand it was Schultz's blind. Lyte came in, as +well as the others, and Schultz raised them out--all except Lyte. +He did not like the German's tone, and he raised him back. Schultz +raised in turn, and in turn Lyte raised Schultz. So they went, back +and forth. The stakes were big. And do you know what Lyte held? A +pair of kings and three little clubs. It wasn't poker. Lyte wasn't +playing poker. He was playing his optimism. He didn't know what +Schultz held, but he raised and raised until he made Schultz squeal, +and Schultz held three aces all the time. Think of it! A man with +a pair of kings compelling three aces to see before the draw! + +"Well, Schultz called for two cards. Another German was dealing, +Schultz's friend at that. Lyte knew then that he was up against +three of a kind. Now what did he do? What would you have done? +Drawn three cards and held up the kings, of course. Not Lyte. He +was playing optimism. He threw the kings away, held up the three +little clubs, and drew two cards. He never looked at them. He +looked across at Schultz to bet, and Schultz did bet, big. Since he +himself held three aces he knew he had Lyte, because he played Lyte +for threes, and, necessarily, they would have to be smaller threes. +Poor Schultz! He was perfectly correct under the premises. His +mistake was that he thought Lyte was playing poker. They bet back +and forth for five minutes, until Schultz's certainty began to ooze +out. And all the time Lyte had never looked at his two cards, and +Schultz knew it. I could see Schultz think, and revive, and splurge +with his bets again. But the strain was too much for him." + +"'Hold on, Gregory,' he said at last. 'I've got you beaten from the +start. I don't want any of your money. I've got--'" + +"'Never mind what you've got,' Lyte interrupted. 'You don't know +what I've got. I guess I'll take a look.'" + +"He looked, and raised the German a hundred dollars. Then they went +at it again, back and forth and back and forth, until Schultz +weakened and called, and laid down his three aces. Lyte faced his +five cards. They were all black. He had drawn two more clubs. Do +you know, he just about broke Schultz's nerve as a poker player. He +never played in the same form again. He lacked confidence after +that, and was a bit wobbly." + +"'But how could you do it?' I asked Lyte afterwards. 'You knew he +had you beaten when he drew two cards. Besides, you never looked at +your own draw.'" + +"'I didn't have to look,' was Lyte's answer. 'I knew they were two +clubs all the time. They just had to be two clubs. Do you think I +was going to let that big Dutchman beat me? It was impossible that +he should beat me. It is not my way to be beaten. I just have to +win. Why, I'd have been the most surprised man in this world if +they hadn't been all clubs.'" + +"That was Lyte's way, and maybe it will help you to appreciate his +colossal optimism. As he put it he just had to succeed, to fare +well, to prosper. And in that same incident, as in ten thousand +others, he found his sanction. The thing was that he did succeed, +did prosper. That was why he was afraid of nothing. Nothing could +ever happen to him. He knew it, because nothing had ever happened +to him. That time the Luga was lost and he swam thirty miles, he +was in the water two whole nights and a day. And during all that +terrible stretch of time he never lost hope once, never once doubted +the outcome. He just knew he was going to make the land. He told +me so himself, and I know it was the truth. + +"Well, that is the kind of a man Lyte Gregory was. He was of a +different race from ordinary, ailing mortals. He was a lordly +being, untouched by common ills and misfortunes. Whatever he wanted +he got. He won his wife--one of the Caruthers, a little beauty-- +from a dozen rivals. And she settled down and made him the finest +wife in the world. He wanted a boy. He got it. He wanted a girl +and another boy. He got them. And they were just right, without +spot or blemish, with chests like little barrels, and with all the +inheritance of his own health and strength. + +"And then it happened. The mark of the beast was laid upon him. I +watched it for a year. It broke my heart. But he did not know it, +nor did anybody else guess it except that cursed hapa-haole, Stephen +Kaluna. He knew it, but I did not know that he did. And--yes--Doc +Strowbridge knew it. He was the federal physician, and he had +developed the leper eye. You see, part of his business was to +examine suspects and order them to the receiving station at +Honolulu. And Stephen Kaluna had developed the leper eye. The +disease ran strong in his family, and four or five of his relatives +were already on Molokai. + +"The trouble arose over Stephen Kaluna's sister. When she became +suspect, and before Doc Strowbridge could get hold of her, her +brother spirited her away to some hiding-place. Lyte was Sheriff of +Kona, and it was his business to find her. + +"We were all over at Hilo that night, in Ned Austin's. Stephen +Kaluna was there when we came in, by himself, in his cups, and +quarrelsome. Lyte was laughing over some joke--that huge, happy +laugh of a giant boy. Kaluna spat contemptuously on the floor. +Lyte noticed, so did everybody; but he ignored the fellow. Kaluna +was looking for trouble. He took it as a personal grudge that Lyte +was trying to apprehend his sister. In half a dozen ways he +advertised his displeasure at Lyte's presence, but Lyte ignored him. +I imagined Lyte was a bit sorry for him, for the hardest duty of his +office was the apprehension of lepers. It is not a nice thing to go +in to a man's house and tear away a father, mother, or child, who +has done no wrong, and to send such a one to perpetual banishment on +Molokai. Of course, it is necessary as a protection to society, and +Lyte, I do believe, would have been the first to apprehend his own +father did he become suspect. + +"Finally, Kaluna blurted out: 'Look here, Gregory, you think you're +going to find Kalaniweo, but you're not.' + +"Kalaniweo was his sister. Lyte glanced at him when his name was +called, but he made no answer. Kaluna was furious. He was working +himself up all the time. + +"'I'll tell you one thing,' he shouted. 'You'll be on Molokai +yourself before ever you get Kalaniweo there. I'll tell you what +you are. You've no right to be in the company of honest men. +You've made a terrible fuss talking about your duty, haven't you? +You've sent many lepers to Molokai, and knowing all the time you +belonged there yourself.' + +"I'd seen Lyte angry more than once, but never quite so angry as at +that moment. Leprosy with us, you know, is not a thing to jest +about. He made one leap across the floor, dragging Kaluna out of +his chair with a clutch on his neck. He shook him back and forth +savagely, till you could hear the half-caste's teeth rattling. + +"'What do you mean?' Lyte was demanding. 'Spit it out, man, or I'll +choke it out of you!' + +"You know, in the West there is a certain phrase that a man must +smile while uttering. So with us of the islands, only our phrase is +related to leprosy. No matter what Kaluna was, he was no coward. +As soon as Lyte eased the grip on his throat he answered:- + +"'I'll tell you what I mean. You are a leper yourself.' + +Lyte suddenly flung the half-caste sideways into a chair, letting +him down easily enough. Then Lyte broke out into honest, hearty +laughter. But he laughed alone, and when he discovered it he looked +around at our faces. I had reached his side and was trying to get +him to come away, but he took no notice of me. He was gazing, +fascinated, at Kaluna, who was brushing at his own throat in a +flurried, nervous way, as if to brush off the contamination of the +fingers that had clutched him. The action was unreasoned, genuine. + +"Lyte looked around at us, slowly passing from face to face. + +"'My God, fellows! My God!' he said. + +"He did not speak it. It was more a hoarse whisper of fright and +horror. It was fear that fluttered in his throat, and I don't think +that ever in his life before he had known fear. + +"Then his colossal optimism asserted itself, and he laughed again. + +"'A good joke--whoever put it up,' he said. 'The drinks are on me. +I had a scare for a moment. But, fellows, don't do it again, to +anybody. It's too serious. I tell you I died a thousand deaths in +that moment. I thought of my wife and the kids, and . . . ' + +"His voice broke, and the half-caste, still throat-brushing, drew +his eyes. He was puzzled and worried. + +"'John,' he said, turning toward me. + +"His jovial, rotund voice rang in my ears. But I could not answer. +I was swallowing hard at that moment, and besides, I knew my face +didn't look just right. + +"'John,' he called again, taking a step nearer. + +"He called timidly, and of all nightmares of horrors the most +frightful was to hear timidity in Lyte Gregory's voice. + +"'John, John, what does it mean?' he went on, still more timidly. +'It's a joke, isn't it? John, here's my hand. If I were a leper +would I offer you my hand? Am I a leper, John?' + +"He held out his hand, and what in high heaven or hell did I care? +He was my friend. I took his hand, though it cut me to the heart to +see the way his face brightened. + +"'It was only a joke, Lyte,' I said. 'We fixed it up on you. But +you're right. It's too serious. We won't do it again.' + +"He did not laugh this time. He smiled, as a man awakened from a +bad dream and still oppressed by the substance of the dream. + +"'All right, then,' he said. 'Don't do it again, and I'll stand for +the drinks. But I may as well confess that you fellows had me going +south for a moment. Look at the way I've been sweating.' + +"He sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead as he started to +step toward the bar. + +"'It is no joke,' Kaluna said abruptly. I looked murder at him, and +I felt murder, too. But I dared not speak or strike. That would +have precipitated the catastrophe which I somehow had a mad hope of +still averting. + +"'It is no joke,' Kaluna repeated. 'You are a leper, Lyte Gregory, +and you've no right putting your hands on honest men's flesh--on the +clean flesh of honest men.' + +"Then Gregory flared up. + +"'The joke has gone far enough! Quit it! Quit it, I say, Kaluna, +or I'll give you a beating!' + +"'You undergo a bacteriological examination,' Kaluna answered, 'and +then you can beat me--to death, if you want to. Why, man, look at +yourself there in the glass. You can see it. Anybody can see it. +You're developing the lion face. See where the skin is darkened +there over your eyes. + +"Lyte peered and peered, and I saw his hands trembling. + +"'I can see nothing,' he said finally, then turned on the hapa- +haole. 'You have a black heart, Kaluna. And I am not ashamed to +say that you have given me a scare that no man has a right to give +another. I take you at your word. I am going to settle this thing +now. I am going straight to Doc Strowbridge. And when I come back, +watch out.' + +"He never looked at us, but started for the door. + +"'You wait here, John,' he said, waving me back from accompanying +him. + +"We stood around like a group of ghosts. + +"'It is the truth,' Kaluna said. 'You could see it for yourselves.' + +"They looked at me, and I nodded. Harry Burnley lifted his glass to +his lips, but lowered it untasted. He spilled half of it over the +bar. His lips were trembling like a child that is about to cry. +Ned Austin made a clatter in the ice-chest. He wasn't looking for +anything. I don't think he knew what he was doing. Nobody spoke. +Harry Burnley's lips were trembling harder than ever. Suddenly, +with a most horrible, malignant expression he drove his fist into +Kaluna's face. He followed it up. We made no attempt to separate +them. We didn't care if he killed the half-caste. It was a +terrible beating. We weren't interested. I don't even remember +when Burnley ceased and let the poor devil crawl away. We were all +too dazed. + +"Doc Strowbridge told me about it afterward. He was working late +over a report when Lyte came into his office. Lyte had already +recovered his optimism, and came swinging in, a trifle angry with +Kaluna to be sure, but very certain of himself. 'What could I do?' +Doc asked me. 'I knew he had it. I had seen it coming on for +months. I couldn't answer him. I couldn't say yes. I don't mind +telling you I broke down and cried. He pleaded for the +bacteriological test. "Snip out a piece, Doc," he said, over and +over. "Snip out a piece of skin and make the test." + +"The way Doc Strowbridge cried must have convinced Lyte. The +Claudine was leaving next morning for Honolulu. We caught him when +he was going aboard. You see, he was headed for Honolulu to give +himself up to the Board of Health. We could do nothing with him. +He had sent too many to Molokai to hang back himself. We argued for +Japan. But he wouldn't hear of it. 'I've got to take my medicine, +fellows,' was all he would say, and he said it over and over. He +was obsessed with the idea. + +"He wound up all his affairs from the Receiving Station at Honolulu, +and went down to Molokai. He didn't get on well there. The +resident physician wrote us that he was a shadow of his old self. +You see he was grieving about his wife and the kids. He knew we +were taking care of them, but it hurt him just the same. After six +months or so I went down to Molokai. I sat on one side a plate- +glass window, and he on the other. We looked at each other through +the glass and talked through what might be called a speaking tube. +But it was hopeless. He had made up his mind to remain. Four +mortal hours I argued. I was exhausted at the end. My steamer was +whistling for me, too. + +"But we couldn't stand for it. Three months later we chartered the +schooner Halcyon. She was an opium smuggler, and she sailed like a +witch. Her master was a squarehead who would do anything for money, +and we made a charter to China worth his while. He sailed from San +Francisco, and a few days later we took out Landhouse's sloop for a +cruise. She was only a five-ton yacht, but we slammed her fifty +miles to windward into the north-east trade. Seasick? I never +suffered so in my life. Out of sight of land we picked up the +Halcyon, and Burnley and I went aboard. + +"We ran down to Molokai, arriving about eleven at night. The +schooner hove to and we landed through the surf in a whale-boat at +Kalawao--the place, you know, where Father Damien died. That +squarehead was game. With a couple of revolvers strapped on him he +came right along. The three of us crossed the peninsula to +Kalaupapa, something like two miles. Just imagine hunting in the +dead of night for a man in a settlement of over a thousand lepers. +You see, if the alarm was given, it was all off with us. It was +strange ground, and pitch dark. The leper's dogs came out and bayed +at us, and we stumbled around till we got lost. + +"The squarehead solved it. He led the way into the first detached +house. We shut the door after us and struck a light. There were +six lepers. We routed them up, and I talked in native. What I +wanted was a kokua. A kokua is, literally, a helper, a native who +is clean that lives in the settlement and is paid by the Board of +Health to nurse the lepers, dress their sores, and such things. We +stayed in the house to keep track of the inmates, while the +squarehead led one of them off to find a kokua. He got him, and he +brought him along at the point of his revolver. But the kokua was +all right. While the squarehead guarded the house, Burnley and I +were guided by the kokua to Lyte's house. He was all alone. + +"'I thought you fellows would come,' Lyte said. 'Don't touch me, +John. How's Ned, and Charley, and all the crowd? Never mind, tell +me afterward. I am ready to go now. I've had nine months of it. +Where's the boat?' + +"We started back for the other house to pick up the squarehead. But +the alarm had got out. Lights were showing in the houses, and doors +were slamming. We had agreed that there was to be no shooting +unless absolutely necessary, and when we were halted we went at it +with our fists and the butts of our revolvers. I found myself +tangled up with a big man. I couldn't keep him off me, though twice +I smashed him fairly in the face with my fist. He grappled with me, +and we went down, rolling and scrambling and struggling for grips. +He was getting away with me, when some one came running up with a +lantern. Then I saw his face. How shall I describe the horror of +it. It was not a face--only wasted or wasting features--a living +ravage, noseless, lipless, with one ear swollen and distorted, +hanging down to the shoulder. I was frantic. In a clinch he hugged +me close to him until that ear flapped in my face. Then I guess I +went insane. It was too terrible. I began striking him with my +revolver. How it happened I don't know, but just as I was getting +clear he fastened upon me with his teeth. The whole side of my hand +was in that lipless mouth. Then I struck him with the revolver butt +squarely between the eyes, and his teeth relaxed." + +Cudworth held his hand to me in the moonlight, and I could see the +scars. It looked as if it had been mangled by a dog. + +"Weren't you afraid?" I asked. + +"I was. Seven years I waited. You know, it takes that long for the +disease to incubate. Here in Kona I waited, and it did not come. +But there was never a day of those seven years, and never a night, +that I did not look out on . . . on all this . . . " His voice +broke as he swept his eyes from the moon-bathed sea beneath to the +snowy summits above. "I could not bear to think of losing it, of +never again beholding Kona. Seven years! I stayed clean. But that +is why I am single. I was engaged. I could not dare to marry while +I was in doubt. She did not understand. She went away to the +States and married. I have never seen her since. + +"Just at the moment I got clear of the leper policeman there was a +rush and clatter of hoofs like a cavalry charge. It was the +squarehead. He had been afraid of a rumpus and he had improved his +time by making those blessed lepers he was guarding saddle up four +horses. We were ready for him. Lyte had accounted for three +kokuas, and between us we untangled Burnley from a couple more. The +whole settlement was in an uproar by that time, and as we dashed +away somebody opened upon us with a Winchester. It must have been +Jack McVeigh, the superintendent of Molokai. + +"That was a ride! Leper horses, leper saddles, leper bridles, +pitch-black darkness, whistling bullets, and a road none of the +best. And the squarehead's horse was a mule, and he didn't know how +to ride, either. But we made the whaleboat, and as we shoved off +through the surf we could hear the horses coming down the hill from +Kalaupapa. + +"You're going to Shanghai. You look Lyte Gregory up. He is +employed in a German firm there. Take him out to dinner. Open up +wine. Give him everything of the best, but don't let him pay for +anything. Send the bill to me. His wife and the kids are in +Honolulu, and he needs the money for them. I know. He sends most +of his salary, and lives like an anchorite. And tell him about +Kona. There's where his heart is. Tell him all you can about +Kona." + + + +JACK LONDON +BY HIMSELF + + + +I was born in San Francisco in 1876. At fifteen I was a man among +men, and if I had a spare nickel I spent it on beer instead of +candy, because I thought it was more manly to buy beer. Now, when +my years are nearly doubled, I am out on a hunt for the boyhood +which I never had, and I am less serious than at any other time of +my life. Guess I'll find that boyhood! Almost the first things I +realized were responsibilities. I have no recollection of being +taught to read or write--I could do both at the age of five--but I +know that my first school was in Alameda before I went out on a +ranch with my folks and as a ranch boy worked hard from my eighth +year. + +The second school were I tried to pick up a little learning was an +irregular hit or miss affair at San Mateo. Each class sat in a +separate desk, but there were days when we did not sit at all, for +the master used to get drunk very often, and then one of the elder +boys would thrash him. To even things up, the master would then +thrash the younger lads, so you can think what sort of school it +was. There was no one belonging to me, or associated with me in any +way, who had literary tastes or ideas, the nearest I can make to it +is that my great-grandfather was a circuit writer, a Welshman, known +as "Priest" Jones in the backwoods, where his enthusiasm led him to +scatter the Gospel. + +One of my earliest and strongest impressions was of the ignorance of +other people. I had read and absorbed Washington Irving's +"Alhambra" before I was nine, but could never understand how it was +that the other ranchers knew nothing about it. Later I concluded +that this ignorance was peculiar to the country, and felt that those +who lived in cities would not be so dense. One day a man from the +city came to the ranch. He wore shiny shoes and a cloth coat, and I +felt that here was a good chance for me to exchange thoughts with an +enlightened mind. From the bricks of an old fallen chimney I had +built an Alhambra of my own; towers, terraces, and all were +complete, and chalk inscriptions marked the different sections. +Here I led the city man and questioned him about "The Alhambra," but +he was as ignorant as the man on the ranch, and then I consoled +myself with the thought that there were only two clever people in +the world--Washington Irving and myself. + +My other reading-matter at that time consisted mainly of dime +novels, borrowed from the hired men, and newspapers in which the +servants gloated over the adventures of poor but virtuous shop- +girls. + +Through reading such stuff my mind was necessarily ridiculously +conventional, but being very lonely I read everything that came my +way, and was greatly impressed by Ouida's story "Signa," which I +devoured regularly for a couple of years. I never knew the finish +until I grew up, for the closing chapters were missing from my copy, +so I kept on dreaming with the hero, and, like him, unable to see +Nemesis, at the end. My work on the ranch at one time was to watch +the bees, and as I sat under a tree from sunrise till late in the +afternoon, waiting for the swarming, I had plenty of time to read +and dream. Livermore Valley was very flat, and even the hills +around were then to me devoid of interest, and the only incident to +break in on my visions was when I gave the alarm of swarming, and +the ranch folks rushed out with pots, pans, and buckets of water. I +think the opening line of "Signa" was "It was only a little lad," +yet he had dreams of becoming a great musician, and having all +Europe at his feet. Well, I was only a little lad, too, but why +could not I become what "Signa" dreamed of being? + +Life on a Californian ranch was then to me the dullest possible +existence, and every day I thought of going out beyond the sky-line +to see the world. Even then there were whispers, promptings; my +mind inclined to things beautiful, although my environment was +unbeautiful. The hills and valleys around were eyesores and aching +pits, and I never loved them till I left them. + +Before I was eleven I left the ranch and came to Oakland, where I +spent so much of my time in the Free Public Library, eagerly reading +everything that came to hand, that I developed the first stages of +St. Vitus' dance from lack of exercise. Disillusions quickly +followed, as I learned more of the world. At this time I made my +living as a newsboy, selling papers in the streets; and from then on +until I was sixteen I had a thousand and one different occupations-- +work and school, school and work--and so it ran. + +* * * + +Then the adventure-lust was strong within me, and I left home. I +didn't run, I just left--went out in the bay, and joined the oyster +pirates. The days of the oyster pirates are now past, and if I had +got my dues for piracy, I would have been given five hundred years +in prison. Later, I shipped as a sailor on a schooner, and also +took a turn at salmon fishing. Oddly enough, my next occupation was +on a fish-patrol, where I was entrusted with the arrest of any +violators of the fishing laws. Numbers of lawless Chinese, Greeks, +and Italians were at that time engaged in illegal fishing, and many +a patrolman paid his life for his interference. My only weapon on +duty was a steel table-fork, but I felt fearless and a man when I +climbed over the side of a boat to arrest some marauder. + +Subsequently I shipped before the mast and sailed for the Japanese +coast on a seal-hunting expedition, later going to Behring Sea. +After sealing for seven months I came back to California and took +odd jobs at coal shovelling and longshoring and also in a jute +factory, where I worked from six in the morning until seven at +night. I had planned to join the same lot for another sealing trip +the following year, but somehow I missed them. They sailed away on +the Mary Thomas, which was lost with all hands. + +In my fitful school-days I had written the usual compositions, which +had been praised in the usual way, and while working in the jute +mills I still made an occasional try. The factory occupied thirteen +hours of my day, and being young and husky, I wanted a little time +for myself, so there was little left for composition. The San +Francisco Call offered a prize for a descriptive article. My mother +urged me to try for it, and I did, taking for my subject "Typhoon +off the Coast of Japan." Very tired and sleepy, knowing I had to be +up at half-past five, I began the article at midnight and worked +straight on until I had written two thousand words, the limit of the +article, but with my idea only half worked out. The next night, +under the same conditions, I continued, adding another two thousand +words before I finished, and then the third night I spent in cutting +out the excess, so as to bring the article within the conditions of +the contest. The first prize came to me, and the second and third +went to students of the Stanford and Berkeley Universities. + +My success in the San Francisco Call competition seriously turned my +thoughts to writing, but my blood was still too hot for a settled +routine, so I practically deferred literature, beyond writing a +little gush for the Call, which that journal promptly rejected. + +I tramped all through the United States, from California to Boston, +and up and down, returning to the Pacific coast by way of Canada, +where I got into jail and served a term for vagrancy, and the whole +tramping experience made me become a Socialist. Previously I had +been impressed by the dignity of labour, and, without having read +Carlyle or Kipling, I had formulated a gospel of work which put +theirs in the shade. Work was everything. It was sanctification +and salvation. The pride I took in a hard day's work well done +would be inconceivable to you. I was as faithful a wage-slave as +ever a capitalist exploited. In short, my joyous individualism was +dominated by the orthodox bourgeois ethics. I had fought my way +from the open west, where men bucked big and the job hunted the man, +to the congested labour centres of the eastern states, where men +were small potatoes and hunted the job for all they were worth, and +I found myself looking upon life from a new and totally different +angle. I saw the workers in the shambles at the bottom of the +Social Pit. I swore I would never again do a hard day's work with +my body except where absolutely compelled to, and I have been busy +ever since running away from hard bodily labour. + +In my nineteenth year I returned to Oakland and started at the High +School, which ran the usual school magazine. This publication was a +weekly--no, I guess a monthly--one, and I wrote stories for it, very +little imaginary, just recitals of my sea and tramping experiences. +I remained there a year, doing janitor work as a means of +livelihood, and leaving eventually because the strain was more than +I could bear. At this time my socialistic utterances had attracted +considerable attention, and I was known as the "Boy Socialist," a +distinction that brought about my arrest for street-talking. After +leaving the High School, in three months cramming by myself, I took +the three years' work for that time and entered the University of +California. I hated to give up the hope of a University education +and worked in a laundry and with my pen to help me keep on. This +was the only time I worked because I loved it, but the task was too +much, and when half-way through my Freshman year I had to quit. + +I worked away ironing shirts and other things in the laundry, and +wrote in all my spare time. I tried to keep on at both, but often +fell asleep with the pen in my hand. Then I left the laundry and +wrote all the time, and lived and dreamed again. After three +months' trial I gave up writing, having decided that I was a +failure, and left for the Klondike to prospect for gold. At the end +of the year, owing to the outbreak of scurvy, I was compelled to +come out, and on the homeward journey of 1,900 miles in an open boat +made the only notes of the trip. It was in the Klondike I found +myself. There nobody talks. Everybody thinks. You get your true +perspective. I got mine. + +While I was in the Klondike my father died, and the burden of the +family fell on my shoulders. Times were bad in California, and I +could get no work. While trying for it I wrote "Down the River," +which was rejected. During the wait for this rejection I wrote a +twenty-thousand word serial for a news company, which was also +rejected. Pending each rejection I still kept on writing fresh +stuff. I did not know what an editor looked like. I did not know a +soul who had ever published anything. Finally a story was accepted +by a Californian magazine, for which I received five dollars. Soon +afterwards "The Black Cat" offered me forty dollars for a story. + +Then things took a turn, and I shall probably not have to shovel +coal for a living for some time to come, although I have done it, +and could do it again. + +My first book was published in 1900. I could have made a good deal +at newspaper work; but I had sufficient sense to refuse to be a +slave to that man-killing machine, for such I held a newspaper to be +to a young man in his forming period. Not until I was well on my +feet as a magazine-writer did I do much work for newspapers. I am a +believer in regular work, and never wait for an inspiration. +Temperamentally I am not only careless and irregular, but +melancholy; still I have fought both down. The discipline I had as +a sailor had full effect on me. Perhaps my old sea days are also +responsible for the regularity and limitations of my sleep. Five +and a half hours is the precise average I allow myself, and no +circumstance has yet arisen in my life that could keep me awake when +the time comes to "turn in." + +I am very fond of sport, and delight in boxing, fencing, swimming, +riding, yachting, and even kite-flying. Although primarily of the +city, I like to be near it rather than in it. The country, though, +is the best, the only natural life. In my grown-up years the +writers who have influenced me most are Karl Marx in a particular, +and Spencer in a general, way. In the days of my barren boyhood, if +I had had a chance, I would have gone in for music; now, in what are +more genuinely the days of my youth, if I had a million or two I +would devote myself to writing poetry and pamphlets. I think the +best work I have done is in the "League of the Old Men," and parts +of "The Kempton-Wace Letters." Other people don't like the former. +They prefer brighter and more cheerful things. Perhaps I shall feel +like that, too, when the days of my youth are behind me. + + + +Footnotes: + + +{1} Malahini--new-comer. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg eText The House of Pride + diff --git a/old/hsprd10.zip b/old/hsprd10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b79e83 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/hsprd10.zip |