The White Man's Foot Part 7

"Don't fear for me," Kalaua replied. "The daughters of the Hawaiians shrink not from their duty."

He rose, and walked across the room in the opposite direction from that of the door where I still sat crouching on the ground in my night-shirt, with my broken leg extended sideways in front of me. He went up to the wall and pushed aside a picture that hung from a nail near the ceiling before me. Behind it was a small bra.s.s k.n.o.b. He took a little key from his pocket, which he fitted into the midst of the k.n.o.b, and suddenly, with a spring a door opened. It was the door of a cupboard or small recess let into the wall, and in it I saw for the twinkling of an eye an apparition of something brilliantly red and yellow. I knew in a second what that thing was. It was the royal robe of sacred feathers that Kalaua had worn as his priest's costume when he solemnly dedicated me to the anger of Pele.

Behind it, two horrible goggle eyes shone forth with lurid gleams into the blank room. I knew those too, they were the eyes of the mask--that grinning mask that Kalaua wore as the sign of his priestship.

Hideous, barbaric, staring things; but Kalaua regarded them with the utmost veneration.

"Everything is correct," he whispered, looking over the strange paraphernalia with a stern look of content and handling them reverently.

"The wedding shall come off, then, duly as arranged. We know the place, the day, and the hour. I answer for the bride: you answer for the bridegroom. All is well. It is an auspicious marriage. May they live happily ever after!"

"Such is the prayer of all the Hawaiians," the stranger answered, with the air of a man who recites some liturgy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'EVERYTHING IS CORRECT,' HE WHISPERED."]

Kalaua bowed his head solemnly. "Among the faithless," he said, "we at least are faithful."

He shut the door once more, and locked it securely. Then he turned towards the room where I was eagerly watching him through that narrow key-hole. How I knew what was coming next I can never tell, but I _did_ know somehow that they were moving across once more to my hiding place.

Fear supplied me with strength and agility. Dragging my leg after me again with breathless haste, I managed to scramble back into my bed somehow, and, pulling the sheet over me, to feign sleep, before those two savage devotees of a dead religion were once more leaning over the pillow beside me. Next instant, I heard the door pushed cautiously open a second time; and peering afresh through my closed eyelids, I saw Kalaua and his nameless satellite steal over softly to where I lay half dead with terror and excitement.

I closed my eyes and waited, awestruck.

Were they really come to murder me or to carry me off by force? Were they going to marry me against my will to Kea? Did Kalaua mean to put me there and then through some hideous and inhuman wedding ceremony? Was I the bridegroom for whom the stranger was to answer? Was this the secret of their sudden kindness to me? Was I bound to atone for the saving of my life by accepting in wedlock the last daughter and heiress of the priests of Pele?

But no! My suspicions must surely be wrong. It was Maloka, Maloka, that unknown Maloka, who was destined to be the simple little brown maiden's hated bridegroom. I must find out soon who Maloka was; but for the moment, fear got the better of curiosity.

The two Hawaiians approached on tiptoe to my side. My heart beat hard, but I gave no token. I lay as still as death, and breathed heavily. I felt rather than heard them stoop down and look at me.

"Asleep?" asked the stranger.

"Asleep!" Kalaua answered.

"Let us see!" the stranger said, and moved his robe a little. I knew he had drawn a knife from his girdle. I felt him raise it but I never cringed.

There was a moment's suspense--an awful suspense, for I didn't feel sure they hadn't come to murder me--and then, apparently satisfied, the men withdrew; the footsteps retreated as stealthily as they had approached; and the door was closed again noiselessly behind them.

They had only come, after all, to make sure I was asleep and had heard nothing. Whatever this business might be on which they were engaged, they evidently meant to conduct it with the utmost secrecy. Whatever these things meant, they did not mean murder.

CHAPTER X.

Next morning, as I lay on the sofa in the verandah, humming and idling, with Kea still st.i.tching away at the very last touches on her wedding garments beside me, I saw by a sudden glitter in my mirror that Frank was anxious to heliograph me a message. Pulling the cord that moved my looking-gla.s.s, I flashed back "Well?" Frank answered by signal, "Big ship off Hilo. Gunboat apparently. Flying British colours. A party is landing."

I signalled back by code, "Try to attract their attention if possible, and ask them what's their business in Hawaii."

For a few minutes Frank seemed engaged in establishing communications with the newly-arrived gunboat, and made me no reply; but I soon saw he had succeeded in forcing himself upon their notice at last, for he was flashing back question and answer rapidly now, as I judged by the frequent and hasty movements of his dancing mirror.

By and by he turned the ray upon my sofa again.

"Gunboat _Hornet_," he signalled in swift flashes, "Pacific squadron: party of twenty men sent ash.o.r.e by admiral's orders to make arrangements for observing total eclipse of the moon on Sat.u.r.day evening."

I was glad to hear it, for we began to feel the want of civilized society.

That same morning the doctor rode up to see me again, and brought me a very welcome present--a pair of crutches. On these I was now to be permitted to hobble about, and I took advantage of my liberty that very afternoon by stumping up, with Frank's aid, to the mouth of the crater.

While I stood there, supported on my two sticks, and watching the lava still grunting and grumbling as uneasily as ever--for it was clear that Pele was in a grumpy mood and a big eruption was slowly brewing--we were joined by the officers and doctor of the _Hornet_ on their eclipse observation expedition, accompanied by several sailors and natives, with ponies, tents, and other necessaries for camping out on the very summit, high above the level of the ordinary cloud-veil. The new-comers were surprised to find a scientific man already on the spot, in possession as it were, and gladly availed themselves of my knowledge of the mountain in choosing a good and suitable station for their tents and instruments.

I confess, after the terrors by which I had lately been surrounded, it was no small relief to me to find ourselves reinforced as it were by a strong and armed body of our own fellow-countrymen. I breathed a little more freely when I knew at least that help was at hand should we ever chance to stand in need of it.

I sent off Frank at once to show the naval men what seemed to me the best position on the whole mountain for pitching their tents and setting up their observatory, and, under my directions, he led them straight to a low peak on the right of Kalaua's, over-looking the crater and the Floor of the Hawaiians.

It was a jutting point with a good open platform on the very summit, composed of rock a good deal softer than the ma.s.s of basaltic lava which makes up in great part the cone of that vast and seething volcano. The men of the _Hornet_ were delighted with my selection, which combined all the advantages of shelter and position, and began forthwith to unpack their belongings and settle themselves down in their new quarters. For myself. I hobbled back after a while to the house to rest and observe their actions through a field-gla.s.s from a distance.

Now, at any rate, we should be quite safe from any machinations of our Hawaiian entertainers.

As I reached the door Kalaua came out, his face all livid with anger and excitement. Evidently the new turn of affairs had greatly displeased him. He had been away all the morning, and had only just returned. His eyes were fixed now on the party on the summit, and some strange pa.s.sion seemed to be agitating his soul as he watched their preparations for camping on the platform.

"Who are all these people here?" he cried out to me in English, flinging up his hand as soon as I was well within speaking distance, "and what do they want with their tents and their instruments here on the open top of Mauna Loa?"

"They're a party of English naval officers," I answered, "from a gunboat that has just steamed into the harbour, and they've come up by order of the admiral to observe the eclipse of the moon on Sat.u.r.day."

Kalaua's countenance was an awful sight to look upon. Never before or since has it been my lot to behold a human face so horribly distorted with terror and indignation as his was that moment. His features were ghastly. They reminded me of the mask of his heathen ancestors. It seemed as if some cherished hope of his life was frustrated and disappointed, dashed to the ground at once by some wholly unexpected and untoward incident. "Kea," he cried aloud in Hawaiian to his niece within, "this is awful! This is unendurable! Come out and see! The English are camping on the Platform of Observation."

At the words, Kea sprang out upon the balcony from the room within where she had been sitting alone, and shaded her eyes with her hands as she looked up in an agony of suspense and expectation towards the distant peak. In a moment some sudden pa.s.sion thrilled her. Then she clasped her fingers hard and tight in front of her, as it seemed to me with some internal spasm of joy and satisfaction. "I see them," she cried, "I see them! I see them."

"They shall never remain there!" Kalaua shouted again, stamping his foot on the ground with resolute determination. "If they stop there till Sat.u.r.day, it will spoil all! I won't permit it! I can't permit it!" Then he turned to me more calmly, and went on in English, "I know a much better place than that, up on the left yonder, less exposed a great deal to the open wind and the glare of the volcano."

He pointed as he spoke to another peak, away off to the west; a peak that did not look down nearly so sheer into the hollow of the crater and the sea of fire. I had thought of that place too, and rejected it at once, as being in fact far more exposed and windy than the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE LOOKED UP IN AN AGONY OF SUSPENSE."]

I shook my head. "Oh, no," I said, "the peak they've chosen is by far the best one."

"You think so?"

"I am sure of it."

Kalaua turned away with an angry gesture. "Better or worse, they shall never camp there!" he exclaimed with warmth. "The Hawaiians are masters still in Hawaii. Whether they will or whether they won't, the Englishmen shall move their tents from that peak there. We will never allow them to occupy that spot. We will make them shift from the Platform of Observation."

"I don't think you'll find it easy to turn away an English detachment,"

I observed quietly.

Kalaua clenched his fist hard, and ground his teeth. "Anywhere but there," he muttered, "and there, never!"

He stalked away angrily with long hurried strides towards the point where Frank and the sailors, all unconscious, were pegging their tents and staking out their encampment with a merry hubbub. What happened next I could only observe vaguely at a distance through the medium of my gla.s.s; I learned the details afterwards more fully from Frank and the officers. But what I could notice for myself most clearly nearer home was this--that all the time while Kalaua was parleying with the Englishmen on the mountain, Kea stood still quite breathless on the verandah, watching the result of her uncle's action with the keenest interest and the wildest emotion. She watched so closely that I couldn't help feeling the result was a matter of life and death to her, and it somehow seemed to me that her hopes were now fixed entirely on the white men's resolve to maintain the position they had first taken up on the point of the mountain.

It was clear from what we saw that the Englishmen insisted on maintaining their position.