Bliven opened the paper and glanced it over. “Yes, well, that is part of your charm, Lieutenant.” He beamed a sudden great smile to make it clear he was joking. “No, you have acted very properly. Now tell me, Mr. Dunn, I am curious but I have not understood. Exactly what is your relationship with Mr. Ting?”
“Ah.” Dunn wiped his lips with his napkin. “That is readily explained. Although you saw from the Thirteen Factories—that is, as they used to be, until yesterday—we are allowed to sell our foreign goods, but it is not as direct as it seems. No white people are permitted to do business directly, so each of the factories has a resident hong, a Chinese middleman who the government appoints as our factor, or agent, to actually handle the transactions for us, for which they receive a cut of the profit.”
Bliven thought for a moment. “That hardly seems like a necessary step in the commerce.”
“Not strictly speaking, but it is a way for the government to impose an extra level of oversight and get some revenue without having to call it a tax. Besides, the hongs such as Mr. Ting more than pay their way, for China is a very closed society, and his presence makes people more comfortable doing business with us when they would otherwise avoid us.”
“I see. Well, Mr. Dunn, have you thought about what you are going to do now? Oh!” He leaned over. “I see you are drinking coffee this morning, not tea?”
Dunn felt relief in being able to laugh. “Indeed, I have had no coffee the past year or more. It is a rare luxury, although perhaps not worth getting burnt out for.” The others laughed with him, in appreciation of his courage. “Captain, no prudent man would flee a conflagration without rounding up his ready cash, so I am not without resources. If you would be so kind as to put me and my collection ashore when you deposit your pilot in Macau, I can rent storage and a temporary lodging there until we can learn what is to become of the foreign quarter here. Mr. Ting even now should be on a horse and halfway there to make the arrangements.”
“So,” said Miller to impart encouragement, “like a dropped cat, you will land on your feet.”
“Of course.” Dunn patted his ample stomach. “Even a very large cat can do that.”
Back in Macau, Bliven watched as the guest berths disgorged their wealth, interrupting his study of the charts, which was a dismal task, for every way he studied them, every course he considered, the result was the same. Miller joined him after the cargo was off-loaded and Dunn had made his farewell.
“Michael, sit by me. Look at this; it is hopeless. From here to Hawaii, as the crow flies, is almost six thousand miles, and the trade winds hard against us the whole way. Saeger’s schooner can attack the wind much closer than we can. There is no possible way to overtake him.”
“Yes, but look, there are many places for him to put in between here and there. The Philippines, for instance. I have heard stories of sandalwood there. He might stop to investigate.”
“How would he pay for it? No, my guess is he is headed straight back to Maui to get even with some people who think they have gotten the better of him. Look: I have considered every possible route, from north of the Bonin Islands to the New Guinea coast, and every way we try, winds and currents will be full against us. We will simply have to beat our way back. I was reading in Porter’s Pacific book: there were days at a stretch when he just had to be content to be pushed off course, sometimes by a hundred miles, in order to make a few miles’ progress in the direction he wanted. This is going to be a hard, hard haul. By the time we add our distance tacking, we must cover at least fifteen thousand miles.”
“Well, now that we’ve been to China, have we not heard their saying? ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.’”
“Ha!” Count on Miller to find the hope in anything.
“Or in our case, a journey of fifteen thousand miles begins with the first order. Captain?”
“Indeed so. Take us out, Mr. Miller.”
And so it was. They stood out east-southeast from Macau, six hundred miles to the channel between Luzon and the Batanes Islands, then eleven hundred miles east by north to avoid the mid-ocean hazard of the Parece Vela reef, then eight hundred miles due east to the Farallón de Pájaros, another thousand miles east by south to Wake Island, and then two thousand miles along the twenty-second parallel to the Sandwich Islands—five thousand, five hundred miles that would be tripled, at least, by the relentless tacking.
Those were the straight lines that they fought to keep to, and they did fight for every league, every mile, every chain length, boxing their course as they tacked, sometimes hauling close for a hundred miles while being taken thirty miles off their course, waiting for enough of a change in the wind to take them back closer to true.
After two and a half months, even the equably tempered Yeakel’s nerves were raw, the ever-optimistic Miller had withdrawn mostly into silence, and in Berend’s daily sick call he noted the usual complement of bellyaches and boils to lance, and several daily shrieking sessions with mercurous chloride squirted into diseased penises, screams that he judged were increased as much now by despondency as genuine malady. When they finally raised Diamond Hill, Bliven no sooner congratulated himself on his successful navigation than they were met by the clap of a gun from its summit.
All turned and saw the telltale jet of smoke wafting from its broad top. “It looks like they have set up a signal station,” said Miller.
They coasted into Honoruru harbor and found they were the only ship there, which was unusual but not without precedent. Bliven and Miller were lowered in the gig and pulled up to the pier, and upon gaining dry ground saw no sign of life about the commercial warehouses. He looked east, and in the distance saw around the mission compound a gathering of people both white and native standing in the yard before the grass church.
“Well, Mr. Miller, we had best see what is going on.”
As they approached they saw the Loomises and the Holmans standing together, the Binghams a little apart. The Chamberlains stood in a clot, Jerusha clinging to her husband as tightly as her children clung to her. Muriel Albright stood beside them, tall with the aid now of a cane, with three native warriors in close attendance.
Hiram Bingham stepped out to meet him. “Captain Putnam.” They shook hands. “Your arrival is well timed. We are glad to see you.”
“What has happened? Where is my wife?”
“Captain, calm yourself, and prepare yourself. They are safe, but the queen has taken them into arrest. The remainder of us are interned here, as you may guess by the line of kapu sticks surrounding the church and our houses. As soon as your ship was seen, she called the court together. She requires your presence as soon as you touch ground, so we must go at once. Oh—Mr. Jones and the other agents are already with her. Here, he gave me a packet of mail to give you at once.”
“Thank you.” Bliven tucked the letters into a pocket without looking at them. The missionaries were herded toward the royal pili with the guard of warriors behind and flanking.
“You are certain she is safe?”
Bingham patted him on the arm. “I assure you, she and the baby are unharmed.”
All ducked through the entrance of the pili, which was crowded thick with a confluence of natives and Europeans. The queen was dressed as Bliven had never seen her, not in a Boston frock but wrapped multiple times in a pa’u of stenciled tapa, her chest bare beneath a clasped kihei. Her hair was held up with silver combs, and around her neck was a weighty lei niho palaoa of twisted human hair six inches around, bound at her throat with the ivory tongue that spoke the law.
His eyes had not yet adjusted to the dimness when he heard the queen’s booming voice. “Captain Putnam, come forward!”
Putnam marched in, saluting as he stood straight as a ramrod. “Your Majesty, I have been absent for several months. All was well when I left. Now my wife is not with her friends, and I find all in commotion. What has
happened? Where is my wife?”
Kahumanu pointed a finger at him. “It is well for you to express concern for her. Since this terrible thing has occurred, feeling against white people, including your missionaries, has run highly against them. My people are in a rage.”
Retainers stood beside her, armed with war clubs and those towering spears, and they wore crested war helmets that reminded him of the ancient Greeks. Behind her loomed her kahili bearers, their thick chests and tautly muscled arms bare, each with his loins wrapped in a tapa malo. Each bore a feather standard at least ten feet tall. Facing him a little to one side of her, Karaimoku stood stoic and grim, in the same native war garb, his massive plait of hair making him look like one of the disused war gods that stood forlorn in their temples but now come to life.
Bliven felt his heart pounding within his chest. “What terrible thing?”
“Captain Putnam,” she growled, “are you not aware of what has befallen my people?”
“No, ma’am, I am in shock. The town seems almost deserted. What is the meaning of all this?”
“Hm! Karaimoku will enlighten you.”
Bliven spoke first. “Mr. Pitt, you are dressed much differently than when I last saw you.”
“Much has happened. Captain Putnam, there is a trading ship from your country, a schooner called the Fair Trader, Captain Saeger. You know him, as we believe.”
“I have not met him, but I have been following in his wake. Some few years ago now he was attacked by Malay pirates. My government sent me there to establish our presence in those sea-lanes and engage any pirates that I found there. I went to Singapore and learned what I could of the local situation. They knew of Saeger and of his having been attacked. In the Strait of Malacca I engaged and sank a large pirate vessel. I then went to Canton to learn what I could of American affairs. Captain Saeger had left Lahaina for Canton shortly before I left here for Singapore. I found his ship anchored in Canton, having sold a cargo of sandalwood. I desired to obtain his statement of the attack made upon him, but before I could do so, fire broke out on the waterfront, and during all the commotion he was observed putting out to sea.”
Karaimoku seemed even more like a walking idol as he moved closer, and Bliven realized anew how much larger he was than himself. “Captain, did you mark whether his vessel was armed?”
“Yes, I am certain that it was. After being attacked in Malaya, he obtained some surplus carronades in Valparaiso, from the former British officers now in the service of Chile. As I have come to learn, that is not an uncommon practice among traders who must travel waters infested with pirates.”
“Captain Putnam,” continued Karaimoku, “a few days ago this same Captain Jakob Saeger put in to the town of Hana, on the windward shore of Maui, for the purpose of victualing and buying sandalwood. During these transactions, he got it into his head that he was being cheated. Rather than stop the proceedings and set things right, he bid the people then in canoes to come back out to him at an evening hour, and he would trade much more with them. When they did as they were asked, he turned the guns of his ship upon them, and opened fire.”
“Oh, for the love of God!”
“He had loaded the carronades with grape. Before they could escape, more than one hundred were killed.”
“Oh, my God. I am heartsick at such news.”
“Captain Putnam!” Kahumanu pointed at him so suddenly that he almost expected her to shout an accusation. “The man who has done this crime is of your country. He sails in a fast ship, with guns against which we are powerless. In these islands you represent the power and justice of America. You have as fast a ship, and larger guns. Will you take my commission to find this man and bring him to us?”
“Ma’am, I am sensible of your feelings, and I am certain that your feelings are just. However, the law of my country is that if I apprehend him, I must bring him back to America to stand trial and receive punishment.”
“Not so!” she roared deeply. “The crime is in my country. In your country, what crime is it to break the law in my country? What punishment shall he face? Do you imagine we do not know how lightly you regard us?”
“Captain Putnam,” said Karaimoku more calmly, “my advisors tell me there is a word in your justice called ‘jurisdiction.’ It has to do with where a crime is committed, and whether you have the right to arrest him under your own law.”
Bliven nodded slowly. “If he were to stand trial in my own country, I cannot deny that this might become an issue raised in his defense, and he might possibly escape punishment because of it.”
Kahumanu looked at him dubiously. “You admit this?”
“I do, ma’am.”
“I credit your honesty.”
“And yet, Your Majesty, I beg you to understand that I have no authority to fire on a ship that flies my own flag.”
“Indeed? We shall see about that. Mrs. Putnam, come forward!”
Bliven had not seen her before now—she had been concealed behind a file of warriors—but they parted, and Clarity made the few steps to stand before her and curtsied.
“Mrs. Putnam, my people are in a tumult. I am concerned how to guard your safety and that of your friends. Boki, come forward!”
Boki left Liliha in the assemblage and stood before her.
“Therefore, Mrs. Putnam, I remand you to the protection of the High Chief Boki. He will remove you and your child to his ahupuaa at Pupukea to await the outcome of this troubled time.”
“What!” cried Bliven. He took a step forward, his right hand instinctively seeking out the hilt of his sword, but at the same instant a line of warriors formed a wall of shark-toothed war clubs between him and the queen.
“Now, Captain Putnam, let us see whether you can find the authority to deliver up this man to our justice!”
From the crowd issued a loud, approving murmur. Kahumanu held out her hands. “Mrs. Putnam, come to me.”
Clarity mounted the dais and took her hands, the first time she had feared to do so.
So that no others could hear, the queen whispered, “Missy, this must be. My safety as well as yours depends upon it. I have laid a kapu of death upon any who would harm you. I will send a wet nurse with you for your child. Ask no questions now. Stand with Boki.”
Clarity backed away and curtsied again. Four of the warriors who had leveled their spears at Bliven raised them and flanked her as she moved to where Boki stood.
Bliven clenched his fists. “Am I not to be allowed to even speak to my wife?”
“No!” thundered the queen. “You may greet her when you have done as I command. Karaimoku, you shall sail with him to Maui and discover the details of all that has happened. If you find this man, you will seize him and bring him here, and if not, you will make inquiries to determine where he has gone, and if he is within reach, you will pursue him. Captain Putnam, I do not forget that you have just arrived after a long voyage. Mr. Jones, come forward!” The raffish young American agent stepped out nervously and stood by Putnam. “Mr. Jones, as we have seen, the American and European ships that were here have put to sea in some haste. Therefore you will cancel what requests they have given you and provision Captain Putnam’s ship, even so soon as tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Karaimoku, if the missionaries on Maui have not been harmed, I make you responsible to gather them up and bring them here. They shall live with Mr. Bingham and the others in their houses here.”
It was quickly apparent to Bliven that if their safety were the only issue, Clarity and Ben would have been better off being interned there with Bingham and the others, but this was no time to gainsay the vengeful giantess before him. His eyes met Clarity’s, which were wide, but more assimilating than apprehensive. He thanked God, because if she had shown any fear, he could not answer for what he might have done.
Kahumanu swept her hand out violently. She
shouted, “E hele pela!” with such force that her jowls shook; Hopu was within the pili and got Bliven’s attention, then made a shooing motion with the backs of his hands.
“Forgive me, ma’am, I must have one word more,” said Bliven.
The queen glared at him. “Speak.”
“Ma’am, I may know the cause of this, for I have just come from Canton.”
“Continue.”
“When Captain Saeger reached that place with the bundles of sandalwood, it was discovered that the people who sold it to him had mixed in cheap, useless wood with it. When Saeger sold the wood to the craftsmen in Canton, the trick was discovered, he was accused of cheating them, and he was compelled to return their money. Of sixty-five piculs that he left your country with, only ten piculs were found to be true sandalwood. Even though he made good on this debt, men from the major trading companies went to the governor of Canton, who revoked Captain Saeger’s license to trade there. They did this not because of the adulterated sandalwood, but to remove him from competition with them.”
“Why do you tell me this?”
“Ma’am, at the time I left Canton, the waterfront was still burning. It is not proven, but it is believed that Captain Saeger set the fire to get even with the trading companies for what they had done to him. In Canton he was heard to say that he would avenge himself on those of your country who cheated him. Thus, I fear that he came here and committed this terrible murder at Hana.”
“Do you say this to defend him?”
“No, ma’am. I say this to warn you to protect the trading district here in Honoruru. If he set fire to Canton, which is one of the world’s great cities, why would he hesitate to burn down the commercial center here?”
“Karaimoku?”
“My queen, I will set guards in the city to prevent any setting of fires.”
Kahumanu thought a moment more. “No, you will set guards to protect the places where people live. As to the trading companies and their warehouses, they have brought this upon themselves. Warn them, but let them hire their own guards.”
The Devil in Paradise--Captain Putnam in Hawaii Page 33
