by Grant Allen
“What are the flowers for?” the younger man asked, as he laid some roses and a great bunch of plumbago into a palm-leaf basket.
“Garlands and wreaths for Maloka’s wedding,” the elder answered in a hushed and lowered voice.
“It will be a very grand affair, no doubt,” the younger went on quietly. “They’ve made great preparations. I saw the dress that Kea is to wear, and the bridesmaids’ veils. Very fine, all of them. Quite a festival! Shall you go and see it?”
“If Kalaua allows me,” the other answered.
“She’s a pretty young girl,” the younger man continued in an unconcerned voice, still filling his basket. “A great deal too good to my mind for a wretched creature like Maloka. What does an ugly fellow such as that want with a young and beautiful wife like Kea? I’d give him some ugly old crone to match himself, I can tell you, if only I had my way about it.”
“Hush,” the elder answered with a certain solemn tone of awe in his voice I had often noticed the natives used when they talked together about this unknown bridegroom. “Maloka may be ugly and dark if you will, but he is a grand husband for any girl to light upon. You young men nowadays have no respect for family or greatness. It is a proud thing for a girl to marry such a bridegroom as Maloka.”
“Well, as far as I’m concerned,” the young native answered, with a slight toss of his head, “I don’t think so much as you do of the whole lot of them. The family’s all very well in its way, but an ugly girl would be quite good enough for a fellow of that sort. What’s the use of throwing away beauty like hers upon Maloka? Nicely he’ll treat her. However, it’s no affair of mine, of course; her uncle and herself have settled the wedding. All I shall do is to go and look on. It’ll be worth seeing. They say it’s going to be the grandest wedding that ever was made in all Hawaii since King Kamehameha’s daughter was married long ago to another member of the same family.”
The old man laughed at this, as if it were a joke: but somehow his laughter sounded painfully grim. I felt that whatever Maloka’s family might happen to be — and it was clear that the natives thought it a very distinguished one — it was not famous for kind treatment of the unhappy women it took as brides to its illustrious bosom. My heart was sore for poor little Kea. To be sure, she acquiesced in the marriage, no doubt, but then girls will sometimes acquiesce in anything. It was painful to think she was going to marry a native whom even coarse, common natives like these regarded as unworthy of her on any ground except that of family connection. But the Hawaiians, I knew, have still to the full all the old barbaric love of aristocratic descent and distinguished ancestry. “A good match” would atone for anything.
At last the Saturday of the expected eclipse arrived in due time, and all the day was occupied by Frank and the naval officers in final arrangements for their scientific observations. At Kalaua’s house, too, great preparations seemed to be going on; it was clear some important event was at hand: we almost suspected that Kea’s wedding must be fixed for the Sunday, or at least the Monday morning following. Kea tried on all her things early in the day, I believe; and many Hawaiian girls came in to help her and to admire the effect of the veil and trimmings. But a less merry wedding-party I never heard in my life before. A cloud seemed to hang over the entire proceeding. Instead of laughing and talking, as the natives generally do on the slightest provocation, we could hear them whispering below their breath in solemn tones in Kea’s room, and though lots of flowers had been picked and arranged for the occasion in long wreaths and garlands, the girls didn’t make sport, as usual, out of their self-imposed task, but went through with it all with profound and most unwonted sombreness of look and movement. Kea had said her betrothed was somebody of very great importance. I began to think he must be some one so awfully important that nobody dare even smile when they thought or spoke of him! I had never heard of any one quite so important as that before, except the head master of a public school; and it seemed in the highest degree improbable that Kea should be going to marry the Provost of Eton, or the Principal of Clifton or Cheltenham College.
When evening drew on, we all had supper together at Kalaua’s — the naval officers, Frank, and myself — and then the eclipse observation committee went off under Frank’s efficient guidance round the long gully to their chosen station. I meant to observe them there through my field-glass myself, and see what sort of scientific success was likely to attend their arduous labours.
For a while I sat and mused in silence. The house seemed unusually still and lonely after Frank left. Kalaua, Kea, and the native servants were none of them loitering about on the verandah or in the sitting-room, where they generally lounged. I seemed to be in sole possession of the establishment, and I hobbled out by myself a little way on to the platform in front of the house, wondering what on earth could have become of all the inhabitants in a body together. My leg was nearly well now, I could get along nicely with the aid of the crutches. I was almost sorry indeed I hadn’t tried to ride a horse, game leg and all, and go round with the eclipse party to the camp of observation.
Yet somehow I felt uneasy, too, at Kea’s absence, and my uneasiness was increased, I don’t know why, by the constant glare that overhung the crater. The lava was unusually red-hot to-night; the great eruption we had long expected must surely be coming. I hoped it would wait till my leg was quite well; a lame foot is more than enough to spoil the whole pleasure of the best and finest volcanic outburst to an enthusiastic amateur. I went back to the house and called twice for Kea. Nobody answered. My suspicions were quickened. I ventured to open the door of her bedroom. It was empty — empty! All the wedding-dresses and wreaths and veils were gone from their places, where I had often observed them when the door stood ajar in the course of the morning. A vague sense of terror fell upon my soul. What could all this mean? Where was Kea? and why was she out at this time of night, with all her friends, and in her wedding garments?
I called a third time, and nobody answered. But out on the platform in front of the house I saw an aged Hawaiian hag, a witch-like old woman who hung about the place and lighted the fires, sitting crouched on the ground with her arms round her knees, and grinning hideously at my obvious discomfiture.
“Where’s Kea, old lady?” I cried to her in Hawaiian, as well as I could manage it.
The horrible old woman grinned still more odiously and maliciously in reply. “Gone out,” she answered, mumbling her words in her toothless mouth so that I could hardly make them out or understand them.
“Where to?” I asked angrily, for I was ill at ease.
“How should I know?” the old woman growled back. “I suppose to the festival.”
“The festival! Where? What? When? Whose festival?”
“The festival of Maloka,” the old hag mumbled with a cunning smile.
With a sudden horror I remembered then that Maloka was the mysterious person to whom, as I concluded, Kea was engaged — the person whom she and Kalaua had so often mentioned in their low and whispered talk with one another.
“Who’s Maloka?” I cried, sternly laying my hand upon her withered shoulder, “Quick! tell me at once, or it will be the worse for you.”
“He’s Pélé’s son,” the old hag answered, chuckling to herself with a horrible chuckle. “He lives with his mother, his angry mother, away, away, down in the depths of Mauna Loa. He’s Pélé’s favourite. She loves him dearly: and she often asks for a wife for Maloka.”
In an instant the whole hideous, incredible truth flashed wildly across my bewildered brain. They were going to sacrifice Kea to this hateful god! They were going to fling her into the mouth of the crater! They were going to offer her up in marriage to the son of Pélé!
CHAPTER XII.
“Which way have they gone, you hag?” I cried, shaking her in my fierce anger.
The old woman raised one skinny brown finger, and pointed with a grin in the direction of a zig-zag path which lay to the left of Kalaua’s roadway.
Without waitin
g one second to deliberate, or question her, I set off at once upon my crutches, bounding and scurrying over the ground like a kangaroo by successive leaps, and hastening forward at a brisk rate which I should have thought beforehand no crutches on earth would possibly have compassed.
I reached the path, and turned hastily down it. The track was rough and difficult to traverse, even for an active man with both his legs to go upon; but for me, in my present halt and maimed condition, it was terribly hard and all but impracticable. Nevertheless, impelled by horror and fear for poor Kea’s safety, T hurried along at a mad rate down the steep zig-zag, careless whether I fell or not in my wild haste, but eager only to prevent I knew not what awful heathenish catastrophe. I only prayed I might yet be in time to save her life. After many stumbles and hairbreadth escapes, rolling over and over with my crutches by my side, I found myself at last on the Floor of the Strangers, not far from the spot from which I had fallen before, but separated from it by a narrow chasm in the black basalt — a chasm, riven deep in the solid rock, and filled below, as I saw at once, with a fiery strait of white-hot lava.
It was full moonlight. Away off to the left, on the summit of the mountains, I saw the camp-fires of the naval eclipse parties. They were standing there, etched out distinctly against the pale sky-line; and I could recognize every one of their faces with ease through that clear air in the bright light of a tropical moon. But not a sign of Kea was to be seen anywhere. I looked anxiously round for her, and met no token anywhere. The old woman must surely have misdirected me on purpose. Fool that I was to have believed that hag! Kea and her party could hot have come this way at all towards the crater.
I saw my mistake. They had sent me wrong by deliberate design! At this supreme moment Kalaua had intentionally attempted to escape my notice.
Suddenly, as I looked and wondered in awe, a strange procession began slowly to descend the mountain side opposite, beyond the chasm, into the mouth of the crater. At its head came the man in the feather mask whom I had seen that day that I broke my leg on the edge of the precipice, and whom I now more distinctly than ever recognized as indeed Kalaua. There was no mistaking his gait and carriage. He stalked on proudly in front of the procession. Next after him, bearing rods with bunches of feathers fluttering in the breeze from their tops, came the four acolytes who had stood by his side that awful morning when he solemnly devoted me to the devouring volcano. Then four Hawaiian girls in white bridesmaids’ dresses, with long garlands of oleanders strung round their necks, followed in order, two by two, waving their hands slowly above their heads, and chanting native himenés, as they call their long monotonous wails and dirges. My heart stood still as I saw with horror that Kea walked last, with downcast eyes, habited in her full bridal dress, and with the white veil falling round her in folds almost to her ankles. Behind her straggled a few hushed and awe-smitten spectators, half friendly assistants at this ghastly ceremony. I saw them all clearly but two hundred yards off, though the chasm in the rock with its red mass of molten lava below separated me from them far more effectually than a mile of intervening distance could possibly have done.
My first impulse was to cry aloud with indignation and horror. My next, for Kea’s sake, was to hide myself at once behind a black jagged pinnacle of hardened lava before they caught sight of me. I did so almost as soon as the procession began to file slowly past the turn of the road; and it was by peering with caution round the corner of the pinnacle that I had observed them all as they descended two by two along the narrow foot-path.
Step after step they moved gradually down, to the long-drawn music of those unearthly himenés. Kea, in particular, glided on like a ghost, with downcast eyes and shrinking demeanour, yet not so much in the manner of a victim as of one who willingly and heroically devotes herself to some terrible end for the good of her country.
I knew she believed she was averting the wrath of Pélé, and I gasped with horror at her awful resolution.
Presently, the procession reached the Floor of the Strangers, on whose platform I myself was already crouched flat, though always separated from me by that terrific chasm; and advancing still to the lugubrious sound of these doleful himenés. Kalaua placed himself on the edge of the precipice, at the very spot where I myself had fallen over in pursuit of the butterfly. Kea, moving forward with slow and solemn steps, stood at his right hand, in her bridal dress, with her bloodless fingers clasped downward in front of her.
Then Kalaua began, in a strange cramped voice, to drone out some horrible dedicatory service. It sounded like the service he had droned out over myself on the morning of my accident: but I understood Hawaiian much better now, and could follow the words of his frightful litany with very little difficulty. Crouching behind the shadow of my broken lava pinnacle, I saw and heard the whole savage orgy like some unseen presence in that vast and self-lighted natural cathedral.
“Great Mother Pélé,” Kalaua began, intoning his words on a single note and dividing his address into curious irregular verses— “Great Mother Pélé, who dwellest in the fire-lake, Queen of the Hawaiians, we, thy children, bow ourselves down in worship before thee.
“We assemble in thy temple, oh, thou, that delightest in the flesh of white-skinned chickens: we come into the outer threshold of thy house, oh, thou, that ridest on the red flaming surges.
“Sugar-cane, and tappa-cloth we offer to thy children: a bride, a wife, to thy favourite, to Maloka.
“Five sons thou hast borne in thy home, below; and one is humpbacked; thy favourite Maloka.
“A white man came from the lands beyond the sea: a pale-faced stranger; a wanderer to Hawaii.
“Of thy own accord thou chosest him a victim for thyself. He fell into thy trap. The white man’s foot trod forbidden ground: the Floor of thy children, of thy children, the Hawaiians.
“In thy wrath, thou rosest to crumple him to ashes: thy flames soared upward like tongues of fire; dancing and surf-riding on the billows of flame, didst thou put forth thy red right hand to seize him.
“Come forward, Kea!”
The trembling girl came forward timidly.
Kalaua continued his awful chant once more, shaking his robe, and slowly dancing.
“A maiden rescued him: a mortal maiden. She stole the victim from the clutches of Pélé.
“No hand might save him against thy will: the force of a mortal avails not against the fiery might of a living goddess.
“Thou, Pélé, lettest him go for very contempt; thou gavest up the prey from thy fingers willingly.
“For such as her, a law is laid down.
“Victim for victim: life for life: whoever snatches an offering from Pélé, himself must satisfy the wrath of the goddess.
“Were it not so, thou wouldst deluge the land with lava; thou wouldst swallow the towns in the jaws of earthquakes: thou wouldst lick up the cane-fields with red tongues of fire.
“Thy son, Maloka, thy favourite, the humpbacked, he cried aloud to his mother for the maiden in marriage.
“‘Give me this girl, he cried aloud, Oh Pélé: give me this maiden who snatched away thy victim.’
“Thou, Pélé, madest answer: ‘My son, I give her thee.’ Thou didst turn uneasily in thy flaming home, and threaten the Hawaiians with a deadly vengeance.
“See, we bring her: and we give her to Maloka; willingly, of her own accord, the maiden comes: on Maloka’s night, arrayed as a bride in snow-white raiment, eager for her fate.
“Come forward, attendants!”
The bridesmaids, in their wreaths and garlands, stepped forward. I listened, horror-struck.
“Kea, do you take this god, Maloka, for your wedded lord?”
In a stifled voice, tremulous but firm, Kea answered aloud in her soft Hawaiian, “Kalaua, I take him.”
“Maloka, do you take this girl, Kea, for your wedded wife?” And even as he spoke Kalaua cast something invisible from his hand with a dexterous throw, into the yawning abyss of lava below him. I then observed, for the very
first time, that while the ceremony went on, the lake of fire had risen by slow degrees in the crater, and stood flush now with the Floor of the Hawaiians.
The volcano, as if in response to his direct question, gave a hideous roar, excited, I suppose, into some minor eruptive effort by the object he cast into it, which seemed to crash down and break upon a smouldering smoke-stack. It was as though the mountain had answered back in words, “Oh, priest, I take her.”
Kalaua leaned forward, shaking and agitating his sacrificial robes. “At the stroke of midnight,” he went on solemnly, “at the actual moment when Maloka the humpbacked climbs aloft to put out the moon, we will take the bride into the bridegroom’s chamber. When Maloka the humpbacked puts out the moon, then leap, Kea, into the arms of your husband. See, see, how lovingly he stretches out his fiery arms for you in his chamber below there! When he rises in his might to put out the lamp that rides in heaven, then leap into his embrace. ’Tis the signal he gives you! Till then, sit still, and await your husband!”
Kea sat down by the edge of the precipice, on an isolated block of black basalt, and leaning her little chin on her small white hand, gazed below in awe and silent expectation on the flood of lava.
I knew, then, exactly what Kalaua meant. At the precise moment of the total eclipse, Kea was to leap into the abyss of the volcano.
I took out my watch, and consulted it anxiously, It wanted more than half-an-hour still to the actual point of absolute totality. I had that half-hour only to save Kea in. I saw her there seated on the edge of the abyss. I knew that the moment the moon was finally obscured, she would rise from her place, and leap madly forward of her own accord, into that sea of lava. She thought it her duty to appease the goddess. How to rescue her I could form no plan. Even if I rushed forth in my horror and managed by some miracle to span with a leap that yawning chasm that spread so wide between us, what was one lame white man among so many wild and heathenish Hawaiians? I could do nothing. I was helpless, powerless. If I set out to call the naval officers to my aid, long before I reached them, Kea’s charred and mangled corpse would be floating, a mass of blackened ashes, on the fiery flood in the still rising crater. I trembled with horror. And yet — and yet —
