Kaiuolani

The intrigue in reality began with Bender’s rise to prominence, though long before that the elements out of which it finally grew and at last so rapidly assumed form had taken root and thrived to a greater or less extent, as the exigencies of the times, without any definite leadership, seemed to warrant. From the day the first missionary set foot in the Islands discontent began and did not cease, except at forced intervals, until the greed of attending interlopers had swept the whole country into a holocaust of fierce disturbance.

Lunalilo had been the first of the reigning monarchs to let down effectively the bars to an onrush of pretending capitalists and shady politicians. In fact his accession to the throne was due entirely to foreign influence, and in consideration of the favor shown to him personally he undertook forthwith to conserve as complaisantly as possible the unreasonable demands of an immediate benefaction.

Interests were thus created and property rights granted out of all proportion to their simple mode of living and contrary to the established laws of the land. Nor was this beginning to be an end of it; the adventurous foreigner and uncouth settler once established in the enjoyment of a luxury illy adapted to his use, wholly unthought-of in the land whence he came, began to look upon his suddenly puffed-up host as a gracious fool, and the differently constituted people as inferiors and rightful subjects of plunder. The moral influence of a society and the unsophisticated rules of a government founded upon self-denial—aimed only at emulating the cardinal virtues and relieved inherently from the necessity of combating with human depravity—proved totally inadequate to meet the exigencies of a new and strange order, not at all welcomed and still less understood.

The respective home governments of these lust-endowed fortune seekers were too far removed and too little concerned to reach out and thwart the immoral purposes of well-rid absconders or to interfere with the domestic affairs of an insignificant nation, however virtuous the people, or helpless their rulers might prove to be. There was no restraint; and once the arrogant newcomer secured a firm hold upon property interests, both government and sentiment were unable to restrain his gradual absorption of the people’s rights.

In generosity they bade the foreigner welcome; through ignorance of his social tendencies they permitted him to share their country’s productiveness; with justice they undertook the hopeless task of harmonizing the good and the evil; not until danger had irrevocably fastened itself upon them did they seek to find an effective remedy; and then, in desperation they sent their sons and daughters broadcast to the source of other nationalities to discover the means with which to restitute a tottering civilization.

Thus Kaiuolani, a princess of the blood, sacrificed by birth to the dangers of an impossible assimilation, was in her tender years sent away to gain an education and encourage a relation that was hoped should adapt her to the necessities of a complicated but unalterable situation. Lord and Lady Xenoav, from philanthropic motives and associate memories, had taken her up and from childhood bestowed the best that castle Bairdsraith and European institutions could afford. They were old acquaintances of Sir Charles, her father,—who being of a roving, retiring disposition had at an early period in life wandered from home and Scotland to settle in these health-giving, peace-inviting islands of the far-away Pacific,—and no sooner had the dark, bewitching daughter of the West fallen to their care than they learned to love her and began to guard her nurture with the fondness of a natural parentage; and when the greater portion of her early life had been spent there, in England, as a member of their household and the time had come for a returning to her native land, Lord Xenoav would not trust her going to the guidance of any except himself and his lordship’s lady helpmeet. The long and tedious journey was finally undertaken in Kaiuolani’s behalf, and from the courtesy extended and the accomplishments attained the returning daughter of a tottering kingdom became the idolized of many suitors and a fatal object of envy in the eyes of jealous rivals.

Upon the young princess’s arrival at Honolulu a splendid reception was tendered to her and her sponsors by no less a personage than Hans Gutenborj, the planter king, who had then come, through long, continuous endeavor, to be regarded the most substantial foreign resident there, if not the most level-headed supporter of law and order in the land. His vast estate at Kahilui on the island of Maui, was for the occasion converted into a veritable land of delights, and without a conscious design Kaiuolani gracefully bore the distinction and Floyd Young naturally became her choice of gallants.

Four large ships of the sugar king’s own fleet had been drawn into service to carry the invited guests thither, and the queen in honor bade them good-speed. The princess Like-Like, a charming lady and member of the then reigning family, the wife of Sir Charles and mother of Kaiuolani, chaperoned her daughter, and many of the dignitaries, including members of both royal families, the ascendant Mauas and the dethroned Kamehamehas, assisted their host and hostess in receiving the guests; who, landing at the long wharf in Kahilui, drove thence through broad palm-set and lantern-lighted avenues to the low, rambling bungalo on the hillside at the plantation.

Among them were descendants of a once proud line of rulers; wives or widows and sisters and brothers of deceased or dethroned monarchs; members of a successfully progressive reigning family; the flower of royalty and the best of society; merchant princes and leading statesmen, foreign residents and native citizens alike were there; the buoyant and the downcast, the hopeful and the disheartened, the worthy and the unworthy—all joined heartily or sullenly in the gorgeous splendor that overwhelmed the confident or aroused feelings of jealousy, hatred and discontent in the minds and hearts of the disconsolate.

Not alone were these heart-burnings or joyous sentiments confined to those who danced and dared, but out in the fields, back in the kitchens, or liveried at the doorstep labored a larger throng, whose hearts and heads were set upon relations that conjured deeper emotions. Some had found their level in the wake of subsistence by the hard grind of ruthless fate, through cunning and neglect, misfortune or carelessness; others were the product of new conditions, glad for the privilege of serving, cast thither with the timely trend of progress, or risen from hope to reality by the forging chain of consequence. Indomitable, overpowering circumstance opened wide the floodgates of opportunity, and from the highest to the lowest they waged triumphant their sphere.

All these contending elements had been drawn together and placed in juxtaposition at an auspicious moment, and under the most favorable circumstances, for the most part to harmonize the several contending factions in national affairs and material interests. How well the promoters could be expected to succeed might have been inferred from the queen’s respectfully declining personally to encourage the party (upon the ground of indisposition), permitting the high chamberlain to exemplify in his person her majesty’s best wishes.

Liliuokolani, however, occupied a position that compelled her to submit rather than dictate in matters of discretion, partially sustaining her dignity by executing the law as she found it; not, possibly, as she may have willed. This determination on her part to abide the just performances of her bounden duty had been the cornerstone of Gutenborj and his allies’ confidence in her ability to rule. It became an eye-sore in the estimation of glumpy Kamehamehas, and they would rather she failed than a Maua preserve their crumbling hold upon respectability. The queen’s plans proved too slow of materialization to suit the rabid under-element, and whichever way she turned, as prompted by self’s own heart-will, a dark, ill-shaped mistrust loomed before her, foreshadowed the dangers that surrounded them.

The gathering at Kaiuolani’s reception bore its certain fruit, and the hybrid germs clandestinely hatching beneath the scaly fungus quickly spread throughout the empire. David Kenlikola Ralph, a resident prince of Kanai, the father of Ihoas, and a staunch believer in the divine right of the Kamehamehas, had embraced the very good opportunity to revive memories and exchange ideas with his old-time friend and confidant, Pauahieu Arnstook, the once powerful Lanaiu leader, whose fortunes had dwindled to nothing more than a substantial post at the royal boards. They brooded between them their loss,—the one a fallen prestige, the other his wasted estates,—and before parting there had been sworn inviolable a secret pledge that afterwards served well the purposes of a less scrupulous compact.

Bender, alert and ambitious, had observed from a retiring situation the heterogeneous proclivities of an unorganized, distrustful following, and from the many discordant voices there discerned selected the few that should do him service in the carrying forward of a daring venture. Prince Kenlikola, with his estates spread over limitless plains, had been from birth trained and allied to the undercurrent: the masses were at his beck and call, and his sympathies found vent through the channels of a natural, if unexalted association; the sheep herders of Kanai were his friends, and it required no great stretch of affiliation to cultivate a fast and true liking for the cattle ranger of Kaiahiua and a lasting coalition of the rough and ready shouters at the disposition of either. The jealous northerner cemented the bond of union, the scheming southerner afforded a ready leadership.

The Progressionists were but the instruments of the latter’s bounty; he had subsidized them, armed the force, augmented their ranks—why not use them?

Such proved to be the philosophy of a man who aimed to rise to wealth and power wholly by the aid of conjured wit. He had with a single stroke wrested from the hands of a decaying, self-ordered lord of the forest all that made worth the while staid Gutenborj’s pother about law and order. Necessity compelled him to become his own defender; the strong arm of government seemed but a mockery and a cheat in the wilds whence he throve. He may have been content to remain there alone and supreme had not the trend of society reached out to gather him in, to make him a part of its never-ending conquest, and to profit at the expense of universal freedom.

The caldron proved an easy tempter, but no sooner had the trapped truant been turned loose amid the fold than he began ravenously to feed upon the best forage at hand. The captors’ threats, the claims of Young, and the prowess of Kaiuolani only served to whet the roused rancher’s appetite and before the powers that be could measure his capacity or gain a shelter he had bid defiance to restraint and gorged with wide-open opportunity.