Kaiuolani

The rattle and peal of fife and drum drove from every source the last lingering doubt. Uhlrix was on the march, and the shadows of intrigue or the uncertainty of authority bore no significance as to final results. He had been tricked into landing, but once on shore nothing short of annihilation could restrain an orderly ordering of events that rose in the pathway of power or forestall the destiny an abused confidence bespoke. The marines were there to do, not to quibble, and the grim-visaged deeds of fate quickened and multiplied at the progress of an unchallenged daring.

A dash and venture that fires the pride of men, no matter where or what the occasion, had stood erect every soldier and possessed the officers as never before. Jack’s bib and tucker seldom looked so tidy, and the lieutenant’s spare and tender form wore neatly the spotless uniform that marked his finished course at school. For the first time in all their lives opportunity had given them a chance to swell and banter in the eyes of foreign lassies.

From every door step Hawaii’s fairest came, carrying garlands of flowers and tokens of delight; these boys off duty had been their sweethearts, their hope since the days of Cook and the missionaries, and now that they had come ashore, as true Hawaiians believed, on dress parade and kindly show, the girls strove hard to outdo themselves in extending even a heartier welcome than before. Soon those innocent children had literally strewn the roadstead with emblems that emanate from nowhere except the tropical seas: the boys relished the fun, and many were the friendly side glances bestowed and stolen greetings tendered; Jack Tar knew well his finish and cherished the contemplation, regardless of higher consequences.

But for the rations he drew and the smiles they bestowed life had seemed an empty thing to him. Not so with them. They sought his love in earnest, resolving anew the neglected lesson that all things in course of provision drive toward a common level, an unalterable consequence of material change, the spiritual end in which necessity had wrought its inevitable virtue.

Nor were the fathers and the mothers less friendly to a mistaken intermingling of foreign sons and native daughters. They had been taught by the advance guards of these blood-letting experts—strangely effective, in view of its contrast with the tenets of their own religion—that sacrifice and toil were cardinal virtues, and that the simple and unostentatious lives their tradition taught them to live were relics of barbarism fit only for the uninitiated; that the absence of poverty in the land offered no excuse for the lack of individual wealth; that the love for song and flowers and the inborn generosity and hospitality of the people were effeminate and of no consequence in the higher and better life that European civilization would engender.

Without the means of judging or an opportunity to compare and overshadowed with the display shown or driven to the terms exacted they, at last, like their invaders, through sheer force of continuity, becoming dead to all civic virtue—the individual waxed drunk with blind appetite.

The clouds rolled high above their heads and from content within they conjured a freedom illy spoken in the language of reality everywhere around. The flowers they strew fought the elements for existence; the song bird in the tree top defended his vantage point; the very ground on which they stood had for ages struggled with the forces of nature to retain its place: should man alone be favored with exemption? Only their misconception flattered the belief, for behind the personality, the entity they knew, might reasonably have trusted, lay the state, broader in its conception, less tolerant of the individual and more dependent upon community, supreme in authority and ready to destroy if destruction be meet.

Aokahameha, their only hope and recognized leader, remained no less oblivious to the storm that hung low upon the land. He had spent his energies in trying to convince the queen’s assemblage that no danger threatened, but somehow his words seemed fraught with misconception; Liliuokolani hesitated between doubt and fear until desperation drove her into a concession that stung Gutenborj to the quick.

“I am helpless: what would you, my grateful subjects?” asked she, weary with endeavor.

“Promulgate the constitution,” replied the planter king, with set jaws and determined look.

“Where is it?” demanded the queen, wholly conscious of somebody’s blundering attitude, whether official or supporter.

They looked from one to another, in amazement and with chagrin. In all their patriotic contentions nobody but Bender had retained the presence of mind to save and hold intact that precious instrument. And where might he be? Aokahameha hurriedly dispatched Norton, the quickly released culprit and only person capable (as he had good reason to believe) of reaching the decamped minister and, possibly, influencing his or its return. Gutenborj was also granted no less a permission to communicate with Young and as promised present him and his command at court; where Aokahameha desired their immediate presence, but would not concede the necessity for invoking warlike aid.

Thence the trusted commander, with Ihoas leaning gently upon his arm, and the Guards, from the west gate to the palace door, resting contentedly on their empty guns, sauntered dreamily into an unmolested nook in the garden, there suffering and pondering good-naturedly the hoped for lover’s frank and earnest avowals that made plain and irrevocably certain his utter quandary.

“But you must love me, Ihoas: can’t you see that I am master? that all eyes are turned toward me? that my work is done? What more could a loved one desire?” pleaded the big patriot, leaning back and gazing fixedly into the tall, willowy princess’s downcast eyes.

She did not answer, and the warm flush that crept into her cheeks convinced him that in her veins still ran the blood of a Hawaiian—amiable and sweet, though stern and truthful. Aokahameha paused, and measuring the force of a thought by the depth of her emotion would yet deny the privilege of refusal.

The soft, still air and close proximity with fancied ease lolled to dreaming the good great man, who believed the world an ordered reality and all that is in it a peaceful heritage; and reclining leisurely upon velvety woven pillows, banked underneath gracefully drooping purple and pink tall-growing, wide-reaching ferns, the simple Islander’s dark, weary eyes barely opened to feast now and again upon the love-vision that soothingly haunted him, forsooth exacted only the plaintive, soul touching,

“Aloha.”

The distant rumble and warning of an approaching army did not disturb his peaceful quest. Ihoas breathed heavily under the influence of an uncontrollable impulse and Uhlrix swept on toward the goal of a larger, simpler contact. The wiles of woman or the charm of intrigue made no impression upon him; they were alike foreign to his office and impotent under a nationalism that guaranteed supremacy.

America had intrusted those arms and their wielders with the protection of its citizens and the guarding of her interests. Duty’s thought-throb impelled them forward; the impetus of principle lay behind the bulwark of advancement—a spirit enlivening the step and quickening the conscience to blindest deeds of heroism and the only lift to greatness the ages yet had marshalled.

Along these lines they progressed, it mattered not so much to where or how; the reason—well; there seemed, this time, but slight excuse—grew out of the inevitable, and consequences more than justified the sacrifice; Uhlrix would not have missed that ride from the water front thence for all else a true officer courts, and the horse on which he charged outdid itself to merit the color borne and uphold a well-known tradition of the state whence he came.

The warring hosts of an unhampered invader made bold their advance, and the very elements lent assistance to the awe-inspiring scene: to the resolving of an inconsequential movement into a calamity fraught with world-wide effect. The half of those who lay within reach of battle’s weal could not, would not, rouse from the lethargy of an inborn belief; the remainder hearkened the call with indecision, became confused at the thrust and the take that clear the way to ultimate if tardy sodality.

Kaiuolani’s heart alone throbbed with life, grew impatient at the delay of those upon whom she depended, and waged war within herself or tolerated the abuse of others whose only interest waxed strong with personal desire. For once her coterie of lovers and adherents had dissipated, with the sole exception of Elmsford; who, taking advantage of the only opportunity fate had given, sought to impress the sorely coveted princess with his much neglected importance as well as conjured usefulness.

They were sitting in the cover of an alcove in the great Blue Room, where Sir Charles had intentionally left his daughter to the homely Britisher’s care, while he himself joined Gutenborj in a last consultation with the queen, prior to the planter’s final withdrawal; presumably in search of the missing division of a sadly depleted army.

No base or petty contentions disturbed them. The remaining auditors were scattered here and there around, in close communion; they neither sought nor chose to intrude.

Elmsford broke the somewhat lengthy silence that ensued by asking, candidly:

“What are you thinking about, Kaiuolani?”

“The future, of course,” replied she, with a long-drawn, carelessly-heeded accent.

“I wish that I might share it,” ventured he, diligently expectant.

“The thought, or the future?” queried the open-minded princess, calmly, and without manifesting the least concern about discretion.

“Just as you prefer, lady beautiful,” replied the artist manager, so quickly and earnestly as to impress deeply his listener.

“I should think that Ihoas had best be arbiter,” suggested Kaiuolani, a knowing smile the while brightening her apparently vexed countenance.

The color rose to the ruddy Englishman’s face; he had not taken into consideration the chief lady in waiting’s bearing; neither her likes nor dislikes; did not understand that his demeanor had given occasion for any such confusing of interests or sentiments. He could not, however, recall that he had openly denied Ihoas the privilege of pressing an inclination, hence the reasonableness of Kaiuolani’s presumption: the thought, therefore, very reluctantly but forcibly dawned that he had best not disabuse the latter’s mind, as her present enlightenment might tend ultimately to thwart his real purpose.

“I fear both of you shall have need for my protection if not affection before nightfall: I would not so much as presume partiality,” replied Elmsford, rather more sure than hopeful of a footing.

“Are you not alarmed at such prodigality? Really, it is not becoming,” retorted Kaiuolani, a little provoked at the possible need for his assumption.

“It is English, though.”

“What of that?”

“Ah—I say—really, you amaze me!”

“I shall probably do more than that before your dull comprehension concedes less than a woman’s disparity.”

The straight, out and out, cast in the die, believer in and practitioner of male superiority adjusted his one eyeglass and looked blankly at the sole personage of his acquaintance who dared voice her entity in the very presence of man. Elmsford was shocked. He had never before met with such audacity in woman, outside the few chance Americans it had been his good fortune to meet. Where the princess could have imbibed such thoughts, found the courage to question a suitor’s role, was more than he should undertake to guess. That she, a woman, born and reared to the code, might assert an independent personality opened wide his mouth, and with bowing stiffly at her rising and withdrawal the wounded Britisher mumbled inaudibly but bitterly:

“Oh; these blasted Americans: they shall yet poison the minds and shrivel the hearts of all womankind!”

Elmsford was in love, however, and he did not propose to yield the advantages of a convenient marriage, even at the cost of changing face, however inexorable. Living beyond the pale of etiquette for so long a time, only sentiment and not form grated upon his inborn sense of propriety: the level, if must be, of the New World’s profanity need not follow beyond the limits of a woer’s exigencies.

The fruitage, too, already seemed the more inviting for its plucking; a deliciousness quite without the reach of antiquated taste inspired the thought; necessity laid bare the hard-beaten track of advancement: to win, the determined suitor must relegate and adapt, buckle on the armor of to-day, plunge into the world alive to the new and dead to the old, his face bright, purpose triumphant, and action as free, as bold, and as untrammeled as is the spirit that moves—comes no man knows whence, yet resolves the endless trend and tramp of time.

“I am no longer a slave,” said he, as he hustled forward, begging the retiring princess to heed a determined future.

“That is pleasing: I might say encouraging,” replied Kaiuolani with a careless, harmless tilt of the head.

“What care I for empty forms,” urged the livened enthusiast, dashing a prized eyeglass into fragments on the floor. “These fixings and such trumpery are but a handicap: I am going to prove myself a man. Give me only a chance.”

The opportunity soon came—burst upon him before he had fairly assumed the part of combatant; but Elmsford proved more than equal, as compared with Aokahameha who bandied aimlessly with chance.

“I am content” became his watchword, as it had been, always, the people’s ruling passion; and at the arrival of couriers bearing the news of Uhlrix’s advance their commander in chief waved them aside with the vain assurance that peace and not war leads to ultimate glory.

Aokahameha looked into the vast unrealized everywhere around then whispered contentedly:

“Let me lie here communing; the god instinct holds; immortality possesses, and love adjures a fellowship with deeds grander, thoughts purer than the conquest of all arms ever yet attained.”