Kaiuolani

Elmsford and his now disconcerted company had safely reached Lord Xenoav’s island possession, the beautiful villa and estate at Diamond Head, where the British flag was made to do hasty service in protecting Kaiuolani and the Guards from immediate molestation. At sight of the obnoxious stars and stripes aloft the capitol building the over-proud princess had fallen in a swoon, but now that a short, swift march brought them into friendlier environments, where she beheld the raising of a trusted if not less objectionable standard, new thoughts and a promised deliverance rekindled severely tried energy.

The discovery of her majesty’s failure did not in the least weaken Kaiuolani, only hastened the more a decision to make restitution, to survive a huge blunder; Young’s downfall shattered the barest prospect of entreaty; a tyrant laid siege, and would batter down even the flag of truce to satisfy an ungovernable end: with what of hearing at the instance of friendly couriers and conjecturing from the cold caldron of resolute reflection the past loomed a dangerously contrived escapade necessitating thenceforth a stricter adherence to the settled requirements of conventionality’s harsh ultimatum.

She had done what she did under the hot impulse of lone personality, paying little heed to the uncontrolled potentialities of superior force and conflicting interests. Henceforth she must not only combat with evil, but lessen the gap between the deed and the occasion, consulting more the necessities, questioning less the right.

With resolving proper conduct and conjecturing a fancied means, Kaiuolani breathed fresh relief, but the look of the situation frightened her: obligation alone made it possible for her to do, even dare.

Pickets had been thrown out in every direction and the troops massed around the main buildings: the little coterie of disconsolate patriots earnestly engaged themselves with discussing behind secure confines the probable outcome of what now seemed to all but one an ill-advised if well-timed retreat. Kaiuolani’s ardor had not cooled, as yet, with the elimination of dash, and the very thought of England and those upon whose hospitality she still survived encouraged strongly a secret belief. She ventured, even reasoned.

“You are risking a lot to save perhaps a very foolish princess, Mr. Elmsford—I wonder what Lord Xenoav might think?” said she, in reply to the artist manager’s repeated protestations of unselfish aim.

“He would say it were not a bit too much: I should call out the tars if I thought it at all necessary; Elmsford is jolly game, you know.”

“Possibly you shall have an opportunity, if we succeed in resting here until under cover of night I can reach the harbor; Ihoas suggests wrongly, and I shall want forthwith to visit the flagship before venturing toward castle Bairdsraith; this affair has not gone entirely beyond our reckoning, as yet, believe me.”

“Quite right you are, Kaiuolani, but how is your ladyship to make good the escape? There seems to be no end of pursuit,” suggested Elmsford, deeply concerned; for just then word had come that advancing troops were to be seen in the distance.

“I shall not for that trust so much to luck as to my good friend Elmsford,” replied the princess, less disturbed than resolved.

They looked from one to another, mystified and uncertain. Ihoas had urged Kaiuolani to take definite steps to influence Lord Xenoav’s intercession, to bring Great Britain to their defense; that her own love should be so jeopardized was more than she had bargained,—Kaiuolani’s reliance foretold Elmsford’s availment,—yet rising above personal interests the deep, unfathomable princess resolved in silence and bade them speed their pleasure. To her life held a higher reverence than bare affinity: she would die for the gods, and a thousand years unbroken allegiance made easy the sacrifice.

Kaiuolani again buckled on the sword, and turning to her latest recognized champion asked sharply:

“Are you ready?”

Elmsford, twisting about, hemmed and hawed unintelligibly; just what should be expected of him under the circumstances had been fully gathered from Kaiuolani’s conversation and answer; that Ihoas’s proposal, however, suited him best there could be no question. Strategy should avail him in getting the princess on board a convenient Englishman, now lying in the harbor,—her own heroism to the contrary notwithstanding,—but would the lone attempt of a doubtful subject be sufficient to insure the secretly contemplated kidnapping?

Darkness was already coming upon them and the clouds ran thick and murky. Temporary command had been advisedly turned over to Ihoas, in view of Aokahameha’s continued disability, and a feint in due course prepared. Kaiuolani had dressed for the occasion, and Elmsford stood ready to father with might and main the inwardly doubtful undertaking when, of a sudden, Norton—apparently out of breath and full in earnest—subtly shied herself into their presence, waving and ejaculating:

“Fly, Kaiuolani, fly; the Rifles, with Bender in command, and the combined force and friendly sanction of both Uhlrix and the queen at his beck and call, press hard upon you!”

Strangely enough the false, cruel makeshift impressed deeply those who heard; they knew, however, only too well the crafty minister’s master ambition; and, perchance, had their withdrawal estranged Liliuokolani? the conflict convinced Uhlrix? Kaiuolani’s eagerness exceeded the bounds of discretion, and Elmsford foolishly made manifest their unqualified intent—Norton had not only accomplished her purpose, but went away again, as mysteriously as she had come, the wiser for the trouble.

No such thought as to run away entered Kaiuolani’s head, though to Elmsford’s way of thinking and Norton’s supreme delight it had saved the one a distasteful expedient and the other an artless compromise. They were surrounded, and the fire once more flashed from her dancing, dark eyes—she would mow down the foreign fiends as stubble falls under the sickle bar, but little Uena-O-Zan came modestly bowing and whispering:

“Hush, my lovely mistress; would you save life, bid Uena speak. The foreign lady and the great, top minister hold counsel. They are out, over the gate: some scheme they discuss to do. The flag he sees—my honorable mistress may yet escape; Uena hears much and fears not any.”

“You are a dear, good little maid, and I shall truly heed you. Had you not come as a fairy the whole regiment should have fallen like the victims they are. Now that you have quenched the fire you may arrest the fiend. What shall a captive do?”

“Make ready to wait; Uena shall say for you where to go. Kwannon much do mercy.”

The night grew darker, and Bender waxed mad with thwarted zeal and confounded advice, for that flag alone waved effective defiance and Norton, knowing her man, lost no time in the attempt at unmaking.

“Wayntro,” demanded he, after a while, angrily, “here. Take charge of this business and hold good the siege till I return; it is necessary for me—your commander—to consult the English admiral, at once. Take care that none escape—I charge you at your peril; British arrogance never ventured beyond trade and bluff.”

“And an Irishman’s patience,” put in the doughty captain, good-humoredly.

Bender galloped away, and the Rifles lay down to snatch a very needed rest. The captain, commanding, ordered a strict watch, and himself proceeded at once with the not altogether arduous task of enticing without the invested place an only, anxious sweetheart; for Wayntro possessed a heart—big and true—that, also, throbbed with love’s own pulse beat.

“Be after resting snugly on your arms, and never a peep till Wayntro speaks,” said he, significantly, as the tired sentries ambled toward their careless duties.

“I am too very shy,” replied a modest voice, but a moment later, within, as the captain edged close under the overgrown hedge at one side a convenient gate.

“Uena! Bless your two souls. I’d risk anything—brave these devilish thorns to get one more smack at those tiny lips; I do believe it’s an age since I’ve tasted such sweetness. Do, now, be after letting me in; I want you so bad, I don’t want you—what’s that? Danger, duty: duty, danger—there’s not a soul in there that would hurt a hair on Wayntro’s head.”

“Oh Joyce! How could they? You haven’t any got.”

“Come, Uny; that’s not fair; no poking fun at long range, through the bush, nor over closed gates. Loosen the latch, deary; I can’t wait no longer.”

“If you’ll not come, promise, till three I count, and close under the hedge inside follow, your lonely sweetheart shall so run——”

“Break it off, Uny; I’ll do the whole thing as you say, and nary a quibble.”

Uena withdrew the bar, as agreed, and her good-intentioned lover followed (none too expeditiously) the blind wake of her secret vigil; till, presently, a faint light lured him beyond their improvised cover and into the big, rambling barns near at hand.

“Now here you wait,” said his enticer, extinguishing the torch and leaping over an empty manger, leaving the dumfounded captain to grope in doubt abreast a deserted stall, “till Uena one thousand counts. Her sweetness shall then the uncertainty displace.”

There was no getting out of that place, either with or without detection; so Wayntro waited, and Kaiuolani together with Elmsford, her secretly plotting gallant, escaped the plantation, deliberately drove through the listless lines and went their way, regardless if undecided.

Soon after an excited launch load of muffled bluejackets, prowling and peering hither and thither, stoutly hailed and roughly overhauled a dingy, frolicsome little dugout that cautiously creeped and diligently watched among the giant ironclads here and there casting their dull shadows at anchor in the dark, silent waters of an overcast harbor against the noised-up capital below. The miniature flag of England trailing defiantly at the little boat’s stern bore no significance to those hawk-eyed sleuth-dogs; they were bent on capturing a prize, and heedful lest Kaiuolani escape would run down even the king’s own craft.

“Let, go, bobby,” shouted Elmsford, as a hurled grappling iron hooked their frail canoe, splintering it from stern to stem; “it’s all a huge blunder; can’t you see the colors?”

“To h——l wid y’r ruse,” growled a burly boatswain, hauling hard fast the already sinking, water-logged craft.

That voice and those huskies were more than Kaiuolani could well face, and dropping carelessly from her shoulders a loose-bodied garment the undaunted little princess slid overboard and into the deep, warm waters of the bay, where a trained eye and dextrous stroke saved her scarce a known identification.

Her trapped escort, however, fared less agreeably; snatching the flag abaft the sinking hulk the mortified Englishman permitted with something of persuasion his rude arrestors to haul him, wet and thankful, safely aboard their own dry, but detested deck; whereat he boisterously belabored and threshed in the face the most convenient flunkey at hand, boastfully asserting:

“Great Britain shall make you pay right smart for this: carry me at once to her majesty’s flagship, the Londoncan.”

“My friend,” said a voice in authority, “you had best take your medicine like a man. You are only guest here, and subject to a host’s pleasure. Confess. Who was the damsel that just now so gracefully eluded me?”

“The queen——”

“What? Liliuokolani?”

Elmsford, on being interrupted, stopped short of what he had intended saying.

“I observed no perceptible rise in the tide,” continued the American, facetiously.

“Nor shall you till you’ve landed me where I belong; the flagship’s a safer barometer and—refuge, now that you choose to dally with opportunity.”

“Pull away, men,” shouted the officer; “we’ll overtake her, you bet; though these duskies swim like eels, if proportioned as whales.”

Elmsford settled back in the boat’s bottom, happy and content that each stroke brought him nearer the revered war ship, Kaiuolani’s intended place of going, if not originally his own; knowing the princess of old he would chance her pursuit at such hands with anything short of a harpoon, and once within hailing distance no vulgar bluecoat would do a British subject the least insolence; an Englishman demands first the person, then the controversy.

Passing, however, close under the big Mariposa’s lee,—the English merchantman having, as usual, called at Honolulu on her regular run from Sydney to Vancouver, had already begun to weigh anchor,—save the rippling and rumbling occasioned by the corded chains, no sound or sight disturbed the stilled waters around. Elmsford would have given half his life had Norton and her Uncle Sam’s blunt assailant come upon the scene but a moment later, for he too should have climbed the rope ladder dangling at that ship’s gangway high above, as did Kaiuolani no sooner the launch that bore him captive had gone round the stern and away from discovery.

Presently the head on bell sounded, and the lingering heir to an unrecovered throne went out into a cold, politic world to fight her battle anew, but none the less inspired for the experience gained; those waters were to her as was the land she departed, and no base man nor arrant knave might arrest her progress upon or beneath the one’s surface nor challenge unanswered her right to the other’s beneficence.

Such environments and so vital an expression served but to adjure achievement upon a broader plane, to baffle sense and quicken the reach toward endeavors yet unrealized, and as she looked back upon the lore-rent castles of a slumbering people a deep gathering sympathy beamed from her dry-burnt eyes—the sorrows of depleted sway had long ago worked from the soul its crucial bitterness, and the will, insurmountable, as it were, carried her beyond the bare vortex of failure and into the hard and fast bounds of an inexorable divine-striven energy.

“All things are for the best,” said she, patiently, to herself, as she turned her back upon disappointment, facing again the hopeful, “and Kaiuolani shall yet ride justly recognized over the cruelties of failing mankind.”