Kaiuolani

Everywhere throughout America men’s blood ran hot. It mattered not that the rising furor’s inception lay grovelling in fraud and deceit: whether the constitution forbade expansion or not. The cause quickly lost itself in the effect wrought, and men rallied to save their flag discredit.

What cared they for statutes, where law is no more or other than crystallized sentiment? How restrained when executives are made not born? When, where, and why break the divining wand of aggressive betterment? No; all the presidents, the constitutions, and the traditions of humankind or divinity could nor would restrain, if widen, one whit the bounds of collective regeneration.

The newspapers had stirred public conscience to such degree that of universal accord the nation rose to defend its position, no matter what the charge. With no thought at first of planting authority beyond their own shores, whisperings to the contrary at last gained credence, openly invited support. The big throbbing heart of untried America had gone farther than they would or knew; in denying the accepted right of inheritance elsewhere, they established the principle of progression at home. The emipre, risen, would not down; spontaneously reproduced itself in the quickening mold of a larger if inopportune decay.

The president angered at the boldness, as he termed it, of public presumption. He had been elected to do their thinking, inaugurate public weal, and frame the nation’s policy. What of accident and the ballot he believed his tenure, however disposed or reigned, no less than divine.

“Stop this babble about Hawaii,” roared he, to his ardently chosen but individually politic secretary of state, Arthur F. Doolittle, directly Langdon’s official report and personal advice had reached its utmost destination.

“It is possible to control Langdon, but how about these newspapers? The people will read, you know, once they can.”

“And vote—as privileged, I vow. Thanks to superior wisdom, that man Jefferson, we hear about, was throttled at the very outset of sanity. Let the mob howl, if it will; but, bear in mind, declarations do not constitute law: no more is this republic a democracy! I would have you bear in mind that rabbling ends and government begins at the ballot box, my good secretary. I am president. So take down the flag and return those marines; we may have need for them at home, before another election survives—the press is damnable, but there’s a remedy.”

The news strange to say once more reached Honolulu in advance of orders. Whichever way their resolute intermeddler turned, his intentions, however well guarded, seemed certain of anticipation; particularly where least expected or desired: thinking ones gathered round the apparently despised provisional government and made ready for a most blunderingly foreshadowed scene, while mistaken zeal and overwrought enthusiasm flamed afresh all patriotic Hawaii.

The queen stubbornly awakened, and Cole bided calmly striven opportunity.

On the Progressionist side a certain kind of forceful gloom verily worked toward a deeply conscious preparation. On the other hand an airy delight in freedom’s humbler compensation carried its unsuspecting possessors hard over against the border line between feigned confidence and seasonable vigilance.

Cold necessity revealed time’s continuous ebb.

“Would you of your own free will condemn these men to die?” asked Langdon, indifferently, in a last considerate attempt to gain the queen’s clemency.

The great woman’s eyes dimmed, while her heart throbbed and voice failed. A will stronger than hers, a duty higher than man’s, and a being not of the flesh answered:

“Yes.”

“Then devise the means; ordinary mortals are not privileged as gods, nor shall they at this day and under my nose presume to do the devil’s own work. Please pardon the expression, my good lady; anything less emphatic, in my humble estimation, should certainly sound profane.”

Liliuokolani laughed a low guttural laugh, and turning to her compatriots invited acclamation, none the wiser of apparent defeat. She and not mortality had in her estimation triumphed, for in a land where patriotism heeds no loftier aim than personal content, a thing promised is as good as gained. That there is no end to ambition’s tempting grasp, she and her kind had not the temerity to comprehend.

The time had been set. America’s emblem must be disgraced: right re-establish their own.

The day revealed a glorious aspect to those privileged with anticipation; the sun rose big and red in its accustomed place; not a cloud overhung the heavens; songs of joy wafted all around; the hush of night had left spread its own malignant germs, but the biddings and reliance of day looked up toward the promise of warmth and expectancy, with no thought of the mists and stagnation underhanging; where lurked and sloughed pregnant quagmires of despair.

Liliuokolani prayed that morning for the president and all others in authority. From her lips the word spread till low gratitude had stilled the half-roused nobler sentiment of yesterday. These people were born to do homage, and a filled cup served best their need.

From every part of the Islands they came, some blessed perchance with a little more than others, but all above want and none sunken to the declining level of a scrambled rectitude. Old rites were revived and new ones devised. Here a gorgeous procession did obsequies, as they presumed, to a dead and all but forgotten consciousness; some encircled the palace and there sang songs or strewed flowers; vast throngs of the more curious, but silenced, belabored hard this or that vantage point on the streets and avenues leading toward the flagstaff, but none felt or knew the significance of that they beheld.

The growing, seething, listless crown gorged indulgently upon disordered content.

A handful of whites marched down through the salf-making rent in the jumbled ranks. These bore arms reversed; they would not disobey, though a charge filled each upturned gun: halting, and awaiting the scene that strong hearts humbly grieved, their heads uncovered and hands ready, a—courier rushed forward, the bugle sounded and a tumultuous noise rent the air; the mob had given vent to its only worth, and if ever might made right or an order lost its bearing those sturdy patriots in the face of that flag wrought a noble deed.

Far away, at Kanai, whence he had been spirited, the better to nurse a bleeding wound and revive an endangered courage, Aokahameha lay low with mending. A loved one’s father, prince David, and Bender her accomplice, parleyed at one side the big lodge where she herself had romped and grown to maidenhood. The warmed winds from over the desert sands and off the tumbling waters in front lolled and soothed him into dreaming. Ihoas sat tenderly by.

“The gods be praised, for the queen is restored,” said he, fully looking the conscious princess inquiringly in the face.

“Yes; we owe much to providence,” replied she, evasively.

“No, no, Ihoas; tell me, are my words but mockery?” cried he, vainly attempting to rise from the pillow at his head.

“There, now; you must not take on so; your part is done—well; the queen shall yet tell you as much with her own lips,” urged the princess, apprehensive, but knowing.

“I did ignobly. Let it stand that Aokahameha sacrificed honor, intelligence, everything, to pander hopelessly: let me suffer like the traitor that I am; Ihoas deserves a better love.”

Sinking back again in bed, the big man’s eyes dulled with far-off, unsatisfied comprehension. Presently Ihoas, clasping gently his hand and bending over in silence, heard him say, distinctly:

“Elmsford is Ihoas’s; his eyes are open; Americans cannot be trusted.”

Aokahameha’s one prediction, upon that occasion, had sooner proven true, though to him it remained unverified.

In the confusion resulting from the president’s well exposed, but half enforced orders Gutenborj deemed it advisable, in consequence of no other prospect, to place himself directly upon the queen’s side. Kaiuolani had returned and bore the best of assurances: the hardfisted planter’s interest above all else must be conserved, hence Young pressed into a new leadership and the crown princess reconciled to an old love; neither of which seemed a difficult undertaking in view of the queen’s ready acquiescence and his own hitherto untouched resources.

Thus it was that Floyd Young had found it possible within short notice to raise and equip for hasty service a new troop of five hundred men. Isaacs had been stripped of everything to effect the other’s release, and now lay bound and gagged by the marines as a convenient excuse, if needed, for delaying an idly questioned departure. Norton waxed more anxious than ever. The one that she cared for openly denied an only rival, and had he not barely escaped her?

“It is fortunate that I once befriended her royal highness,” said Norton, to herself, with ecstacy, after a first personally requested meeting with the planter king. “Me? A go-between? What luck!”

In the break, occasioned for the most part by Gutenborj’s advice against Norton, Young had in his own mind completely relegated the once duly heeded philosopher. That he, in his present attitude,—cringing and childlike,—could personally render effective aid to either the queen or the opposition seemed a thing utterly behind the trend of latter requisition. Why not take advantage of a misjudged proffer to use his fortune?

“Press him as needs be, and I’ll promise——”

“Your hand and——oh Floyd; how I have waited and tried for this!”

“I was about to say: an army. That is the first requisite. All delectation hinges upon accomplishment. Force of some kind or manner lies behind every privilege. You have earned the highest felicities at my disposal; but let me prove in truth a hand before you would deign accept on trial the heart.”

Norton blushed; not with disappointment, but at the price exacted of an under-help. Man might reason himself superior, in fact make himself such, but sooner or later fate must resolve the equalities of patient endeavor.

“I’ll build, encourage, and cherish him: Kaiuolani could but hate, retard, and destroy; she is impolitic, and policy lies at the foundation of all worldly appreciation: for all we know, or would, the heavens measure recognition with the same yardstick used on earth. Up and at it, then, with the grace of a kind,” said she, to herself, bidding Young attend his part; as there should be no failing of funds so long as Gutenborj reasoned; or, thought she, “obstacle in the way of my own attainment if Kaiuolani be the only rival.”

The plan worked admirably, as they all thought, though the princess puzzled her inquisitor severely and provoked Gutenborj not a little from the first attempt hence.

“I love you, aunty, and am ready to die, if needs be, for you; but please remember that my heart is my own and that it will be not at all unlike me to choose the manner of sacrifice.”

“What do you mean, child?” queried the queen, much disturbed.

“Give me the command of this proposed soldiery, and I shall put an end to strife hereabouts. Now, then; you have my ultimatum; what is your pleasure?” replied the princess, as Gutenborj emerged clandestinely from an adjoining room.

“Nonsense! Woman can better rock the cradle,” proffered he, coming forward vehemently.

“Thanks. Others before you have said as much, but I still have a chance. Bender——”

“Kaiuolani!” interceded the good queen, unable longer to contemplate further possibilities.

“Very well,” ejaculated Gutenborj. “But, I might say—if it can in any manner serve as an encouragement to you—that Young is in command and already holds, beyond dislodgment, the state house and all there is in it: possession is nine points in law, and sanity compels your humble servant to get and keep in line with order, every time, if I know myself, my good lady, so don’t count on me.”

Kaiuolani refused longer to parley, and politely departing from the palace made haste to see and advise the still loyal, if indignant Elmsford.

“I am departing for America, on to-day’s outgoing steamer,” said she, after a little, wholly convinced. “Please see Ihoas, and advise her of my intentions and sympathy.”