Kaiuolani

The last note in Bender’s discordant life had fairly sounded. The awful visitation left him a wreck: a doubter in man himself. All the things of earth that he had been able to muster crumbled at the beckoning of an impossible love—and were she really a goddess?

Half crazed and abandoned, the now thoroughly repentant man hastened toward Diamond Head, alone and unarmed.

Everywhere word had gone in advance of his coming, in consequence of which none heeded him and all revered her. Why Ihoas condoned? What terrible thing had he done to merit their contempt?

“I’ll do more than she,” said he to Aokahameha, who alone, and without hindrance, importuned of him both respect and submission; “I’ll surrender no less my honor than fortune to end this senseless, cruel misunderstanding.”

“Then you shall have need to lose no less of time than effort, for Kaiuolani and Young may again face each other in the field.”

Having sooner heard of Bender’s perfidy, and surmising the fright Ihoas’s transition must reasonably produce in the minds and hearts of uncontroverted Hawaii, Kaiuolani forthwith called upon Kenlikola to enter with his now frantic army the gates at Diamond Head.

The prince, bowed with grief, and overawed by the superstitious wrangling of others about a daughter’s ascendancy, made haste to obey; there was already much clamoring, in the ranks, for bloodshed; the peace of Ihoas, too, must be rendered, by timely sacrifice, and none would spare the hated foreigner.

Young faced the situation unfalteringly, and with a fortitude hitherto inexpressed; he had grown with experience, and notwithstanding the government’s uneasiness—and an only too apparently flagging interest elsewhere at Honolulu—marched his now thoroughly sifted and carefully drilled little fighting force out of the city, and toward the enemy, with all the vim and confidence of a winning hand.

“The odds are against me,” said he, to Cole, upon departing the capital, “but as Bender is safely overcome in the South, so shall Kenlikola fall at the North; shot and shell may be less fantastic, but it is more effective than earthquakes or volcanoes in determining the faith of men. As it has been always, it shall be, here, to-day.”

The roads were muddy, however, from the outskirts thence, and progress became slower as they neared the scene of expected action. Scouts returning from the field continued reporting, “No enemy in sight,” and night came upon them.

Those gates must be reached and guarded, for these men, whom they would face, prowled by night like cats seeking their prey.

“Double, quick, forward!” ran along down the lines from head to subordinate in a whisper.

It was dark now, and Bender lashed round them in the distance. An accomplice urged him on: he neither knew nor cared much where or for what purpose.

After a hard-forced tramp over treacherous grounds, and much consultation among the heads of staff, the government’s sole available troop approached cautiously and with rising apprehension the main entrance to Lord Xenoav’s private estate at Diamond Head. The place seemed deserted. Not even a lone picket stood guard, and the only significant thing Young could descry, there in the darkness, outside the walls, appeared to be nothing more nor less than a huge pile of loose timbers, stacked directly in front of the closed and made fast front gate.

Wayntro had heard of such devices, through Uena-O-Zan, of course, and cautioned his superior accordingly.

“Fall back; line up; rest on your arms!” commanded Young, quietly, but without a tremor.

The halting columns obeyed, though consternation rankled in their hearts. These men had fought unerringly in the daytime; but the somber shades of midnight called to mind another and a deeper concern.

“What is yon heap?” whispered Johnny, of his next, less agitated, comrade.

“You can search me,” replied that one, none the wiser.

“Doan yous know, what dat am?” cautioned a husky voice from North Carolina.

“No; tell us, Sammy,” came back in unison, from those who now huddled about or craned to hear.

“I’s doan like to befrighten yous-all, I doan,” replied he, in a mysterious tone of voice and sore-belabored manner.

“I’ll give you a big chew of t’baccer, if you do,” intercepted a nearby listener, confidentially.

“Make it two, and I’s gwine to do it,” agreed Sammy, doubly conscious.

“All right,” put in another, less prudently inclined.

“Dat am a funeral pyle, boys; dat am so,” replied he, with deep satisfaction.

“Get into line there,” commanded Young, sternly, the while tapping those most venturesome upon the back with his sword.

They all fell to and resumed quiet, though some may have wondered at the temerity of their general in expressing himself so flagrantly to encourage stability in the ranks. That pile of timbers disturbed them not a little, and that none other than Young himself should be the first to quench its thirst became a deep-seated conviction on the part of many there breathlessly awaiting.

Presently a dull, grinding sort of noise at the “pyre,” as if some loosened part had settled into place, attracting the attention of all, drove terror into the hearts of not a few.

“Wo-a-ough!” shrieked Samuel, who, dropping to his knees, on his gun, sat mute and transfixed.

“Fire!” shouted Young, without a moment’s warning.

The roar and flash of musketry broke weirdly upon the still, dark surroundings; while splinters flew thick and fast from the tumbling, tilting logs in the foreground.

Bender groaned underneath the falling debris, and Norton rushed from the background, pushing and making her way toward the front.

“My God!” exclaimed she, as Bender’s possible death dawned upon her.

“The papers?” replied he, wounded, and unable to rise.

“I’ll take them,” demanded Young, as he came up, observing her to possess a familiar document.

“You shall not,” retorted she, levelling a pistol in his face.

Young backed away, and Norton followed; first tossing the roll to her confederate, who lay jammed and dying beneath the jumbled litter.

Bender feebly fumbled in his pocket for a match. He had fallen, the victim of misjudged endeavor, and whatever the consequence he proposed now that he still possessed strength and opportunity to destroy once and for all the evidence that had wrought alike his fortune and his doom.

Striking a light the flames shot up like an avalanche. Kamehameha’s worshippers fixed well the pyre, and combustion did what Bender had failed in the doing: Young had made Norton a prisoner, and returned in time.

The dying man smiled, and the living brushed hard at the flames.

Weird sounds within the estate-walls froze cold the blood in Young’s command. Yelling and leaping, and clambering over gates and fences, everywhere, the foe quickly surrounded him. Uena-O-Zan ran into the open, and Wayntro ordered a welcome retreat.

The flames roared and drove higher and fiercer; the little republic furnished the fuel with which to waft homeward its own determinate message.