Kaiuolani

Like magic the new Territory settled into a veritable workshop. Lofty ideals and heroic attainment lulled and languished under the sordid quest of political preferment and material splendor. No longer did the gods claim or disturb them: their food the inspiration and gain a watchword, fraternity burned lower in the bejeweled candlestick of fancied worth.

“Where is this deserter and delinquent, F. W. Young, of whom you speak?” asked General Takemeback, candidly, of Mr. Langdon, the at last out of a job successor to Whilom S. Harvenoiq.

Takemeback had been sent out by the United States authorities, in advance of annexation, to establish an army post and naval station at Pearl Harbor,—a reserve provisionally gained as an indirect result of Harvenoiq’s bold lone break,—and in consequence, upon the final passage of the act of admission, assumed a sort of general supervision over things military thereabouts.

The records in Langdon’s discontinued office were plain; someone by the name of Young, bearing the Colonel’s initials, had deserted the regulars at Governor’s Island; he should be haled directly into court; the information of right belonged to Takemeback.

“I am not even convinced, much less advised,” replied Langdon, no more certain than interested in either phase of the case.

“Deuced queer circumstance,” retorted the general, emptying his glass again, and resting back in the chair, anticipatory of further enlightenment.

“No more complicated than delicate, I should say. Some of the governor’s ‘best’ might prove to be implicated were the searchlight turned too squarely on, as I understand it,” suggested Langdon, bantering discretion.

“Not Aokahameha, I hope?” queried the listener, somewhat enlivened.

“Here he comes, now: I should rather you judged,” replied his informant, a bit reluctant.

That Cole would be elected governor, with hardly a dissenting vote, at the coming poles, there could be no reasonable doubt; not even Harvenoiq disputed that. Neither did anybody question Cole’s preference or Aokahameha’s rights concerning the commandery of a territorial militia; but there were some who coveted the place—less scrupulous, perhaps, than these were anxious about the public weal.

Aokahameha seated himself at Langdon’s invitation, quietly joining as needs be in the conversation.

“We were just discussing Colonel Young, and his probable bearing upon the future of Hawaii. How do his chances affect you, friend Aokahameha?” queried Langdon, immediately.

Takemeback reflected; the host’s queer tactics had aroused in his slow mind something resembling surprise.

Aokahameha reddened, then turned white in the face. He had not thought of Young since the fated night at concerned old Punch Bowl; not that he valued any less his once-upon-a-time friendly compatriot or harsh antagonist, but he had turned a new leaf, and would let the gods be gods. Young had passed out of his conduct, and bare consciousness alone conjured possibilities undreamed.

“A good man he was, and I wish that he were here to-day,” reflected the opportune commander in chief, after a little, wholly unconscious of either listener’s self-originating meditations.

The subject thereat changed, and presently all three went their way: Langdon immediately sought out Isaacs; Takemeback stamped off toward headquarters; their accidental friend lingered upon the already deserted streets, and none seemed the wiser of another’s doing or intent.

A stroll in the open and a good night’s rest brought Aokahameha to a final determination: Kaiuolani must be seen and understood without needless delay.

The shades were already lengthening and reaching toward Castle Banyan in the foreground when her suitor, gallant but earnest, rode through the gate in front, only a few days after, dismounting lightly at the door.

“Who comes oftener than I,” bantered he, of Sir Charles, who himself hobbled down the steps to greet and ask him enter.

“None is more welcome, I assure you, good Aokahameha; nor half-told as modest,” ventured his loyal host in return, approaching unsteadily and with apparent effort.

Proffering assistance, the younger led, now into the hitherto familiar den, where other scenes more exacting had dragged the elder down, forcefully against better promise, till life itself seemed but a vast unrealized suspense.

“Whither are we drifting?” asked the broken down father, half-consciously vague. “I hear of nothing now-a-days except the governor’s ball, silks and beaux, plans and coquetry—oh this scramble! Why thrust upon me so near death’s claim? Promise, Aokahameha, that you will do what I have failed: insure my daughter’s happiness; I am done.”

Aokahameha agreed in silence; soon finding himself in Kaiuolani’s presence, unable to counsel, much less govern her; but the descendant of a Kamehameha knew no fear, and looked into mood if not motive with keenly discerning eyes.

“I shouldn’t bother at all about that,” replied he, to her chatter, as a first attempt at reconciliation. “Perhaps Norton is right after all; you may look quite as well in white, or blue, as in red. It’s the effect that counts for most.”

“Upon whom, I should like to know?” queried she, indignantly.

“Has Norton really returned?”

“Yes, she just this minute left the door.”

“Then Colonel Young will be there, if none else; you may be sure of that, if I am any kind of judge.”

“He shall sooner be in jail, where he belongs. That is about as near as you have guessed the truth. And I am glad of it. Nor shall I wear red. Now then; you have my mind, just as you deserve.”

Her would-be conservator made no further attempt at disagreement or conversion, but in that brief sentence read deeper than Kaiuolani had dared to do or intended that he should. Thence he knew full well—if she had failed suspicioning—the bitterest truth in life; and bidding her a friendly adieu hastened toward the city, where the hardest trial that he had known awaited only his coming.

Young had been court-martialed, and there stood face to face with seemingly certain conviction.

“It shall not be,” said Aokahameha, to Cole, the day before that set for trial.

“The law is explicit, and the evidence conclusive, so I am told,” replied the now duly elected governor, coldly.

“There is a truth that heeds neither law nor evidence. Beware of justice, my dear governor; this man you need, and I herewith tender my resignation in his behalf.”

Norton sat by without saying so much as a word. She had come in, earlier in the day, to urge the governor’s intercession, and would not go away. Cole, in consequence, had grown as obstinate as uneasy, positively refusing her, upon the ground of non-interference. Thus remaining and hearing, the possible outcome of Aokahameha’s warning bore heavily upon her conscience; whereat the repentant woman arose to go, saying heartily:

“I thank you, Mr. Cole, for the privilege of this overhearing: to you, Aokahameha, I owe a debt of gratitude infinitely beyond my reclaiming.”

The day after brought the accused, pale and wan, directly into court: Young heard the charge, and faced his accusers; he had grown listless to human weaknesses, and scoffed at falsehood’s hardened attempt.

Exiled to an unfrequented island at the instance of Kaiuolani,—upon his capture, theretofore, at Diamond Head,—he had lost every confidence in civilized trust. There was no means at all of any outside communication. Only Norton had found him out, thence intensifying his disgust by enforcing her attention. Failing to win fairly, she would woo compulsorily, and when Isaacs came again, as arranged, to carry them home, husband and wife, as designed, Young rebelled and threatening to withdraw into the solitude of that lonesome islet vowed never more to lay eyes upon his kind or to share the lot of woman.

Langdon, however, decreed otherwise, and before Young could make good his retreat Takemeback’s scouts ran down and brought him back to that sense God intended better used.

“Stand up,” sternly demanded the courts-martial, frowning at the merest thought of anyone’s outranking obedience.

Young reflected: an orderly pushed him forward; no compassion obtained there; the breaking in of mind and body, directing thought and action, cowering mood or inducing morals—duty were an only virtue: mercy, denial, or intervention standing without the pale.

“I am innocent,” replied Young, considerately.

“’Er ugh; ’er ugh,” growled the court.

“I am innocent,” repeated he, still more kindly.

“How dare you speak till commanded! Officer, proceed with the trial,” shouted Takemeback, maddened with insult.

Their testimony was all against him, no one deigning or caring to appear for the defendant. The doors stood closed, and there appeared not the slightest chance of truth’s obtaining.

The records were entirely introduced, marked this or that exhibit, and regularly filed. Langdon had sworn to all that he knew favorable to conviction, carefully suppressing every hint that might in any manner tend to influence an acquittal. Harvenoiq now took the stand; the culprit seemed convicted beyond all doubt, lacking only the very necessary and properly connected identification.

“Are you acquainted with the prisoner at bar?” asked the interrogator, methodically concerned.

“I am,” replied the witness, fully confident.

“Do you know of your own knowledge that he, the defendant, here present, in court, is the identical F. W. Young charged in this case with desertion, from the United States army?”

“I do.”

“Is he the same individual described as one F. W. Young in the records (tendering for identification purposes exhibit ‘A’) of your former office as U. S. minister to the now defunct, but formerly existant republic of Hawaii?”

“He is.”

“You lie!” shouted a regularly supposed orderly, springing forward with outstretched arm and extended finger shaking vehemently in Harvenoiq’s rigid face.

The court gasped for breath, Langdon bounded up, and the witness stammered inaudibly:

“Who—are—you?”

Tearing off a mask that shielded a haggard countenance, and facing him squarely, the court alone heard, others understood:

“I am Martha Norton, and you are a villain!”

Those in authority, recovering from their astonishment, demanded, to the surprise and satisfaction alike of everybody, an immediate and full explanation.

“Here is the proof, your honor—under his own hand and seal. I shall entrust you alone with the document.”

Whereupon Norton, blushing at her own disguise, turned once more to the witness, saying:

“Tell the court what you know about this case. I command it!”

Young was, in consequence, released, and commended for his faithfulness: the same day an executive order made him Lieutenant General, commander in chief of the Hawaiian militia, and no one disputed him, just or right.