Island Nights' EntertainmentsStevenson, Robert Louis
General
Island Nights' Entertainments
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Islands of the Pacific -- Fiction; Short stories
Now the house stood on the mountain side, visible to ships. Above, the
forest ran up into the clouds of rain; below, the black lava fell in
cliffs, where the kings of old lay buried. A garden bloomed about that
house with every hue of flowers; and there was an orchard of papaia on
the one hand and an orchard of breadfruit on the other, and right in
front, toward the sea, a ship’s mast had been rigged up and bore a
flag. As for the house, it was three storeys high, with great chambers
and broad balconies on each. The windows were of glass, so excellent
that it was as clear as water and as bright as day. All manner of
furniture adorned the chambers. Pictures hung upon the wall in golden
frames: pictures of ships, and men fighting, and of the most beautiful
women, and of singular places; nowhere in the world are there pictures
of so bright a colour as those Keawe found hanging in his house. As for
the knick-knacks, they were extraordinary fine; chiming clocks and
musical boxes, little men with nodding heads, books filled with
pictures, weapons of price from all quarters of the world, and the most
elegant puzzles to entertain the leisure of a solitary man. And as no
one would care to live in such chambers, only to walk through and view
them, the balconies were made so broad that a whole town might have
lived upon them in delight; and Keawe knew not which to prefer, whether
the back porch, where you got the land breeze, and looked upon the
orchards and the flowers, or the front balcony, where you could drink
the wind of the sea, and look down the steep wall of the mountain and
see the _Hall_ going by once a week or so between Hookena and the hills
of Pele, or the schooners plying up the coast for wood and ava and
bananas.
When they had viewed all, Keawe and Lopaka sat on the porch.
“Well,” asked Lopaka, “is it all as you designed?”
“Words cannot utter it,” said Keawe. “It is better than I dreamed, and
I am sick with satisfaction.”
“There is but one thing to consider,” said Lopaka; “all this may be
quite natural, and the bottle imp have nothing whatever to say to it.
If I were to buy the bottle, and got no schooner after all, I should
have put my hand in the fire for nothing. I gave you my word, I know;
but yet I think you would not grudge me one more proof.”
“I have sworn I would take no more favours,” said Keawe. “I have gone
already deep enough.”
“This is no favour I am thinking of,” replied Lopaka. “It is only to
see the imp himself. There is nothing to be gained by that, and so
nothing to be ashamed of; and yet, if I once saw him, I should be sure
of the whole matter. So indulge me so far, and let me see the imp; and,
after that, here is the money in my hand, and I will buy it.”
“There is only one thing I am afraid of,” said Keawe. “The imp may be
very ugly to view; and if you once set eyes upon him you might be very
undesirous of the bottle.”
“I am a man of my word,” said Lopaka. “And here is the money betwixt
us.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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