Island Nights' EntertainmentsStevenson, Robert Louis
General
Island Nights' Entertainments
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Islands of the Pacific -- Fiction; Short stories
Never a wink could he sleep; the food stuck in his throat; but he sent
a letter to Kiano, and about the time when the steamer would be coming,
rode down beside the cliff of the tombs. It rained; his horse went
heavily; he looked up at the black mouths of the caves, and he envied
the dead that slept there and were done with trouble; and called to
mind how he had galloped by the day before, and was astonished. So he
came down to Hookena, and there was all the country gathered for the
steamer as usual. In the shed before the store they sat and jested and
passed the news; but there was no matter of speech in Keawe’s bosom,
and he sat in their midst and looked without on the rain falling on the
houses, and the surf beating among the rocks, and the sighs arose in
his throat.
“Keawe of the Bright House is out of spirits,” said one to another.
Indeed, and so he was, and little wonder.
Then the _Hall_ came, and the whaleboat carried him on board. The
after-part of the ship was full of Haoles [6] who had been to visit the
volcano, as their custom is; and the midst was crowded with Kanakas,
and the forepart with wild bulls from Hilo and horses from Kau; but
Keawe sat apart from all in his sorrow, and watched for the house of
Kiano. There it sat, low upon the shore in the black rocks, and shaded
by the cocoa palms, and there by the door was a red holoku, no greater
than a fly, and going to and fro with a fly’s busyness. “Ah, queen of
my heart,” he cried, “I’ll venture my dear soul to win you!”
Soon after, darkness fell, and the cabins were lit up, and the Haoles
sat and played at the cards and drank whiskey as their custom is; but
Keawe walked the deck all night; and all the next day, as they steamed
under the lee of Maui or of Molokai, he was still pacing to and fro
like a wild animal in a menagerie.
Towards evening they passed Diamond Head, and came to the pier of
Honolulu. Keawe stepped out among the crowd and began to ask for
Lopaka. It seemed he had become the owner of a schooner—none better in
the islands—and was gone upon an adventure as far as Pola-Pola or
Kahiki; so there was no help to be looked for from Lopaka. Keawe called
to mind a friend of his, a lawyer in the town (I must not tell his
name), and inquired of him. They said he was grown suddenly rich, and
had a fine new house upon Waikiki shore; and this put a thought in
Keawe’s head, and he called a hack and drove to the lawyer’s house.
The house was all brand new, and the trees in the garden no greater
than walking-sticks, and the lawyer, when he came, had the air of a man
well pleased.
“What can I do to serve you?” said the lawyer.
“You are a friend of Lopaka’s,” replied Keawe, “and Lopaka purchased
from me a certain piece of goods that I thought you might enable me to
trace.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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