The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 17Stevenson, Robert Louis
History
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 17
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Islands of the Pacific -- Fiction; Samoan Islands -- History; Short stories
Now, when Keola could see his wife at last he was mighty pleased, and he
was mighty pleased to be home again in Molokai and sit down beside a
bowl of poi--for they make no poi on board ships, and there was none in
the Isle of Voices--and he was out of the body with pleasure to be clean
escaped out of the hands of the eaters of men. But there was another
matter not so clear, and Lehua and Keola talked of it all night and were
troubled. There was Kalamake left upon the isle. If, by the blessing of
God, he could but stick there, all were well; but should he escape and
return to Molokai, it would be an ill day for his daughter and her
husband. They spoke of his gift of swelling, and whether he could wade
that distance in the seas. But Keola knew by this time where that island
was--and that is to say, in the Low or Dangerous Archipelago. So they
fetched the atlas and looked upon the distance in the map, and by what
they could make of it, it seemed a far way for an old gentleman to walk.
Still, it would not do to make too sure of a warlock like Kalamake, and
they determined at last to take counsel of a white missionary.
So the first one that came by, Keola told him everything. And the
missionary was very sharp on him for taking the second wife in the low
island; but for all the rest, he vowed he could make neither head nor
tail of it.
"However," says he, "if you think this money of your father's ill
gotten, my advice to you would be, give some of it to the lepers and
some to the missionary fund. And as for this extraordinary rigmarole,
you cannot do better than keep it to yourselves."
But he warned the police at Honolulu that, by all he could make out,
Kalamake and Keola had been coining false money, and it would not be
amiss to watch them.
Keola and Lehua took his advice, and gave many dollars to the lepers and
the fund. And no doubt the advice must have been good, for from that day
to this Kalamake has never more been heard of. But whether he was slain
in the battle by the trees, or whether he is still kicking his heels
upon the Isle of Voices, who shall say?
END OF VOL. XVII
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CASSELL & CO., LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE
LONDON, E.C.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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