Next morning, as I lay on the sofa in the verandah, humming and idling, with Kea still stitching away at the very last touches on her wedding garments beside me, I saw by a sudden glitter in my mirror that Frank was anxious to heliograph me a message. Pulling the cord that moved my looking-glass, I flashed back “Well?” Frank answered by signal, “Big ship off Hilo. Gunboat apparently. Flying British colours. A party is landing.”
I signalled back by code, “Try to attract their attention if possible, and ask them what’s their business in Hawaii.”
For a few minutes Frank seemed engaged in establishing communications with the newly-arrived gunboat, and made me no reply; but I soon saw he had succeeded in forcing himself upon their notice at last, for he was flashing back question and answer rapidly now, as I judged by the frequent and hasty movements of his dancing mirror.
By and by he turned the ray upon my sofa again.
“Gunboat Hornet,” he signalled in swift flashes, “Pacific squadron: party of twenty men sent ashore by admiral’s orders to make arrangements for observing total eclipse of the moon on Saturday evening.”
I was glad to hear it, for we began to feel the want of civilized society.
That same morning the doctor rode up to see me again, and brought me a very welcome present — a pair of crutches. On these I was now to be permitted to hobble about, and I took advantage of my liberty that very afternoon by stumping up, with Frank’s aid, to the mouth of the crater.
While I stood there, supported on my two sticks, and watching the lava still grunting and grumbling as uneasily as ever — for it was clear that Pélé was in a grumpy mood and a big eruption was slowly brewing — we were joined by the officers and doctor of the Hornet on their eclipse observation expedition, accompanied by several sailors and natives, with ponies, tents, and other necessaries for camping out on the very summit, high above the level of the ordinary cloud-veil. The new-comers were surprised to find a scientific man already on the spot, in possession as it were, and gladly availed themselves of my knowledge of the mountain in choosing a good and suitable station for their tents and instruments.
I confess, after the terrors by which I had lately been surrounded, it was no small relief to me to find ourselves reinforced as it were by a strong and armed body of our own fellow-countrymen. I breathed a little more freely when I knew at least that help was at hand should we ever chance to stand in need of it.
I sent off Frank at once to show the naval men what seemed to me the best position on the whole mountain for pitching their tents and setting up their observatory, and, under my directions, he led them straight to a low peak on the right of Kalaua’s, over-looking the crater and the Floor of the Hawaiians.
It was a jutting point with a good open platform on the very summit, composed of rock a good deal softer than the mass of basaltic lava which makes up in great part the cone of that vast and seething volcano. The men of the Hornet were delighted with my selection, which combined all the advantages of shelter and position, and began forthwith to unpack their belongings and settle themselves down in their new quarters. For myself. I hobbled back after a while to the house to rest and observe their actions through a field-glass from a distance.
Now, at any rate, we should be quite safe from any machinations of our Hawaiian entertainers.
As I reached the door Kalaua came out, his face all livid with anger and excitement. Evidently the new turn of affairs had greatly displeased him. He had been away all the morning, and had only just returned. His eyes were fixed now on the party on the summit, and some strange passion seemed to be agitating his soul as he watched their preparations for camping on the platform.
“Who are all these people here?” he cried out to me in English, flinging up his hand as soon as I was well within speaking distance, “and what do they want with their tents and their instruments here on the open top of Mauna Loa?”
“They’re a party of English naval officers,” I answered, “from a gunboat that has just steamed into the harbour, and they’ve come up by order of the admiral to observe the eclipse of the moon on Saturday.”
Kalaua’s countenance was an awful sight to look upon. Never before or since has it been my lot to behold a human face so horribly distorted with terror and indignation as his was that moment. His features were ghastly. They reminded me of the mask of his heathen ancestors. It seemed as if some cherished hope of his life was frustrated and disappointed, dashed to the ground at once by some wholly unexpected and untoward incident. “Kea,” he cried aloud in Hawaiian to his niece within, “this is awful! This is unendurable! Come out and see! The English are camping on the Platform of Observation.”
At the words, Kea sprang out upon the balcony from the room within where she had been sitting alone, and shaded her eyes with her hands as she looked up in an agony of suspense and expectation towards the distant peak. In a moment some sudden passion thrilled her. Then she clasped her fingers hard and tight in front of her, as it seemed to me with some internal spasm of joy and satisfaction. “I see them,” she cried, “I see them! I see them.”
“They shall never remain there!” Kalaua shouted again, stamping his foot on the ground with resolute determination. “If they stop there till Saturday, it will spoil all! I won’t permit it! I can’t permit it!” Then he turned to me more calmly, and went on in English, “I know a much better place than that, up on the left yonder, less exposed a great deal to the open wind and the glare of the volcano.”
He pointed as he spoke to another peak, away off to the west; a peak that did not look down nearly so sheer into the hollow of the crater and the sea of fire. I had thought of that place too, and rejected it at once, as being in fact far more exposed and windy than the other.
I shook my head. “Oh, no,” I said, “the peak they’ve chosen is by far the best one.”
“You think so?”
“I am sure of it.”
Kalaua turned away with an angry gesture. “Better or worse, they shall never camp there!” he exclaimed with warmth. “The Hawaiians are masters still in Hawaii. Whether they will or whether they won’t, the Englishmen shall move their tents from that peak there. We will never allow them to occupy that spot. We will make them shift from the Platform of Observation.”
“I don’t think you’ll find it easy to turn away an English detachment,” I observed quietly.
Kalaua clenched his fist hard, and ground his teeth. “Anywhere but there,” he muttered, “and there, never!”
He stalked away angrily with long hurried strides towards the point where Frank and the sailors, all unconscious, were pegging their tents and staking out their encampment with a merry hubbub. What happened next I could only observe vaguely at a distance through the medium of my glass; I learned the details afterwards more fully from Frank and the officers. But what I could notice for myself most clearly nearer home was this — that all the time while Kalaua was parleying with the Englishmen on the mountain, Kea stood still quite breathless on the verandah, watching the result of her uncle’s action with the keenest interest and the wildest emotion. She watched so closely that I couldn’t help feeling the result was a matter of life and death to her, and it somehow seemed to me that her hopes were now fixed entirely on the white men’s resolve to maintain the position they had first taken up on the point of the mountain.
It was clear from what we saw that the Englishmen insisted on maintaining their position.
In about an hour, Kalaua returned, trembling with rage. “It’s no use,” he cried, “I can’t turn them off. They will camp there. I’ve said my best, but I can’t dislodge them: they must take their lives in their own hands.” And he flung himself like a sulky child into an American rocking-chair on the broad verandah.
As for Kea, I saw her look up suddenly, with a wild flash of relief coming over her white face. Next moment, a fixed despair succeeded it. “No use, no use,” she seemed to say to herself. “They will have to go yet. A respite, perhaps, but not a rescue.”
Kalaua sat and rocked himself moodily up and down like one who resolves some desperate adventure.
When Frank returned late at night to Kalaua’s, he told me the full story of that hasty interview. The old Hawaiian had gone up to the mountain determined to put a stop to the camp on the platform at all hazards. At first, his manner was all politeness and sweet reasonableness. He offered them water from the well at his own house, and he had come, he said, with the utmost suavity, to save them from choosing an unsuitable spot, and putting themselves in the end to immense inconvenience by having to move to some better position. He pointed out a thousand imaginary disadvantages in their present site, and a thousand equally imaginary points of superiority in the one he himself had selected for them. He knew the mountain from top to bottom: no one could choose as well as he could. But the officers stuck to their point steadily. This was the place to observe the eclipse from, and here they meant to camp out accordingly.
Wouldn’t they at least sleep down at his house? No, thanks, they p>referred to camp out by themselves, according to orders, here on the open. Then Kalaua began to lose his temper. What right had they, he asked in a threatening voice, to come trespassing there on private property? The first lieutenant responded promptly by showing a letter from the King at Honolulu, authorizing the officers and men of the Hornet to choose a place for themselves anywhere on the open summit of Mauna Loa, all of which was Government demesne, with the solitary exception of Kalaua’s garden. The old native’s anger grew hotter and hotter. They couldn’t say why, but it was quite clear that some private end of his own would be interfered with if the officers were allowed to camp out within view of the crater and the Floor of the Hawaiians. I had very little doubt myself, from what Frank told me, that some native superstition was at the bottom of his objection. I thought it probable there was a taboo upon the place — it was in all likelihood a seared spot of Pélé’s.
I remembered the fate of the man who trod the Floor of Pélé and I wondered what would happen to our friends from the Hornet. However, in the end, as the naval men refused to be moved by either threats or entreaties, Kalaua retired at last in silent wrath, muttering to himself some unintelligible words about the folly of white men and the might of the volcano.
“Take care,” he cried, as he turned on his heel, flinging back his last words at them. “You’ve chosen the most dangerous spot on the whole mountain. It reeks with fire. The rock about there is all inflammable. Mauna Loa will take care of itself. If you drop a match upon it, it’ll burn like sulphur.”
The officers laughed and took no more notice. They didn’t know as well as I did how deep and fierce a hold heathendom still exercised over the minds and actions of these half-savage natives.
When Frank told me all this in the silence of our own rooms by ourselves that evening, my heart somehow sank ominously within me. “Frank,” I said, “I don’t know why, but I’m sure there’s mischief brewing somewhere for us and for Kea. I wish we knew something more about this man Maloka they’re always talking about. I feel that some terrible plan is on foot for that poor girl’s marriage. The mystery darkens everywhere around us. Thank heaven, the English sailors have come to protect us.”
“I asked several natives about Maloka to-day,” Frank replied quietly; “but though they all knew the name, they only laughed, and refused to answer. They seemed to think it an excellent joke. One of them said he didn’t trouble himself at all about people like Maloka. And then they all looked very serious, and glanced around as if they thought he might possibly hear them. But when I asked if Maloka lived near by, behind the peaks, they burst into roars of laughter again, and advised me not to be too inquisitive.”
“Strange,” I answered. “He seems to live close here upon the summit, and yet we never happen to come across him.”
“Where’s Kalaua now?” Frank asked.
“Gone out,” I answered. “He went away early in the evening. Perhaps he’s visiting his friend Maloka.”
“I wish I could follow him,” Frank cried eagerly. “I’d like to catch this Maloka by the throat, whoever he is, and I’ll bet you sixpence, if I once caught him he’d be pretty well choked before I let him go again.”
“Did the Hornet’s men send down for water to Kalaua’s well?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” Frank answered. “They took up some pailfuls.”
“Humph!” I said. “I hope Kalaua hasn’t put anything ugly into it.”