the swimming at Keauhou, and to Kealakekua Bay, and Napoopoo and
Honaunau. And everywhere the people turning out, in their hands
gifts of flowers, and fruit, and fish, and pig, in their hearts
love and song, their heads bowed in obeisance to the royal ones
while their lips ejaculated exclamations of amazement or chanted
meles of old and unforgotten days.
“What would you, Sister Martha? You know what we Hawaiians are.
You know what we were half a hundred years ago. Lilolilo was
wonderful. I was reckless. Lilolilo of himself could make any
On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales
18
woman reckless. I was twice reckless, for I had cold, grey Nahala
to spur me on. I knew. I had never a doubt. Never a hope.
Divorces in those days were undreamed. The wife of George Castner
could never be queen of Hawaii, even if Uncle Robert’s prophesied
revolutions were delayed, and if Lilolilo himself became king. But
I never thought of the throne. What I wanted would have been the
queendom of being Lilolilo’s wife and mate. But I made no mistake.
What was impossible was impossible, and I dreamed no false dream.
“It was the very atmosphere of love. And Lilolilo was a lover. I
was for ever crowned with leis by him, and he had his runners bring
me leis all the way from the rose-gardens of Mana–you remember
them; fifty miles across the lava and the ranges, dewy fresh as the
moment they were plucked, in their jewel-cases of banana bark;
yard-long they were, the tiny pink buds like threaded beads of
Neapolitan coral. And at the luaus” (feasts) the for ever never-
ending luaus, I must be seated on Lilolilo’s Makaloa mat, the
Prince’s mat, his alone and taboo to any lesser mortal save by his
own condescension and desire. And I must dip my fingers into his
own pa wai holoi” (finger-bowl) “where scented flower petals
floated in the warm water. Yes, and careless that all should see
his extended favour, I must dip into his pa paakai for my pinches
of red salt, and limu, and kukui nut and chili pepper; and into his
ipu kai” (fish sauce dish) “of kou wood that the great Kamehameha
himself had eaten from on many a similar progress. And it was the
same for special delicacies that were for Lilolilo and the Princess
alone–for his nelu, and the ake, and the palu, and the alaala.
And his kahilis were waved over me, and his attendants were mine,
and he was mine; and from my flower-crowned hair to my happy feet I
was a woman loved.”
Once again Bella’s small teeth pressed into her underlip, as she
gazed vacantly seaward and won control of herself and her memories.
“It was on, and on, through all Kona, and all Kau, from Hoopuloa
and Kapua to Honuapo and Punaluu, a life-time of living compressed
into two short weeks. A flower blooms but once. That was my time
of bloom–Lilolilo beside me, myself on my wonderful Hilo, a queen,
not of Hawaii, but of Lilolilo and Love. He said I was a bubble of
colour and beauty on the black back of Leviathan; that I was a
fragile dewdrop on the smoking crest of a lava flow; that I was a
rainbow riding the thunder cloud . . . ”
Bella paused for a moment.
“I shall tell you no more of what he said to me,” she declared
gravely; “save that the things he said were fire of love and
essence of beauty, and that he composed hulas to me, and sang them
to me, before all, of nights under the stars as we lay on our mats
at the feasting; and I on the Makaloa mat of Lilolilo.
“And it was on to Kilauea–the dream so near its ending; and of
course we tossed into the pit of sea-surging lava our offerings to
On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales
19
the Fire-Goddess of maile leis and of fish and hard poi wrapped
moist in the ti leaves. And we continued down through old Puna,
and feasted and danced and sang at Kohoualea and Kamaili and
Opihikao, and swam in the clear, sweet-water pools of Kalapana.
And in the end came to Hilo by the sea.
“It was the end. We had never spoken. It was the end recognized
and unmentioned. The yacht waited. We were days late. Honolulu
called, and the news was that the King had gone particularly
pupule” (insane), “that there were Catholic and Protestant
missionary plottings, and that trouble with France was brewing. As
they had landed at Kawaihae two weeks before with laughter and
flowers and song, so they departed from Hilo. It was a merry
parting, full of fun and frolic and a thousand last messages and
reminders and jokes. The anchor was broken out to a song of
farewell from Lilolilo’s singing boys on the quarterdeck, while we,
in the big canoes and whaleboats, saw the first breeze fill the
vessel’s sails and the distance begin to widen.
“Through all the confusion and excitement, Lilolilo, at the rail,
who must say last farewells and quip last jokes to many, looked
squarely down at me. On his head he wore my ilima lei, which I had
made for him and placed there. And into the canoes, to the
favoured ones, they on the yacht began tossing their many leis. I
had no expectancy of hope . . . And yet I hoped, in a small wistful
way that I know did not show in my face, which was as proud and
merry as any there. But Lilolilo did what I knew he would do, what
I had known from the first he would do. Still looking me squarely
and honestly in the eyes, he took my beautiful ilima lei from his
head and tore it across. I saw his lips shape, but not utter
aloud, the single word pau” (finish). “Still looking at me, he
broke both parts of the lei in two again and tossed the deliberate
fragments, not to me, but down overside into the widening water.
Pau. It was finished . . . ”
For a long space Bella’s vacant gaze rested on the sea horizon.
Martha ventured no mere voice expression of the sympathy that
moistened her own eyes.
“And I rode on that day, up the old bad trail along the Hamakua
coast,” Bella resumed, with a voice at first singularly dry and
harsh. “That first day was not so hard. I was numb. I was too
full with the wonder of all I had to forget to know that I had to
forget it. I spent the night at Laupahoehoe. Do you know, I had
expected a sleepless night. Instead, weary from the saddle, still
numb, I slept the night through as if I had been dead.
“But the next day, in driving wind and drenching rain! How it blew
and poured! The trail was really impassable. Again and again our
horses went down. At fist the cowboy Uncle John had loaned me with
the horses protested, then he followed stolidly in the rear,
shaking his head, and, I know, muttering over and over that I was
pupule. The pack horse was abandoned at Kukuihaele. We almost
On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales
20
swam up Mud Lane in a river of mud. At Waimea the cowboy had to
exchange for a fresh mount. But Hilo lasted through. From
daybreak till midnight I was in the saddle, till Uncle John, at
Kilohana, took me off my horse, in his arms, and carried me in, and
routed the women from their beds to undress me and lomi me, while
he plied me with hot toddies and drugged me to sleep and
forgetfulness. I know I must have babbled and raved. Uncle John
must have guessed. But never to another, nor even to me, did he
ever breathe a whisper. Whatever he guessed he locked away in the
taboo room of Naomi.
“I do have fleeting memories of some of that day, all a broken-
hearted mad rage against fate–of my hair down and whipped wet and
stinging about me in the driving rain; of endless tears of weeping
contributed to the general deluge, of passionate outbursts and
resentments against a world all twisted and wrong, of beatings of
my hands upon my saddle pommel, of asperities to my Kilohana
cowboy, of spurs into the ribs of poor magnificent Hilo, with a
prayer on my lips, bursting out from my heart, that the spurs would
so madden him as to make him rear and fall on me and crush my body
for ever out of all beauty for man, or topple me off the trail and
finish me at the foot of the palis” (precipices), “writing pau at
the end of my name as final as the unuttered pau on Lilolilo’s lips
when he tore across my ilima lei and dropped it in the sea. . . .