Hawaii - James Michener [10]
On these harsh terms the islands waited.
II
From the Sun-Swept Lagoon
I HAVE SAID that the islands along the rupture in the ocean floor were not a paradise, but twenty-four hundred miles almost due south there did exist an island which merited that description. It lay northwest of Tahiti, already populated with a powerful, sophisticated people, and only a few miles from the island of Havaiki, the political and religious capital of the area.
It was Bora Bora, and it rose from the sea in sharp cliffs and mighty pinnacles of rock. It contained deep-set bays and tree-rimmed shores of glistening sand. It was so beautiful that it seemed impossible that it had arisen by chance; gods must have formed it and placed the bays just so, an illusion which was enhanced by the fact that around the entire island was hung a protecting necklace of coral on which wild ocean waves broke in high fury, trying vainly to leap inside the placid green lagoon, where fish flourished in abundant numbers. It was an island of rare beauty--wild, impetuous, lovely Bora Bora.
Early one morning, while in Paris the sons of Charlemagne quarreled among themselves as to how their late father's empire should be ruled, a swift single-hulled outrigger canoe, sped along by sturdy paddlers and a triangular sail, swept across the open ocean leading from Havaiki and sought the solitary entrance to the lagoon of Bora Bora, on whose shores a lookout followed the progress of the urgent canoe with dread.
He saw the steersman signal his sailors to drop sail, and as they complied he watched the canoe pivot deftly in high swells that sought to crash it upon the reef. But with enviable skill the steersman rode with the swells and headed his canoe toward the perilous opening in the coral wall.
"Now!" he shouted, and his paddlers worked feverishly, standing the canoe off from the rocks and speeding it into the channel. There was a rush of water, a rising of huge waves, and a swift passionate surge of canoe and flashing paddles through the gap.
"Rest!" the steersman called quietly, in audible relief. Gratified with his minor triumph, he looked for approval to the canoe's solitary passenger, a tall gaunt man with deep-set eyes, a black beard, and long thin hands in which he clutched a staff carved with the figures of gods. But the passenger offered no commendation, for he was lost in the contemplation of certain mighty processes which he had helped set in motion. He stared through the steersman, past the paddlers and onto the towering central rock that marked the heights of Bora Bora. It was from a point part way up the slopes of this rugged mountain that the lookout now rushed down steep paths leading to the king's residence, shouting as he went, "The High Priest is returning!" The instinctive dread which the lookout felt was transmitted in his cry, and women who heard the message drew closer to their men and looked at them with new affection across dark, palm-thatched huts.
Although the agitated lookout delivered his frightening message to the general community, he was actually speeding to alert one man, and now as he darted along in the shade of breadfruit trees and palms, he kept whispering to himself, "Gods of Bora Bora, speed my feet! Don't let me be late!"
Dashing up to a grass house larger than its neighbors, the lookout fell to the ground, shouting, "The High Priest is in the lagoon!" From the grassy interior a tall, brown-skinned young man, courtier to the king, poked a sleepy head and asked in some alarm, "Already?"
"He has passed the reef," the lookout warned.
"Why didn't you . . ." In great agitation the young man grabbed a ceremonial tapa robe made from pounded bark, and without waiting to adjust it properly went running toward the palace crying, "The High Priest approaches!" He hurried past other courtiers like himself and right into the royal presence, where he prostrated himself on the soft pandanus matting that covered the earthen floor, announcing with urgency, "The august one is about