Hawaii - James Michener [113]
But when the longboat returned to the Thetis, and when the tall ship had resumed its passage, with night upon it and the noiseless sea, Amanda saw that her husband sat in the prow biting his lip, while Captain Janders sat in the stem, riveted in hatred. Even the sailors, New England men all, were harshly silent, their mouths pursed into tight lines. Only Captain Janders spoke. "By God!" he cried. "At such moments I wish we were armed. I wish to Almighty God we had sent that damned foul thing to the bottom." In fury he threw a handful of letters at the missionaries' feet. "I would not entrust your letters to such a ship. A slaver."
Later, John Whipple reported to the missionaries: "It was horrible. They had not secured the chains below, and you could hear them swinging in the swell. It was a dark ship. Abner, would you pray?" And in the hot cabin, on their first night across the equator, the missionaries prayed and Abner said simply, "Where there is darkness, Lord, allow the light to shine. Where there is evil, substitute goodness. But let us not concern ourselves only with distant evil. Remind us always that our first responsibility is the evil that occurs within our immediate environs. Lord, help us not to be hypocrites. Help us to do Thy work day by day."
He was so moved by this chance brush with the slaver that he could not sleep and spent the night on deck, peering off into the direction of Africa, hoping that God would vouschafe him a flash of light indicating that the blackbirder had exploded. Toward morning he was visited by Keoki Kanakoa, who said, "Reverend Hale, you worry so much about Africa. Did you not know that there are also slaves in Hawaii?"
"There are?" Abner asked in astonishment.
"Of course. On my father's island there are many slaves. We call them foul corpses, and they may touch nothing that we touch. They are kapu. Not long ago they were kept for the human sacrifices."
"Tell me all about them," the stunned young missionary said, and as Keoki explained the various rituals and kapus involving the foul corpses, Abner felt an impatient fury mounting in his throat, so that before Keoki finished he cried, "Keoki, when I get to Hawaii there will be no more slavery."
"It will be difficult," the giant Hawaiian warned.
"Keoki, you will eat with the foul corpses." He told none of the other missionaries of this resolve, not even Jerusha, but as dawn came he knew in his heart that that strange tall ship, that cruel Brazilian slaver, had been sent across his path at the equator for a purpose. "There will be no more slavery in Hawaii," he swore as the sun rose.
It was on the long, dreary run to Cape Horn, more than six thousand miles in almost a straight line, that the famous "missionary's disease" struck in earnest, so that long after seasickness was forgotten, missionary families would recall with embarrassment and discomfort the illness which really prostrated them.
They called it, in a blush of euphemism, biliousness, and day after day Jerusha would inquire cautiously, "Reverend Hale, do you still suffer from biliousness?"
He would reply, "Yes, my dear companion, I do."
Since all the other couples were conducting similar inquiries, with identical responses, the missionaries began to look with truly jaundiced eyes at their doctor, as if Brother Whipple ought by some miracle to be able to dispel the tormenting biliousness. He studied his authorities, especially the Family Medical Book, and prescribed various time-honored cures. "Two tablespoons of ipecac and rhubarb," he advised.
"Brother Whipple, I've been taking ipecac for weeks," a worried missionary reported. "No good."
"Have you tried two grains of calomel, Brother Hewlett?"
"It helps at the moment ... but .. ."
"Then it'll have to be castor oil ... and walking."
"I can't take castor oil, Brother Whipple."
"Then walk."
So the dreadfully constipated missionaries took ipecac