Hawaii - James Michener [13]
As the frightened crowd dispersed, each congratulating himself that for this convocation he had escaped the insatiable hunger of Oro, a young chief clothed in golden tapa, which indicated that he was of the royal family, stood bitter and silent in the shade of a breadfruit tree. He had not hidden himself through fear, for he was taller than most, better muscled than any, and marked by a lean, insolent courage that no man could mistake. He had remained apart because he hated the High Priest, despised the new god Oro, and was revolted by the incessant demand for human sacrifice.
The High Priest, of course, had immediately detected the young chief's absence from the welcoming throng, a breach of conformity which so enraged him that during the most solemn part of the ceremony his penetrating gaze had flashed this way and that, searching for the young man. Finally the priest had found him, lounging insolently under the breadfruit tree, and the two men had exchanged long, defiant stares that had been broken only when a golden-skinned young woman with flowing hair that held banana blossoms tugged at her husband's arm, forcing him to drop his eyes.
Now, with the ceremony ended, the stately wife was pleading: "Teroro, you must not go to the convocation."
"Who else can command our canoe?" he asked impatiently.
"Is a canoe so important?"
Her husband looked at her in amazement. "Important? What could there be more important?"
"Your life," she said simply. "Wise navigators do not sail when the clouds are ominous."
He dismissed her fears and strode disconsolately to a fallen log that projected into the lagoon. Falling angrily upon it, he dipped his brown feet into the silvery waters, and kicked them viciously as if he hated even the sea; but soon his placid wife, lovely in the fragrance of banana blossoms, came and sat beside him, and when her feet splashed in the cool green waters, it was as if a child were playing, and soon her husband forgot his anger. Even when he stared across to the small promontory on which the local temple sat, and where the priests were dedicating the eight doomed men to Oro, he spoke without the animal anger that had possessed him during the ceremonies.
"I'm not afraid of the convocation, Marama," he said firmly.
"I am afraid for you," his wife replied.
"Look at our canoe!" he digressed, pointing to a long shed near the temple, under which a mammoth twin-hulled canoe rested. "You wouldn't want anyone else to guide that, would you?" he teased.
Marama, whose priestly father had selected the sacred logs for the craft, needed no reminder of its importance, so she contented herself with pointing out: "Mato from the north can guide the canoe."
Then Teroro divulged his real reason for attending the dangerous convocation: "My brother may need my help."
"King Tamatoa will have many protectors," Marama replied.
"Without me events could go badly," Teroro stubbornly insisted, and wise Marama, whose name meant the moon, all-seeing and compassionate, recognized his mood and retreated to a different argument.
She said, "Teroro, it is you mainly that the High Priest suspects of being disloyal to his red god Oro."
"No more than the others," Teroro growled.
"But you're the one who shows your disbelief," she argued.
"Sometimes I can't hide it," the young chief admitted.
Furtively, Marama looked about to see if any spy had crept upon them, for the High Priest had his men in all places, but today there was none, and with her feet in the lagoon she resumed her careful reasoning. "You must promise me," she insisted, "that if you do go to Oro's temple, you will pray only to Oro, think only of Oro. Remember how the steersman's lips were read."
"I've been to three convocations at Havaiki," Teroro assured her. "I know the dangers."
"But not this special danger," his wife pleaded.
"What is different?" he asked.
Again Marama looked about her