Hawaii - James Michener [147]
"But you will try to come back?" Jerusha pleaded.
"I will do my best," Whipple swore.
Jerusha Hale and Urania Hewlett then sought out each other and' shook hands solemnly: "When the time comes, we'll help each other." But they knew that they would be separated by miles of mountains and by treacherous seas.
Now the wailing increased, for from the shaded road that led southward to the homes of the alii, Malama's canoe advanced, borne on the shoulders of her men, and she, dressed in blue and red, wept more than any. Descending from her strange palanquin, she moved to each of the departing missionaries and said, "If elsewhere in the islands you find no home, come back to Lahaina, for you are my children." Then she kissed each in turn, and wept anew. But the gravity of the situation was somewhat marred by the fact that as the mission people rowed out to the Thetis they met, swimming back, more than a dozen naked girls, their long black hair trailing in the blue waters; and when they reached shore, each carrying a hand mirror--more precious here than silver in Amsterdam--or some lengths of ribbon or a hammer which they had stolen, Malama greeted them exactly as affectionately as she had the departing Christians.
And then, to the eastward where stout waves broke on the coral reef, thundering shoreward in long undulant swells whose tips were spumed in white, the missionaries witnessed for the first time one of the mysteries of the islands. Tall men and women, graceful as gods, stood on narrow boards and by deftly moving their feet and the gravity of their bodies, directed the boards onto the upper slopes of the breaking waves, until at last they sped with frightening swiftness over the waters. And when the wave died on the coral beach, somehow the swimmer and his board subsided back into the water, as if each were a part of the Hawaiian sea.
"It's unbelievable!" Dr. Whipple cried. "The momentum creates the balance," he explained.
"Could a white man do that?" Amanda asked.
"Of course!” her husband replied, excited by the vicarious sense of speed and control created by the deft athletes.
"Could you do it?" Amanda pressed.
"I'm going to do it," John replied, "as soon as we get to Honolulu."
One of the older missionaries frowned at this intelligence, marking it down as one more proof of their doctor's essentially trivial attitude toward life, but his adverse opinion was not reported to his companions, because from a point forward of the Thetis a new board swept into view, and this one bore not a mere swimmer, but a nymph, a nude symbolization of all the pagan islands in the seven seas. She was a tall girl with sun-shot black hair streaming behind her in the wind. She was not grossly fat like her sisters but slim and supple, and as she stood naked on the board her handsome breasts and long firm legs seemed carved of brown marble, yet she was agile, too, for with exquisite skill she moved her knees and adjusted her shoulders so that her skimming board leaped faster than the others, while she rode it with a more secure grace. To the missionaries she was a terrifying vision, the personification of all they had come to conquer. Her nakedness was a challenge, her beauty a danger, her way of life an abomination and her existence an evil.
"Who is she? Dr. Whipple whispered, in hushed amazement at her skill.
"Her name Noelani," proudly explained a Hawaiian who had shipped on whalers and who had mastered the barbarous pidgin of the seaports. "Wahine b'long Malama. Bimeby she gonna be Alii Nui." And as he spoke the wave subsided near the shore; the fleet rider and her board died away from vision and returned to the sea, yet even when the missionaries looked away they could see her provocative presence, the spirit of the pagan island, riding the waves, so that a blasphemous thought came to the mind of John Whipple. He was tempted to express it, but fought it down, knowing that none would understand his meaning, but at last he had to speak and in a whisper he observed to his tiny wife: