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By Root 4300 0

beautiful daughter Noelani is almost as quick as Malama herself. My dear husband has great hopes for Noelani and feels certain that she will be our second Christian convert on the island, Malama of course being first. Darling Esther, can you, in your mind's eye, picture the intense wonder that comes over a pagan face when the clouds of heathenish evil and illiteracy are drawn away so that the pure light of God can shine into the seeking eyes? What I am trying to tell you, dearest sister, is that I find in my work a supreme happiness, and although what I am about to say may seem blasphemy--and I can say it to no other but my own dear sister--in these exciting fruitful days when I read the New Testament I feel that I am reading not about Philemon and the Corinthians but about Jerusha and the Hawaiians. I am one with those who labored for our Master, and I cannot convey even to my dear husband the abounding joy I have discovered in my grass shack and its daily circle of brown faces. Your Sister in God, Jerusha."

While Jerusha was teaching Malama, Abner was free to explore the village, and one day he noticed that all the men and many of the stronger women were absent from Lahaina, and he could not discover why. The alii were present, and in their large grass homes south of the royal taro patch they could be seen, moving about beneath the kou trees or going to the beach in order to ride their surfboards on the cresting waves. It was good to be an alii, for then one's job was merely to eat enormous calabashes of food so as to grow large, and to play at games, so as to be ready if war came.

Year by year the alii grew greater and more skilled in games, waiting for a war that came no more.

But one of the alii was missing, for Kelolo had not been to visit the missionaries for some days. He had sent food and three planks out of which Abner had hacked shelving for rude closets, but he himself had not appeared, and this handicapped Abner, because only Kelolo could say where the church was to be built. Then, when the missionary had reached the height of impatience, he discovered that Kelolo was out at the edge of town, digging a deep, wide pit. Kelolo was not present to translate when Abner found the excavation, and all Kelolo would say was, "Thetis," measuring the deep pit with his arms extended.

Abner was still perplexed when he saw, staggering along the beach, a procession of more than two thousand men and women, the dust from their movements filling the sky. They were goaded along by royal lieutenants, and they were burdened heavily by bundles of logs cut into six-foot lengths and slung from their backs by vines. The yellowish wood was obviously precious, for if even a small piece fell, sharp-eyed lieutenants struck the careless carrier and directed trailing women to salvage the dropping, for this was sandalwood: aromatic as no other, choice in tie markets of Asia, the lifeblood of Hawaiian commerce, and the goal of all Americans. It was the treasure and the curse of Hawaii.

Deep in the forests the trees hid, less than thirty feet high and marked by pale green leaves. Years ago, before their worth was known, the trees had flourished even in the lowlands, but now all those of easy access were gone, chopped down by the alii for whom they were kapu. Kelolo, if he wanted the two shiploads that would pay Captain Janders for the Thetis, had to drive his servants high into the mountains and on into remote corners of the island. Now, as the heavily burdened men staggered to the pit, Abner understood. On that first day while he had been instructing Malama, Captain Janders had laid out a pit the exact size of the Thetis' hatch, and when the pit was filled with sandalwood twice over, the ship would be Kelolo's.

As the precious logs tumbled into the excavation, Kelolo's men jumped in and laid them close together, for Janders had insisted many times, "No air! No air!" and Abner realized that these men had been in the mountains for some days. He was therefore disturbed when Kelolo ordered them back into the forests immediately. Summoning