Hawaii - James Michener [160]
A few old men, too weak to be with the sandalwooders, proved themselves loyal to their alii and tried to stop the rapists, but they were laughingly pushed aside, for in justice to the sailors they could not distinguish between an ordinary girl, with whom such conduct was customary, and an alii, with whom it was sacrilege. Other old men tried to intervene, but they also were bowled over with shocking jolts to the jaw, and the drunken sailors proceeded with their captive.
At this point Abner Hale limped up, holding onto his top hat, and he pointed his right hand in the faces of the sailors and cried, "Set loose that girl."
"Get out of the way, little man!" the sailors warned.
"I am a minister of God!” Abner warned them.
The first two sailors stopped at this, but the third swaggered up to the missionary and shouted, "In Lahaina there is no God."
Abner, who weighed only half of what the sailor did, impulsively slapped the man in the face. "God is watching you!" he said solemnly.
The slapped man quickly squared off, British fashion, to demolish Abner, whereupon the two other sailors released the girl and grabbed their partner, but when they saw fair Noelani run away, the most beautiful girl they had so far found, they became infuriated and started to strike and punch and kick at Abner. He was saved by Malama herself, for the great alii had seen the abduction of her daughter and had hurried up with what men and women she could command.
"It's the queen!" one of the sailors shouted, and as big Malama waded into the midst of the riot, the men withdrew from beating Abner and ran, cursing, to assemble their mates. Soon more than forty sailors, most of them drunk, crowded the dusty street and shouted imprecations at the missionary and the women who were protecting him. "Come over here, you coward!" they challenged, but whenever an especially bold one spoke, Malama went bravely to him and damned him in Hawaiian, so that after a while the sailors dispersed, and Abner saw with horror that from the shadows two ship's captains had watched the affair with approval.
"What kind of men are they?" he wondered, and when the mob had gone back to Murphy's grog shop and Malama was attending his bruises, he said quietly, in broken Hawaiian, "Do you see what happens when the men are away gathering sandalwood?"
"I see," Malama said. "I will send the women to the hills."
That night was one of terror, for the sailors, goaded by their captains, could find no girls, so they surrounded Abner's home and cursed him vilely till midnight. Then they burned another house and finally found three girls, whom they hauled off to the ship. At two in the morning, when the rioting was its worst, Abner said to Jerusha, "I will leave Keoki and the women here with you. I am going to speak with Pupali." And by a back route he scurried to the home of Pupali, the ardent canoeist whose occupation it was to paddle his own wife and four daughters to incoming whalers.
He sat on the floor with Pupali, no light showing, and asked in broken Hawaiian, "Why do you take your own daughters to these evil men?"
"I get cloth and sometimes even tobacco," Pupali explained.
"Don't you see that some day your daughters may die from the sailors' disease?" Abner pleaded.
"Some day everybody dies," Pupali rationalized.
"But is a little money worth this to you?" Abner argued.
"Men like girls," Pupali said truthfully.
"Do you feel no shame in selling your own wife to the sailors?"
"Her sister