Hawaii - James Michener [197]
Keoki moved so that he could see the broad, silvery passageway that lay between Lanai Island and Kahoolawe, leading south. "Reverend Hale, do you recall the name of that stretch of water?"
"Don't they call it Keala-i-kahiki?" Abner replied.
"And have you ever heard the name of that point at Kahoolawe?"
"No."
"It's likewise Keala-i-kahiki Point. What do you suppose Keala-i-kahiki means?"
"Well," Abner reflected, "Ke means the; ah means road; i means to; and I don't know what kahiki means."
"You know that what we call k, the people to the south call t. Now what does kahiki mean?"
Against his will, Abner formed the older word, of which kahiki was a late corruption. "Tahiti," he whispered. "The Way to Tahiti."
"Yes," Keoki said. "If you sail from Lahaina, pass through Keala-i-kahiki Strait and take your heading from Keala-i-kahiki Point, you will reach Tahiti. My ancestors often sailed that way. In canoes." And the proud young man was gone.
But Abner refused to accept such claims, and by consulting many Hawaiians he proved to his satisfaction that the word kahiki meant not Tahiti but any distant place, so he added his own note to the Yale manuscript: "Keala-i-kahiki may be translated as 'The Path to Far Places' or 'The Beyond.'" Then, as if to prove that Abner was right, the Hawaiian captain of Kelolo's ship Thetis got drunk, stayed in his cabin during a storm, and allowed his sturdy old veteran of many seas to climb upon the rocks off Lahaina, where it rotted through the years, a visible proof that Hawaiians could not even navigate in their own waters, let alone penetrate distant oceans.
IT WAS WHILE Abner was drafting a letter to Honolulu, advising the mission board that his assistant Keoki Kanakoa was behaving strangely, so that perhaps the board ought to consider Keoki's reassignment to some post of lesser importance, that the news was shouted through the still morning air that was to disrupt Lahaina for many days. Pupali's oldest daughter came screaming to Jerusha's school: "Iliki! Iliki! It has arrived! The Carthaginian!" And before the startled Jerusha could intercede, the bright-eyed beauty had leaped over the bench and dashed madly away with her sister. Together they swam out to the sleek whaler, with the dark sides and the white stripe running lengthwise, where naked and shimmering in the sunlight they were both gathered into the arms of the bark's tall captain and led below to his quarters, from which he shouted, "Mister Wilson, I don't want to be interrupted till tomorrow morning. Not even for food."
But he was interrupted. Kelolo dispatched three policemen to the Carthaginian under orders to drag Pupali's daughters off to jail, but when they climbed aboard the whaler, Mister Wilson met them on the afterdeck, shouting, "Get away! I'm warning you!"
"We come fetch wahines," the officers explained.
"You'll get broken jaws!" Mister Wilson threatened, whereupon one of the policemen shoved out his elbows, knocked the first mate aside and started for the after hatchway. Mister Wilson, thrown off balance for a moment, tried to lunge at the intruder, but another of the policemen grabbed him, which became the signal for a general scuffle, in which, because most of the men were ashore, the three rugged policemen appeared to be winning.
"What the hell's going on here?" came a roar from the lower deck, followed by a lithe form, tall and muscular, leaping up the ladder. Captain Hoxworth was dressed only in a pair of tight sailor's pants, and when he saw what was happening on his ship, he lowered his head, lunged at the first policeman and shouted, "Into the ocean with "em!”
The agile officer saw Hoxworth coming, sidestepped with agility, and brought his right forearm viciously across the back of the captain's neck, sending him sprawling across the deck,