Hawaii - James Michener [201]
He stopped in astonishment, then thrust out his big right arm and caught Abner by the wrist. Turning it until the missionary had to kneel in the dust of his own home, Hoxworth retained his hold on Jerusha and finished. "I tell the two girls that the first one who can make me get hard can climb aboard, and when she does the other one has to blow on me."
Jerusha kneeled in the dust beside her husband, and Rafer Hoxworth looked down with contempt at the two miserable creatures. "What're you doing, Jerusha?" he tormented. "Tending your little man?"
"I am praying for you," Jerusha said, in the dust. Impetuously, Hoxworth threw them both across the room and then stood over them, threateningly.
"There's a cannon aboard the Bay Tree, and by the guts of God, if there is any interference with the whaling fleet, I'll blow this house to pieces." He started for the open door but felt compelled to turn and laugh at the fallen missionaries. "You'll be interested to know that or all Pupali's daughters the young one, Iliki, is the best. Iliki ... the Pelting Spray of the Sea! I started with Pupali's wife and worked my way right through his girls, but Iliki is my choice. And do you know why? Because you taught her such nice manners. Here at the mission. When she climbs on top of me she says, 'Please.'"
When he left, the two missionaries remained on their knees for some minutes, praying, and then Jerusha helped her husband rebuild the rickety table and collect his manuscript. Realizing that Captain Hoxworth meant his threats about the cannon, she took her two children over to Amanda Whipple's, but did not divulge the scenes that had taken place at the mission. Then she returned to Abner, desiring to be with him if further trouble developed.
It did. The general whaling fleet saw in Hoxworth's bold defiance a chance to abolish forever the restrictive laws, and they coursed through Lahaina tearing, raping and destroying. They drove policemen into hiding and then congregated at the new fort, where Kelolo and a last group of trusted subordinates were determined to make a stand.
"Rip down the fort!" sailors who had been jailed there shouted.
"Don't come any closer!" Kelolo warned. But before he took action, he climbed down from the frail ramparts and asked Malama what she thought he ought to do.
"What do you think is wisest?" Malama, breathing heavily, countered.
"I think we must defy them," Kelolo said gravely. "We have started good laws, and we must not surrender them now."
"I agree," Malama said, "but I do not want you to get hurt, my dear husband."
Kelolo smiled warmly at her use of this unexpected term, for he knew that she had been forbidden by the missionaries to use it in respect to him. "Do you feel better now?" he asked solicitously, as if he were a courtier and not a husband.
"I feel very ill, Kelolo. Do you think they will fire the cannon? I should not like to hear the noise of such a great gun."
"I think they will fire," Kelolo said. "And then they will be ashamed of themselves. And after a while they will stop."
"Do you think they will kill anyone?" Malama asked fearfully.
"Yes."
"Kelolo, I hope above all else that they do not kill you. There could be no finer husband than you have been to me." The enormous woman tried to find an easy position and then asked, "Did they harm the missionaries?"
"I don t know," Kelolo said.
"Isn't it strange?" Malama asked. "The little man spends so much time telling us how the Hawaiians ought to behave, but it is always his people who do the wrong things."
There was fighting at the gate and Kelolo was called away to make decisions. He told his men not to fire their few guns, lest a hopeless riot be initiated, but he did encourage