Hawaii - James Michener [211]
Therefore, the sailors whose ships capsized off Lahaina would also have perished at the feet of the fatalistic Hawaiians had not Abner Hale limped among them, shouting, "Save those poor men! Save them!" But the Hawaiians repeated, "They are sacrifices!" until in frenzy Abner rushed up to one-eyed Kelolo, screaming above the storm, "Tell them, Kelolo! Tell them Malama does not require sacrifices! Tell them she died a Christian!"
There was a moment's hesitation during which the old man, weak from his vigil in the cave, looked out at the sickening sea. Then, throwing aside his tapa breechclout, he plunged into the waves and began fighting them for the bodies of sailors. Ashore Abner organized rescue parties which waded, tied together by ropes, onto the reef from which most of the water had been blown by the fantastic winds. At the end of each line swimmers like Kelolo battled the turbulent waters to haul foundering sailors across the jagged reef's edge, delivering them into the hands of rescuers. Without the work of Kelolo and Abner, the loss of American sailors would have been not seventy but nearly three hundred.
Toward the end of the struggle, Abner was limping about the reef, shouting encouragement, when he received from the hands of a swimmer the already dead body of a cabin boy, and he was overcome by the ceaseless tragedy of the sea and he started to pray: " "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.'" But his prayer was halted when he looked into the violent storm and saw that the swimmer who had handed him the boy was Kelolo, who was shouting to the other Hawaiians, "Pray to Kanaloa for strength." And Abner could see that the swimmers were praying.
When the whistling subsided, Abner sat limply beneath the kou trees, watching Dr. Whipple treat the rescued sailors, and when the doctor came to him for a rest, Abner asked, "These things couldn't have had any connection with Malama's death, could they?" When Whipple made no reply, he continued, "John, you're a scientist." From the day Whipple left the mission, Abner had never again referred to him as Brother. "How do you explain such a wind? No rain? Coming not from the sea but from the mountains?"
Even while helping to rescue the whalers, Whipple had been perplexed by this problem and now suggested, "The mountains on the other side of our island must form a curious kind of funnel. I would judge there must be wide-open valleys up which the trade winds rush. When they roll over the tops of the mountains, the entire volume is compressed into this one narrow valley leading down into Lahaina."
"That wouldn't have anything to do with the death of an alii, would it?" Abner asked suspiciously.
"No. We can explain the wind as it roars down this side of the mountain. We know that's a force of nature. But of course," he added slyly, "it's entirely possible that the wind on the other side of the mountain blows only when an alii dies." Shrugging his shoulders he added, "And if that's the case, why you have just about what Kelolo claims."
Abner started to comment on this but instead changed the subject. "Tell me, John, how did you feel, at the very height of the storm, when you were on the reef rescuing the sailors . . . seeing the whalers that had so recently been tormenting us ... well, seeing them destroyed by the Lord?" Dr. Whipple turned to study his companion, staring at him in disbelief, but Abner continued: "Didn't you feel that it was something like . . . well, I thought it was like the Egyptians at the Red Sea."
Whipple got up, disgusted, and called his wife, who was tending wounded sailors. "I don't think the alii sent the wind, and I don't think God sank the ships," he growled and left.
But he had not waited for Abner to develop the full meaning of his speculations, as they had matured on the coral reef, so Abner