Hawaii - James Michener [231]
The cellar was broad and deep. It would be cool in the blazing hot summers at Lahaina, and when it was done Captain Hoxworth lined it with building stones hewn from coral, and these he continued some distance above the earth, so that when he started to erect the house itself, it had a solid foundation. Now he ordered his sailors to bring him the corner posts, each numbered, and he began the fascinating task of reassembling the house exactly as it had been when standing on the wharf in Boston.
In three days the job was well launched and obviously on its way to success, and it was while lounging in the offices of Janders & Whipple, that Captain Hoxworth, having told Pupali and all his women to go to hell and leave him alone, heard the story of Keoki Kanakoa and his sister Noelani. "You mean that tall, handsome girl I saw skimming naked past my ship one day on a surfboard?" he asked quizzically.
"Yes. All this happened to her," Janders said gloomily.
"Why, hell!" Hoxworth growled. "She's the best-looking girl the islands ever produced. You mean she's out there in that grass shack . . . alone?"
"She has the usual women-in-waiting," Janders explained.
"I know," Hoxworth said contemptuously, making huge circles with his hands to indicate the women who usually attached themselves to the alii. "I mean . . . she's just there?"
"Yes."
"That's a hell of a way to live!" he boomed. "Just because she got mixed up with a lot of crazy nonsense. Janders, I'm going out there."
"I wouldn't'," the older man said. "They don't remember you well in this town."
"To hell with memories!" Hoxworth cried, slamming his big fist onto the arm of his chair. "I'm thinking of staying in Honolulu, Janders. Sail my ship to Canton in the China trade. Maybe build a couple of ships. Could I get cargoes here?"
"If your charges are low enough," Janders replied cautiously. "I've got a lot of skins I'd like to get to China."
"I think you'll get 'em there," Hoxworth said, and he strode out of the office and along the main road to the grass palace of the alii. At his approach, guards ran to inform Kelolo, but before the old man could prevent Hoxworth from doing so, the bold captain had bowed graciously, shoved open the gate, and marched into the grass palace where he found Noelani.
"Ma'am," he said, extending his big right paw, "I've been wanting to meet you ever since I saw you riding naked past my ship. That must have been thirteen years ago. You were a dazzling beauty in those days, ma'am. You're lovelier now."
"Have you come to find someone else to sell?" Noelani asked coldly.
"No, ma'am. I've come to find me a wife. And I feel in my bones that you're the one."
Noelani started to reply to this abrupt assertion, but before she could do so, Hoxworth thrust upon her a bolt of choice Canton silk and a flood of words: "Ma'am, I suppose you know why I came back to Lahaina. My actions last time have preyed upon my conscience, and I deplored seeing an American man and woman living as those two did. If I offended you on my earlier visit, I now apologize, but with that out of the way, ma'am, I want to tell you that I propose running my ship henceforth in the China trade. I've bought a house in Honolulu, and for some time I've been looking for a wife."
"Why did you not find a wife in Boston?" Noelani asked coldly. "Tell you the truth, ma'am," Hoxworth replied . . . But at this moment Kelolo rushed up with some guards and burst into the room to save the princess; but she, in turn, dismissed her father and said that she wished to talk with the captain.
"Truth is," he continued as if there had been no interruption, striding back and forth before the doorway leading to the garden, "I proposed once to one of those peaches-and-white-linen