over from Lahaina, and by a substantial theological and legal library. As principal adviser to four kings he had been required to give many legal opinions, and his fine mind found pleasure in doing so. From the 1870's on he had paid little attention to the ventures of H & H, leaving that to the Hoxworths and his nephews; he had gladly accepted his proper share of the firm's enormous profits and had applied his income to the betterment of Hawaii. The Missionary Home for Lepers at Kalaupapa, the library, Punahou and the church had benefited from his charities, but mainly he had spent his income on helping to run the government efficiently. When one of the kings took a grand tour around the world, stopping off in most of the major capitals, it was Micah Hale who accompanied him at his own expense and who paid for many of the essentials. Most of the legal books owned by the cabinet were also purchased by Micah, for he constantly harangued his contemporaries: "We are all of mission extraction, and until Hawaii is completely stable, the job of our fathers is not completed." No island throughout the Pacific ever had a better public servant than Micah Hale, for if he was liberal with his money, he was thrice generous with his energy. Of the fine laws that were often cited in Europe to prove that Hawaii was civilized, an astonishing proportion had sprung from his energetic mind; and what was remarkable in that period was his capacity to rise above personal interest: any laws passed in his regime that favored either sugar planters or shippers were proposed not by him but by the Janderses, the Whipples and the Hewletts who proliferated in the government. Four kings had thought of Micah Hale as their one trustworthy American adviser, yet each had known that he favored the ultimate submission of Hawaii to the United States, The present queen knew of his stand, and it had irritated her and she had dismissed him from all of his offices. He was seventy years old, of better than medium height, stately in bearing and with a long, spadelike white beard. He dressed only in white, including white-powdered shoes, and in public refused to wear glasses. This was the man that faced Whip Hoxworth on the night of Saturday, January 14, 1893.
"Uncle Micah," Whip began forthrightly, refusing the chair offered him, "there's bound to be a revolution within the next two days."
"Have you fomented it?" the spare old man asked.
"Yes, sir, I have. And the Hale boys and the Hewletts and Janderses. The Whipples have also joined us and my brother. There can be no retreat."
Micah leaned back in his office chair and studied his nephew. "So there's going to be a revolution?"
"Yes, sir." Whip was accustomed to addressing older people in the style he had been taught aboard the whaler.
"How old are you, Whip?"
"Thirty-six."
"How many wives have you had?"
"Two."
"How many knife battles in Iwilei?"
"Twenty, thirty."
"How many illegitimate children?"
"I'm supporting half a dozen or more."
"Do you know what they call you around town, Whip?"
"Wild Whip. They call me that to my face. I don't care."
"I wasn't thinking about what they call you to your face. I was thinking of the other name."
"What other name?"
"The Golden Stud. That's how you're known, Whip. And you consider yourself qualified to step forth as the leader of a commune dedicated to the overthrow of a duly constituted government?"
"No, sir, Uncle Micah, I don't."
"I thought you said your group was plotting the revolution."
"We are. And I'm directing it. And when I say, 'Fire,' by God, sir, we'll fire. So don't be in the way. And I'm well qualified to direct a revolution, Uncle Micah, because there's nothing on this earth I fear, and within two days I'll have a new government in Hawaii. But I am not qualified to step forth as the public leader of the revolution. You're right on that, and I know it."
"Who is to be the leader?"
"You are." As Micah gasped at this suggestion, Whip sat down.
The two men, so unalike, stared at each other, and each sensed the tremendous New England force of the