Hawaii - James Michener [380]
Suddenly Micah had looked up and asked, "Where's the king?" No one knew. At first there was excitement; then, as the hours passed, there was panic, on the part of both the Americans and the Japanese, for the King of Hawaii was clearly missing. No one had seen him leave the spacious grounds of the mansion and a frantic search revealed no betraying signs of foul play. He had vanished, a great hulk of a man dressed in conspicuous western clothes and a long black London-tailored coat. It was one of the few times that Micah Hale had experienced real dread, for he was aware that in relatively recent years Japanese samurai, outraged at the invasion of foreigners, had sliced off the heads of several. Consequently he knelt in the chairless room and prayed: "God, save the king! Please!"
In the third hour of panic, the king appeared, in jovial mood, holding his shoes. He had obviously been crawling through the stream that separated the mansion from the Imperial Palace, and he had obviously been having a rare time. He refused to explain where he had spent the missing three hours and he went to bed that night highly pleased with himself. In the morning the emperor's chamber-kin waited until the king was occupied with other matters and then quietly slipped in to see Micah.
"Utterly extraordinary," the little man in the shiny black London morning coat said in good English. "Yesterday afternoon we heard this strange noise at the Imperial Palace, and the guards were about to shoot an intruder when I saw that it was your king. He was barefooted, muddy, laughing. His great brown face was wet with perspiration when he pushed aside the shoji, walked with his dirty feet over the tatami and said, 'I'd like to talk with the emperor.' We were appalled, because nothing like this had ever happened before, but Mutsuhito is a superb man and he said, 'I'd like to talk with you.' And they went into Mutsuhito's private audience chamber. And what is astonishing, they stayed there for nearly three hours."
Micah Hale wiped his forehead and straightened out his beard. "Believe me, Excellency, it was not I who sent the king."
"Hardly," the chamberlain replied. "In view of what he talked about."
"What did he speak of?" Micah probed.
"Don't you know?" the Japanese asked.
"No."
"The king said, 'Hawaii is tired of being pushed this way and that by America and England and Russia. It is a Pacific power and must remain so.' " The chamberlain paused for effect and it became apparent that Micah was expected to pursue the inquiry.
Instead he relaxed, bowed to the chamberlain and said, "I am grateful to you for having looked after my king."
"Are you a subject of his Majesty?" the Japanese asked.
"Yes. When I took service with the government, I swore allegiance to Hawaii."
"How interesting. Would you care to join me in a cup of English tea?"
"I'd be delighted," Micah said. They walked through lovely pine-laden gardens and came to a small rustic house, where a serving-maid waited.
"What your king proposed," the Japanese said, afraid that Micah was not going to ask, "was that the heir to his throne, the Princess Kaiulani, be given in marriage to the son of the emperor, so as to bind Japan and Hawaii closer together."
Micah lost his aplomb. He choked on his tea, spilled