Anthology of fantastic tales
"Every
narrative is a journey of discovery" Nadine Gordimer
The Bootle Imp 1
(The bottle devil 1)
Robert Lois Stevenson
r4
Illustrator: Daniel
Gomez
THERE was a man of the Island of Hawaii, whom I shall call Keawe; for the truth is, he still lives, and his name must be kept secret; but the place of his birth was not far from Honaunau, where the bones of Keawe the Great lie hidden in a cave. This man was poor, brave, and active; he could read and write like a schoolmaster; he was a first-rate mariner besides, sailed for some time in the island steamers, and steered a whaleboat on the Hamakua coast. At length it came in Keawe’s mind to have a sight of the great world and foreign cities, and he shipped on a vessel bound to San Francisco. This is a fine town, with a fine harbour, and rich people uncountable; and, in particular, there is one hill which is covered with palaces. Upon this hill Keawe was one day taking a walk with his pocket full of money, viewing the great houses upon either hand with pleasure, “What fine houses these are!” he was thinking, “and how happy must those people be who dwell in them, and take no care for the morrow!”
The thought was in his mind when he came abreast of a house that was smaller than some others, but all finished and beautified like a toy; the steps of that house shone like silver, and the borders of the garden bloomed like garlands, and the windows were bright like diamond; and Keawe stopped and wondered at the excellence of all he saw. So stopping, he was aware of a man that looked forth upon him through a window so clear that Keawe could see him as you see a fish in a pool upon the reef. The man was elderly, with a bald head and a black beard; and his face was heavy with sorrow, and he bitterly sighed. And the truth of it is, that as Keawe looked in upon the man, and the man looked out upon Keawe, each envied the other. All of a sudden, the man smiled and nodded, and beckoned Keawe to enter, and met him at the door of the house. “This is a fine house of mine,” said the man, and bitterly sighed. “Would you not care to view the chambers?” So he led Keawe all over it, from the cellar to the roof, and there was nothing there that was not perfect of its kind, and Keawe was astonished. “Truly,” said Keawe, “this is a beautiful house; if I lived in the like of it, I should be laughing all day long. How comes it, then, that you should be sighing?” “There is no reason,” said the man, “why you should not have a house in all points similar to this, and finer, if you wish. You have some money, I suppose?” 1 Note. – Any student of that very unliterary product, the English drama of the early part of the century, will here recognise the name and the root idea of a piece once rendered popular by the redoubtable O. Smith. The root idea is there and identical, and yet I hope I have made it a new thing. And the fact that the tale has been designed and written for a Polynesian audience may lend it some extraneous interest nearer home. – R. L. S. “I have fifty dollars,” said Keawe; “but a house like this will cost more than fifty dollars.” The man made a computation. “I am sorry you have no more,” said he, “for it may raise you trouble in the future; but it shall be yours at fifty dollars.” “The house?” asked Keawe. “No, not the house,” replied the man; “but the bottle. For, I must tell you, although I appear to you so rich and fortunate, all my fortune, and this house itself and its garden, came out of a bottle not much bigger than a pint. This is it.” And he opened a lockfast place, and took out a round-bellied bottle with a long neck; the glass of it was white like milk, with changing rainbow colours in the grain. Withinsides something obscurely moved, like a shadow and a fire. “This is the bottle,” said the man; and, when Keawe laughed, “You do not believe me?” he added. “Try, then, for yourself. See if you can break it.” So Keawe took the bottle up and dashed it on the floor till he was weary; but it jumped on the floor like a child’s ball, and was not injured. “This is a strange thing,” said Keawe. “For by the touch of it, as well as by the look, the bottle should be of glass.” “Of glass it is,” replied the man, sighing more heavily than ever; “but the glass of it was tempered in the flames of hell. An imp lives in it, and that is the shadow we behold there moving: or so I suppose. If any man buy this bottle the imp is at his command; all that he desires – love, fame, money, houses like this house, ay, or a city like this city – all are his at the word uttered. Napoleon had this bottle, and by it he grew to be the king of the world; but he sold it at the last, and fell. Captain Cook had this bottle, and by it he found his way to so many islands; but he, too, sold it, and was slain upon Hawaii. For, once it is sold, the power goes and the protection; and unless a man remain content with what he has, ill will befall him.” “And yet you talk of selling it yourself?” Keawe said. “I have all I wish, and I am growing elderly,” replied the man. “There is one thing the imp cannot do – he cannot prolong life; and, it would not be fair to conceal from you, there is a drawback to the bottle; for if a man die before he
sells it, he must burn in hell forever.”
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“To be sure, that is a drawback and no mistake,” cried Keawe. “I would not meddle with the thing. I can do without a house, thank God; but there is one thing I could not be doing with one particle, and that is to be damned.” “Dear me, you must not run away with things,” returned the man. “All you have to do is to use the power of the imp in moderation, and then sell it to someone else, as I do to you, and finish your life in comfort.” “Well, I observe two things,” said Keawe. “All the time you keep sighing like a maid in love, that is one; and, for the other, you sell this bottle very cheap.” “I have told you already why I sigh,” said the man. “It is because I fear my health is breaking up; and, as you said yourself, to die and go to the devil is a pity for anyone. As for why I sell so cheap, I must explain to you there is a peculiarity about the bottle. Long ago, when the devil brought it first upon earth, it was extremely expensive, and was sold first of all to Prester John for many millions of dollars; but it cannot be sold at all, unless sold at a loss. If you sell it for as much as you paid for it, back it comes to you again like a homing pigeon. It follows that the price has kept falling in these centuries, and the bottle is now remarkably cheap. I bought it myself from one of my great neighbours on this hill, and the price I paid was only ninety dollars. I could sell it for as high as eighty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, but not a penny dearer, or back the thing must come to me. Now, about this there are two bothers. First, when you offer a bottle so singular for eighty odd dollars, people suppose you to be jesting. And second – but there is no hurry about that – and I need not go into it. Only remember it must be coined money that you sell it for.” “How am I to know that this is all true?” asked Keawe. “Some of it you can try at once,” replied the man. “Give me your fifty dollars, take the bottle, and wish your fifty dollars back into your pocket. If that does not happen, I pledge you my honour I will cry off the bargain and restore your money.” “You are not deceiving me?” said Keawe. The man bound himself with a great oath. “Well, I will risk that much,” said Keawe, “for that can do no harm.” And he paid over his money to the man, and the man handed him the bottle. “Imp of the bottle,” said Keawe, “I want my fifty dollars back.” And sure enough he had scarce said the word before his pocket was as heavy as ever. “To be sure this is a wonderful bottle,” said Keawe. 2 3 “And now good-morning to you, my fine fellow, and the devil go with you for me!” said the man. “Hold on,” said Keawe, “I don’t want any more of this fun. Here, take your bottle back.” “You have bought it for less than I paid for it,” replied the man, rubbing his hands. “It is yours now; and, for my part, I am only concerned to see the back of you.” And with that he rang for his Chinese servant, and had Keawe shown out of the house. Now, when Keawe was in the street, with the bottle under his arm, he began to think. “If all is true about this bottle, I may have made a losing bargain,” thinks he. “But perhaps the man was only fooling me.” The first thing he did was to count his money; the sum was exact – forty-nine dollars American money, and one Chili piece. “That looks like the truth,” said Keawe. “Now I will try another part.” The streets in that part of the city were as clean as a ship’s decks, and though it was noon, there were no passengers. Keawe set the bottle in the gutter and walked away. Twice he looked back, and there was the milky, round-bellied bottle where he left it. A third time he looked back, and turned a corner; but he had scarce done so, when something knocked upon his elbow, and behold! it was the long neck sticking up; and as for the round belly, it was jammed into the pocket of his pilot-coat. “And that looks like the truth,” said Keawe. The next thing he did was to buy a cork-screw in a shop, and go apart into a secret place in the fields. And there he tried to draw the cork, but as often as he put the screw in, out it came again, and the cork as whole as ever. “This is some new sort of cork,” said Keawe, and all at once he began to shake and sweat, for he was afraid of that bottle. On his way back to the port-side, he saw a shop where a man sold shells and clubs from the wild islands, old heathen deities, old coined money, pictures from China and Japan, and all manner of things that sailors bring in their sea-chests. And here he had an idea. So he went in and offered the bottle for a hundred dollars. The man of the shop laughed at him at the first, and offered him five; but, indeed, it was a curious bottle – such glass was never blown in any human glassworks, so prettily the colours shone under the milky white, and so strangely the shadow hovered in the midst; so, after he had disputed awhile after the manner of his kind, the shop-man gave Keawe sixty silver dollars for the thing, and set it on a shelf in the midst of his window. “Now,” said Keawe, “I have sold that for sixty which I bought for fifty – or, to say truth, a little less, because one of my dollars was from Chili. Now I shall know the truth upon another point.” So he went back on board his ship, and, when he opened his chest, there was the bottle, and had come more quickly than himself. Now Keawe had a mate on board whose name was Lopaka. “What ails you?” said Lopaka, “that you stare in your chest?” They were alone in the ship’s forecastle, and Keawe bound him to secrecy, and told all.
“This
is a very strange affair,” said Lopaka; “and I fear you will be in trouble
about this bottle. But there is one point very clear – that you are sure of the
trouble, and you had better have the profit in the bargain. Make up your mind
what you want with it; give the order, and if it is done as you desire, I will
buy the bottle myself; for I have an idea of my own to get a schooner, and go
trading through the islands.” “That is not my idea,” said Keawe; “but to have a
beautiful house and garden on the Kona Coast, where I was born, the sun shining
in at the door, flowers in the garden, glass in the windows, pictures on the
walls, and toys and fine carpets on the tables, for all the world like the
house I was in this day – only a storey higher, and with balconies all about
like the King’s palace; and to live there without care and make merry with my
friends and relatives.” “Well,” said Lopaka, “let us carry it back with us to
Hawaii; and if all comes true, as you suppose, I will buy the bottle, as I
said, and ask a schooner.” Upon that they were agreed, and it was not long
before the ship returned to Honolulu, carrying Keawe and Lopaka, and the bottle.
They were scarce come ashore when they met a friend upon the beach, who began
at once to condole with Keawe. “I do not know what I am to be condoled about,”
said Keawe. “Is it possible you have not heard,” said the friend, “your uncle –
that good old man – is dead, and your cousin – that beautiful boy – was drowned
at sea?” Keawe was filled with sorrow, and, beginning to weep and to lament, he
forgot about the bottle. But Lopaka was thinking to himself, and presently,
when Keawe’s grief was a little abated, “I have been thinking,” said Lopaka.
“Had not your uncle lands in Hawaii, in the district of Kau?” “No,” said Keawe,
“not in Kau; they are on the mountain-side – a little way south of Hookena.”
“These lands will now be yours?” asked Lopaka. 4 5 “And so they will,” says
Keawe, and began again to lament for his relatives. “No,” said Lopaka, “do not
lament at present. I have a thought in my mind. How if this should be the doing
of the bottle? For here is the place ready for your house.” “If this be so,” cried
Keawe, “it is a very ill way to serve me by killing my relatives. But it may
be, indeed; for it was in just such a station that I saw the house with my
mind’s eye.” “The house, however, is not yet built,” said Lopaka. “No, nor like
to be!” said Keawe; “for though my uncle has some coffee and ava and bananas,
it will not be more than will keep me in comfort; and the rest of that land is
the black lava.” “Let us go to the lawyer,” said Lopaka; “I have still this
idea in my mind.” Now, when they came to the lawyer’s, it appeared Keawe’s
uncle had grown monstrous rich in the last days, and there was a fund of money.
“And here is the money for the house!” cried Lopaka. “If you are thinking of a
new house,” said the lawyer, “here is the card of a new architect, of whom they
tell me great things.” “Better and better!” cried Lopaka. “Here is all made
plain for us. Let us continue to obey orders.” So they went to the architect,
and he had drawings of houses on his table. “You want something out of the
way,” said the architect. “How do you like this?” and he handed a drawing to
Keawe. Now, when Keawe set eyes on the drawing, he cried out aloud, for it was
the picture of his thought exactly drawn. “I am in for this house,” thought he.
“Little as I like the way it comes to me, I am in for it now, and I may as well
take the good along with the evil.” So he told the architect all that he
wished, and how he would have that house furnished, and about the pictures on
the wall and the knick-knacks on the tables; and he asked the man plainly for
how much he would undertake the whole affair. The architect put many questions,
and took his pen and made a computation; and when he had done he named the very
sum that Keawe had inherited. Lopaka and Keawe looked at one another and nodded.
“It is quite clear,” thought Keawe, “that I am to have this house, whether or
no. It comes from the devil, and I fear I will get little good by that; and of
one thing I am sure, I will make no more wishes as long as I have this bottle.
But with the house I am saddled, and I may as well take the good along with the
evil.” So he made his terms with the architect, and they signed a paper; and
Keawe and Lopaka took ship again and sailed to Australia; for it was concluded
between them they should not interfere at all, but leave the architect and the
bottle imp to build and to adorn that house at their own pleasure. The voyage
was a good voyage, only all the time Keawe was holding in his breath, for he
had sworn he would utter no more wishes, and take no more favours from the
devil. The time was up when they got back. The architect told them that the
house was ready, and Keawe and Lopaka took a passage in the Hall, and went down
Kona way to view the house, and see if all had been done fitly according to the
thought that was in Keawe’s mind. Now the house stood on the mountain side,
visible to ships. Above, the forest ran up into the clouds of rain; below, the
black lava fell in cliffs, where the kings of old lay buried. A garden bloomed
about that house with every hue of flowers; and there was an orchard of papaia
on the one hand and an orchard of breadfruit on the other, and right in front,
toward the sea, a ship’s mast had been rigged up and bore a flag. As for the
house, it was three storeys high, with great chambers and broad balconies on
each. The windows were of glass, so excellent that it was as clear as water and
as bright as day. All manner of furniture adorned the chambers. Pictures hung
upon the wall in golden frames: pictures of ships, and men fighting, and of the
most beautiful women, and of singular places; nowhere in the world are there
pictures of so bright a colour as those Keawe found hanging in his house. As
for the knick-knacks, they were extraordinary fine; chiming clocks and musical
boxes, little men with nodding heads, books filled with pictures, weapons of
price from all quarters of the world, and the most elegant puzzles to entertain
the leisure of a solitary man. And as no one would care to live in such
chambers, only to walk through and view them, the balconies were made so broad
that a whole town might have lived upon them in delight; and Keawe knew not
which to prefer, whether the back porch, where you got the land breeze, and
looked upon the orchards and the flowers, or the front balcony, where you could
drink the wind of the sea, and look down the steep wall of the mountain and see
the Hall going by once a week or so between Hookena and the hills of Pele, or
the schooners plying up the coast for wood and ava and bananas. 6 7 When they
had viewed all, Keawe and Lopaka sat on the porch. “Well,” asked Lopaka, “is it
all as you designed?” “Words cannot utter it,” said Keawe. “It is better than I
dreamed, and I am sick with satisfaction.” “There is but one thing to
consider,” said Lopaka; “all this may be quite natural, and the bottle imp have
nothing whatever to say to it. If I were to buy the bottle, and got no schooner
after all, I should have put my hand in the fire for nothing. I gave you my
word, I know; but yet I think you would not grudge me one more proof.” “I have
sworn I would take no more favours,” said Keawe. “I have gone already deep
enough.” “This is no favour I am thinking of,” replied Lopaka. “It is only to
see the imp himself. There is nothing to be gained by that, and so nothing to
be ashamed of; and yet, if I once saw him, I should be sure of the whole
matter. So indulge me so far, and let me see the imp; and, after that, here is
the money in my hand, and I will buy it.” “There is only one thing I am afraid
of,” said Keawe. “The imp may be very ugly to view; and if you once set eyes
upon him you might be very undesirous of the bottle.” “I am a man of my word,”
said Lopaka. “And here is the money betwixt us.” “Very well,” replied Keawe. “I
have a curiosity myself. So come, let us have one look at you, Mr. Imp.” Now as
soon as that was said, the imp looked out of the bottle, and in again, swift as
a lizard; and there sat Keawe and Lopaka turned to stone. The night had quite
come, before either found a thought to say or voice to say it with; and then
Lopaka pushed the money over and took the bottle. “I am a man of my word,” said
he, “and had need to be so, or I would not touch this bottle with my foot.
Well, I shall get my schooner and a dollar or two for my pocket; and then I will
be rid of this devil as fast as I can. For to tell you the plain truth, the
look of him has cast me down.” “Lopaka,” said Keawe, “do not you think any
worse of me than you can help; I know it is night, and the roads bad, and the
pass by the tombs an ill place to go by so late, but I declare since I have
seen that little face, I cannot eat or sleep or pray till it is gone from me. I
will give you a lantern and a basket to put the bottle in, and any picture or
fine thing in all my house that takes your fancy; – and be gone at once, and go
sleep at Hookena with Nahinu.” “Keawe,” said Lopaka, “many a man would take
this ill; above all, when I am doing you a turn so friendly, as to keep my word
and buy the bottle; and for that matter, the night and the dark, and the way by
the tombs, must be all tenfold more dangerous to a man with such a sin upon his
conscience, and such a bottle under his arm. But for my part, I am so extremely
terrified myself, I have not the heart to blame you. Here I go then; and I pray
God you may be happy in your house, and I fortunate with my schooner, and both
get to heaven in the end in spite of the devil and his bottle.” So Lopaka went
down the mountain; and Keawe stood in his front balcony, and listened to the
clink of the horse’s shoes, and watched the lantern go shining down the path,
and along the cliff of caves where the old dead are buried; and all the time he
trembled and clasped his hands, and prayed for his friend, and gave glory to
God that he himself was escaped out of that trouble. But the next day came very
brightly, and that new house of his was so delightful to behold that he forgot
his terrors. One day followed another, and Keawe dwelt there in perpetual joy.
He had his place on the back porch; it was there he ate and lived, and read the
stories in the Honolulu newspapers; but when anyone came by they would go in
and view the chambers and the pictures. And the fame of the house went far and
wide; it was called Ka-Hale Nui – the Great House – in all Kona; and sometimes
the Bright House, for Keawe kept a Chinaman, who was all day dusting and
furbishing; and the glass, and the gilt, and the fine stuffs, and the pictures,
shone as bright as the morning. As for Keawe himself, he could not walk in the
chambers without singing, his heart was so enlarged; and when ships sailed by
upon the sea, he would fly his colours on the mast. So time went by, until one
day Keawe went upon a visit as far as Kailua to certain of his friends. There
he was well feasted; and left as soon as he could the next morning, and rode
hard, for he was impatient to behold his beautiful house; and, besides, the
night then coming on was the night in which the dead of old days go abroad in
the sides of Kona; and having already meddled with the devil, he was the more
chary of meeting with the dead. A little beyond Honaunau, looking far ahead, he
was aware of a woman bathing in the edge of the sea; and she seemed a
well-grown girl, but he thought no more of it. Then he saw her white shift
flutter as she put it on, and then her red holoku; and by the time he came
abreast of her she was done with her toilet, and had come up from the sea, and
stood by the track-side in her red holoku, and she was all freshened with 8 9
the bath, and her eyes shone and were kind. Now Keawe no sooner beheld her than
he drew rein. “I thought I knew everyone in this country,” said he. “How comes
it that I do not know you?” “I am Kokua, daughter of Kiano,” said the girl,
“and I have just returned from Oahu. Who are you?” “I will tell you who I am in
a little,” said Keawe, dismounting from his horse, “but not now. For I have a
thought in my mind, and if you knew who I was, you might have heard of me, and
would not give me a true answer. But tell me, first of all, one thing: Are you
married?” At this Kokua laughed out aloud. “It is you who ask questions,” she
said. “Are you married yourself?” “Indeed, Kokua, I am not,” replied Keawe,
“and never thought to be until this hour. But here is the plain truth. I have
met you here at the roadside, and I saw your eyes, which are like the stars,
and my heart went to you as swift as a bird. And so now, if you want none of
me, say so, and I will go on to my own place; but if you think me no worse than
any other young man, say so, too, and I will turn aside to your father’s for
the night, and to-morrow I will talk with the good man.” Kokua said never a
word, but she looked at the sea and laughed. “Kokua,” said Keawe, “if you say
nothing, I will take that for the good answer; so let us be stepping to your
father’s door.” She went on ahead of him, still without speech; only sometimes
she glanced back and glanced away again, and she kept the strings of her hat in
her mouth. Now, when they had come to the door, Kiano came out on his verandah,
and cried out and welcomed Keawe by name. At that the girl looked over, for the
fame of the great house had come to her ears; and, to be sure, it was a great
temptation. All that evening they were very merry together; and the girl was as
bold as brass under the eyes of her parents, and made a mock of Keawe, for she
had a quick wit. The next day he had a word with Kiano, and found the girl
alone. “Kokua,” said he, “you made a mock of me all the evening; and it is
still time to bid me go. I would not tell you who I was, because I have so fine
a house, and I feared you would think too much of that house and too little of
the man that loves you. Now you know all, and if you wish to have seen the last
of me, say so at once.” “No,” said Kokua; but this time she did not laugh, nor
did Keawe ask for more. This was the wooing of Keawe; things had gone quickly;
but so an arrow goes, and the ball of a rifle swifter still, and yet both may
strike the target. Things had gone fast, but they had gone far also, and the
thought of Keawe rang in the maiden’s head; she heard his voice in the breach
of the surf upon the lava, and for this young man that she had seen but twice
she would have left father and mother and her native islands. As for Keawe
himself, his horse flew up the path of the mountain under the cliff of tombs,
and the sound of the hoofs, and the sound of Keawe singing to himself for
pleasure, echoed in the caverns of the dead. He came to the Bright House, and
still he was singing. He sat and ate in the broad balcony, and the Chinaman wondered
at his master, to hear how he sang between the mouthfuls. The sun went down
into the sea, and the night came; and Keawe walked the balconies by lamplight,
high on the mountains, and the voice of his singing startled men on ships.
“Here am I now upon my high place,” he said to himself. “Life may be no better;
this is the mountain top; and all shelves about me toward the worse. For the
first time I will light up the chambers, and bathe in my fine bath with the hot
water and the cold, and sleep alone in the bed of my bridal chamber.” So the
Chinaman had word, and he must rise from sleep and light the furnaces; and as
he wrought below, beside the boilers, he heard his master singing and rejoicing
above him in the lighted chambers. When the water began to be hot the Chinaman
cried to his master; and Keawe went into the bathroom; and the Chinaman heard
him sing as he filled the marble basin; and heard him sing, and the singing
broken, as he undressed; until of a sudden, the song ceased. The Chinaman
listened, and listened; he called up the house to Keawe to ask if all were
well, and Keawe answered him “Yes,” and bade him go to bed; but there was no
more singing in the Bright House; and all night long, the Chinaman heard his
master’s feet go round and round the balconies without repose. Now the truth of
it was this: as Keawe undressed for his bath, he spied upon his flesh a patch
like a patch of lichen on a rock, and it was then that he stopped singing. For
he knew the likeness of that patch, and knew that he was fallen in the Chinese
Evil. Now, it is a sad thing for any man to fall into this sickness. And it
would be a sad thing for anyone to leave a house so beautiful and so
commodious, and depart from all his friends to the north coast 10 11 of Molokai
between the mighty cliff and the sea-breakers. But what was that to the case of
the man Keawe, he who had met his love but yesterday, and won her but that
morning, and now saw all his hopes break, in a moment, like a piece of glass?
Awhile he sat upon the edge of the bath; then sprang, with a cry, and ran
outside; and to and fro, to and fro, along the balcony, like one despairing.
“Very willingly could I leave Hawaii, the home of my fathers,” Keawe was
thinking. “Very lightly could I leave my house, the high-placed, the
many-windowed, here upon the mountains. Very bravely could I go to Molokai, to
Kalaupapa by the cliffs, to live with the smitten and to sleep there, far from
my fathers. But what wrong have I done, what sin lies upon my soul, that I
should have encountered Kokua coming cool from the sea-water in the evening?
Kokua, the soul ensnarer! Kokua, the light of my life! Her may I never wed, her
may I look upon no longer, her may I no more handle with my loving hand; and it
is for this, it is for you, O Kokua! that I pour my lamentations!” Now you are
to observe what sort of a man Keawe was, for he might have dwelt there in the
Bright House for years, and no one been the wiser of his sickness; but he
reckoned nothing of that, if he must lose Kokua. And again, he might have wed
Kokua even as he was; and so many would have done, because they have the souls
of pigs; but Keawe loved the maid manfully, and he would do her no hurt and
bring her in no danger. A little beyond the midst of the night, there came in
his mind the recollection of that bottle. He went round to the back porch, and
called to memory the day when the devil had looked forth; and at the thought
ice ran in his veins. “A dreadful thing is the bottle,” thought Keawe, “and
dreadful is the imp, and it is a dreadful thing to risk the flames of hell. But
what other hope have I to cure my sickness or to wed Kokua? What!” he thought,
“would I beard the devil once, only to get me a house, and not face him again
to win Kokua?” Thereupon he called to mind it was the next day the Hall went by
on her return to Honolulu. “There must I go first,” he thought, “And see
Lopaka. For the best hope that I have now is to find that same bottle I was so
pleased to be rid of.” Never a wink could he sleep; the food stuck in his
throat; but he sent a letter to Kiano, and about the time when the steamer
would be coming, rode down beside the cliff of the tombs. It rained; his horse
went heavily; he looked up at the black mouths of the caves, and he envied the
dead that slept there and were done with trouble; and called to mind how he had
galloped by the day before, and was astonished. So he came down to Hookena, and
there was all the country gathered for the steamer as usual. In the shed before
the store they sat and jested and passed the news; but there was no matter of
speech in Keawe’s bosom, and he sat in their midst and looked without on the
rain falling on the houses, and the surf beating among the rocks, and the sighs
arose in his throat. “Keawe of the Bright House is out of spirits,” said one to
another. Indeed, and so he was, and little wonder. Then the Hall came, and the
whaleboat carried him on board. At the word, the young Haole of Beritania
Street reeled against the wall. “The bottle!” he gasped. “To buy the bottle!”
Note: This story continue on part two.
With affection,
Ruben
