James Jackson Jarves

“ How we went I could not tell, but we were borne on without effort on our own part, by an unseen power, and yet it seemed to come from ourselves. Such scenery, such beauty, those loving faces crying, ‘welcome, dear sister.’ Would that I could describe them. Joy filled my heart. I was amid all things loveliest and best, such as of late you and I have so often faintly conceived as we talked of heaven. Oh! how real they now were! I was a spirit, yet I had a body and senses that gave me exquisite pleasure. Every emotion and effort was increasing happiness. ”

“ He was more astonished than even Tolta at its desertion, and could scarcely credit his sight. The heiau was a complete solitude. Its foul offerings polluted the night air, and sent up their reeking incense to impish idols, unwatched by human eyes. Excited as his feelings were for the safety of the only being he loved, never had the gloomy precincts of the sacred enclosure and its disgusting rites appeared to him as they did now. He was repelled and disgusted, and as he recalled the words and resolute self-denial of Olmedo, he felt disposed to proclaim the whole a delusion. ”

“ Beatriz had never married. Her nature had kept her from the great error of mistaking a little for the [104] whole. She who had so much to give, was too wise to fling herself away upon a single impulse. Her love for all was the result of an unconscious superiority of soul, which increased by what it gave. It was, more properly speaking, kindness or benevolence, and flowed from her as naturally and as sweetly as fragrance from the rose.
All great natures have in them a vein of sadness. This springs from the consciousness of the little they are, in contrast with the much they would be. ”

“ I can easily fool this brute Pohaku, and lead him into the destruction he richly deserves. Speak, priest, will you not make her my wife to save her, yourself, and all you love, from destruction?”
More in sorrow than in anger at his blindness and confessed villany did Olmedo reply to him. “Life is dear to all of us, but our souls are dearer. Willingly would I do all but violate my conscience and her truth to save her a single pang. You know not a Christian woman’s heart. She mate with you! the dove seek the nest of the hawk! Never! Beatriz would die a thousand deaths first. ”

“ Numbers of both sexes were sporting in the surf. The line of breakers commenced far seaward, in long, lofty, curling swells, that came in regular succession thundering onward to the shore, which trembled under the mighty reverberation. It was not a sound of anger, nor of merriment, but the pealing forth of Nature’s mightiest organ, in deep-toned notes of praise. There was much in the commingled glories of sound and color, the beauty of the shore, and the expanse of the ocean, to suggest an Infinite Author to the most thoughtless mind.
Human life and happiness mingle largely with the scene. ”

“ No woman of true sensibility rejects a lover without feeling herself a sympathy in the pang she inflicts. It often happens that in her artless attempts to mitigate the disappointment, her motives are mistaken, and she subjects herself again to a siege so much more pressing than the former, that she yields against her conviction, a captive to a stronger will, but not to love. It was not so with a woman of Beatriz’s mould. She knew that in no way could she be so true to others as in being true to herself. ”

“ A dense poisonous smoke was gradually narrowing their horizon all around and slowly approaching, leaving no hope of escaping suffocation, even if they were spared a more immediate and violent death. Their position was far worse than to be on a burning prairie, for fire can then be made to fight fire as the ally of man. Here all nature was melting before the heat of the eruption. At any instant the solid rock on which they sat might surge and toss like the waves of the ocean, in blazing, gory-hued billows, while of themselves not one particle of matter would survive to disclose their fate. ”

“ Priest for priest,—life for life,—my father’s blood cries for thine,—to-morrow’s sun will set on your sacrifice. No more shall you hold fond dalliance with the white maiden. She is my spoil.”
“What mean you, Mexican? What words are these? You rave! You cannot,—you dare not injure Beatriz! Nay,—you seek to alarm me. It is a jest,—is it not, Tolta? Your heart will not let you ruin that pure being, whose life has been a good gift to you as well as me.”
“Silence! I can listen no longer to this babble. We must be off. A Mexican is not wont to be moved by the tongue of a Spaniard.” ”

“ First tell me, who created Hawaii?”
“I know not. It sprang from night or chaos, so our bards say,” replied Hewahewa.
“Something from nothing. Do you believe this? Where does a man go when he dies?”
“Back to night, or everlasting sleep.”
“Then, you think, that man and the earth came by chance out of nothing, and return to nothing?”
“That is my thought. We must make the most of life. There is no other. I believe in what I have, in what I feel and see, but in nothing more. Death finishes all. Do you not fear to go back to nothing?” ”

“ I praise thee, I thank thee, Father, that thou hast pitied thy servant, and in saving him from error hast given him further opportunity for thy service and of getting wisdom. In creating man, thou has bestowed upon him affections for wise purposes, and I now see that thou delightest no more in their sacrifice than in innocent blood. I thank thee that I am a man; that I possess from thee the desires and aspirations for love eternal as the heavens, and that thou hast permitted me to find, even in my solitary profession, a heart which makes mine beat warmer, truer and better. ”

“ But the earth you love, and the life you covet teach differently. Can the canoe live on the ocean without a pilot? Does the taro ripen without the sun? Think you that this earth drifts at random in space, without a hand to guide it? No! the Supreme Being made this world and man to dwell therein. He has made also a heaven for the good, and a hell for the evil. ”

“ The smoke of its torment, like a pall, covered the cancerous earth, to screen its throes from the light of the sun.
Coming so unexpectedly upon a spectacle of which he had heard only vague accounts, Olmedo, at first sight, forgot both himself and his enemies in awe. It was indeed a fearful spectacle, beautiful even in its terror, exciting all that was appalling in the imagination, and fascinating the eye as by a spell. The solid earth was passing away in a flame, and would soon be as a vapor. Olmedo felt as if he were the sole spectator. ”

“ What meant this life without life, harvest without reapers, houses without owners, this atmosphere without insect-hum or bird-song? The very waters enclosed in rocky basins, or overshadowed by motionless foliage, were unrippled by current or wave, and repeating the landscape in their still depths, made it even more unreal. The gracefully shaped canoes which floated upon them without moving, looked as if painted upon the surface of the stream.
Juan’s impatient spirit chafed for want of action. ”

“ As for you, puny priest, you are destined for Pele. Thank your gods you are to be so honored.”
“Chieftain,” replied Olmedo, “the God I serve will protect me living or dying. I am indeed a man of peace, but fear not the sword. Death has no terrors, for it opens to me a heaven, such as your idolatry can never know. In your delusion and ignorance you are to be pitied—not me. You shall see how calmly a Christian can die. Perhaps it will lead you to ask what it is to be a Christian.”
“I will tell you what it is to be a Christian, Pohaku, for none know better than my countrymen,” broke in Tolta. ”

“ His entire life of baffled ambition and revenge, with all the deeds of horror he had witnessed or participated in; all the better desires he had cherished and affections he had indulged; all of his dark and troublous career became legible in letters of fire to his quickened memory, and mingling with an obscure and despairing future, the terrible mythology of his earliest belief conflicting with the hated creed of the Spaniard, harrowed his soul. Fiercely he struggled for a while with his fate. The water became discolored by the sand his frantic exertions to release himself stirred up. ”

“ There in the forest, no leaf stirring, all nature hushed, that lone woman, her soul racked with doubt, fearing equally to violate her own pure impulses and the faith which bade her crucify them, plead piteously to her Father in heaven for strength to calm her soul, and to know the right. Never before, in that land, had a truthful, earnest woman’s heart poured forth its passionate griefs in words of childlike simplicity, seeking sympathy and aid direct from its Maker. ”

“ Greater temptation of circumstance and argument never assailed a man. On the other hand, arose the still, small voice, “You are her spiritual father; love you may and must, but to confess that love, to tempt her, would be a sin against the Holy Ghost; for has she not been confided to thy charge? Was ever such a crime known to one, who has vowed to God for his better service here, and for higher reward hereafter, to renounce the honors and pleasures of this life,—to know no wife, or child; to crucify alike passions and affections for the love of Heaven. Have a care, priest! ”

“ His voice grew tremulous, but the pride and passion of his race were subdued before the truth and beauty of Beatriz. There had always been something in her deportment, which as decisively forbade hope where hope was not to be, as it would have invited love where love was to be. So he turned from her more in sorrow than in anger, but had gone but a few steps, when returning, he said, “Kiana loves you, and ever will. He seeks a companion, not a captive. You are right not to say yes, when you feel no; fear not. Kiana can love, even if not loved. All that he possesses is yours. ”

“ Here they were, bowed in spirit, haggard in features, their hardy limbs lying torpidly about, indifferent to death itself, but worn to worse than death by drifting for weeks about under a pitiless sun on an unknown sea, which the oldest of them had never heard of, and which seemed to them as if they had arrived within the confines of stagnant matter, where they were doomed to rot in body and decay in mind, coffined in their vessel, whose slow destruction kept even pace with their own. ”

“ No one has a monopoly of wisdom. The most gifted author cannot fill the measure of the understanding. The humblest may give utterance to ideas, that, however plain to most thinkers, may through him be the means of first reaching some minds, or at least suggesting thoughts that shall leave them wiser and happier. If what he say, has in it no substance of truth, it will speedily come to naught. But on the contrary, if it contain simply the seeds of truth, they will be sure to find a ripening soil somewhere in human hearts, and bud and blossom into peace and progress. ”

“ Whatever your fate may be, I am here to share it,” said Beatriz.
“Say not so, my daughter, my Beatriz. Go with those who brought you here. They can guard you safely back to Juan. If you remain with me, they are lost. Surely you would not cost them their lives. Go while there is yet time. God will guard you. As for me, I am a soldier of the cross, and it is meet that I should offer up my life rather than violate its holy principles. There,” said Olmedo, tenderly taking her hand and putting it into that of Liliha, “depart with her. She will rescue you and restore you to your brother.” ”