O’Hara in Love—Fae Fae’s Midnight Elopement—Chased—A Melodramatic Race for Life—The Innocence of Eve—Temptation—The Lost Bride—The Madness of Romance—Outbound for Honolulu.
I HAD just returned from an engagement where I had performed violin solos at the French Presidency concert, when I met O’Hara again. I was sitting in the wooden café at Selao at the time.
“Well, what’s the matter now?” I said, as O’Hara greeted me. I noticed that he looked rather mournful.
“Pal, I’m not going to be done; I’ve made up my mind to marry the girl Fae Fae, and be damned to her old nigger chief, Tautoa!”
One can imagine my astonishment as O’Hara blurted out the foregoing, for I had no knowledge whatever that he had seen Fae Fae since we had first seen the girl dancing round an idol in the forest. Slowly the truth came out. It appeared that O’Hara had been secretly meeting Fae Fae every night since the idol adventure. Things had come to such a pass that Fae Fae had agreed to bolt from the palace and marry him.
“What’s the trouble, then? Don’t you want to marry her?” said I, as O’Hara finished a glowing account of Fae Fae’s affection for him.
Then O’Hara made a further confession. It appeared that, in his usual careless way, he had been overbold, and so had spoiled his chance of wooing Fae Fae on the sly. He had gone to the Queen’s palace one night, and had serenaded Fae Fae on the guitar, like some old-time Spanish cavalier. This mad act had got Fae Fae into trouble, for she, in her impulsive way, had rushed from the palace stockade gate straight into O’Hara’s arms. It so happened that Tautoa, the chief to whom Fae Fae was betrothed, caught them in each other’s arms! And my chum had made matters worse, for he had managed to give Tautoa a black eye in the mêlée that followed his mad presumption. It appeared that Fae Fae was now under strict surveillance. And, more, the head chiefs had laid a charge at the Government Presidency about the matter. And I believe that, even at that early date, a warrant was out for the arrest of O’Hara for disturbing the peace and forcing his presence on a native maid of royal blood. When O’Hara first unfolded his plans for abducting Fae Fae, I endeavoured to reason with him.
“It’s ridiculous, pal. You’re talking like a South Sea novel. You can’t seize a beautiful girl of royal blood, a princess, and carry her away from the palace like some old freebooter of the southern seas. Besides, we’ll be arrested by the gendarmes. And there’s the old Queen to be considered, her consort, her son, and, last and not least, Fae Fae’s legitimate lover, Tautoa.”
O’Hara used a quite unprintable word as I mentioned that last name. Then he stared as though I were mad, and said:
“Me! talking like a novel! I mean to have her.”