“But still, Allen, the day may come when you will be given an opportunity to leave this heaven blessed land, and return to your own country. It is of that day I wish to speak. Think well, Allen, before you leave this paradise where all is happiness and contentment, where strife and contention are unknown, to return to the cold-hearted, calculating world to meet, you know not what evils, but remain here among a people who have their every want provided for by nature, thus relieving them of the drudgery of existence, where men live as God intended men should live; where love is love, not licentiousness; where each man is proud to claim his own children; where no woman blushes with shame when she beholds the fruits of her unhappy love; where the tender life of no unfortunate infant is taken that it may not be a living shame to the authors of its being. Here, in this land where money cannot buy man’s honesty or woman’s love. Here, my dear son, is to be found true happiness, and it is the dying request of your father that you live among this gentle, lovable people as your father has done.” The old man dropped his head upon his breast exhausted by his effort.
“Do not think,” replied Allen, “that I shall ever want to go back to a false state of civilization. I learned to despise it long before I landed here and now that I have lived here so long and have learned to appreciate the honesty and truthfulness of these people, I do not wish to leave them. And then, is not my wife, whom I love more deeply each day, one of these people? No, father, I shall never leave this land of plenty, peace and quiet. No, I am too happy, as I now live, to desire any change.”
Captain Thornton grew rapidly worse, and, ere the dawn of another day he had left the island, where he had passed so many peaceful years, for that unknown land beyond the grave. All day long could be heard the mournful wailing of the people of Nahua who had gathered around the house to mourn. The weird cries and the slow, measured beat of the tom toms that accompanied this peculiar chant was kept up all the day and night that Captain Thornton’s body lay unburied. The mourning was sincere, as the gentle old man had been loved as a father by the people of the island of Kaahlanai.
The next morning at daybreak, for in this hot climate the body could be kept no longer, funeral rites were held over the remains of Captain Thornton. The body had been wrapped in many layers of palm leaves and then placed in a slender, light canoe; it was now resting on a bier formed of branches of bamboo. The mourners are already gathered around, Ahleka, Allen and Kaelea having each placed a handful of lime on their heads as a token of their grief, it being the outward mark of mourning bourn by these peculiar people. The melancholy chant was still kept up. Eight young men having lifted the bier upon their shoulders, the funeral march began. On each side of the bier walked eight young girls, each having upon her head the customary handful of lime, and bearing in her hand a long wand of waving feathers; holding the wands so as to form an arch over the canoe which contained the dead. After them came Ahleka and Kaelea, Allen and Maula and next Mabel and Etta walking on each side of Captain Gray; following these came the chiefs and their families and the people of the villages, each one carrying a stone in one hand and branches of flowers in the other. The procession moved slowly up the hill which was to be the burial place. The broad disc of the rising sun was now to be seen coming slowly above the sea, throwing broad shafts of light over the water, dyeing the sky coppery red which shaded into gold, then into the softest tints of yellow as the rays ascended. It was a sight never to be forgotten by any of the little group who stood for the first time on this funeral mountain, looking out over the grief bowed heads of the throng of people, beyond the tree embowered islands, beyond the reef with the surf glistening and ever changing in the rays of the rising sun, far out to the glorious ruler of day. The canoe was now placed upon the ground, the company turned, and raising their sprays of flowers toward the sun, chanting an invocation to the source of light and warmth. One after another they drew near the canoe, beginning with Ahleka and Allen, placing upon it the flowers held in their hands until it was hidden from view beneath a fragrant mound. After all the flowers were deposited, the stones were piled high over them, making a rocky monument to mark the resting place of Captain Thornton—the Alii Mahina. Then slowly they retraced their steps to the village.
CHAPTER XVI.
One morning, about a month after the death of Captain Thornton, as Etta and Mabel were preparing for their morning bath in the ocean, they grew confidential, as girls are apt to do when arranging their toilets together.
“Mabel,” said Etta, “I envy you the freedom you enjoy in seeing Ahleka so often with none to interfere. How I wish I were in your place for I must meet Uala clandestinely, so that papa shall not know of our love. I hate to deceive papa, I am sure, but I don’t know what to do. Do you think I do right to meet him as I do?”
“Yes indeed, I think you are right to meet him if you love him. It would be far better if every woman would cling to the one man she loves; but you are not right in meeting him secretly. You should not be ashamed to acknowledge your love before all. When one is ashamed of their love it is not the pure, strong unchangeable passion that alone should be called by that name.” She spoke warmly, for she did not like this concealment on the part of her friend.
“But Mabel, you do not understand me at all. I am not ashamed of my love for Uala, but papa has said I should never marry any one on this island with his consent. Now what am I to do?”
“What are you to do? Be a true woman and let your holy love for the man who has won your heart, speak hereafter. Let it be his approval or disapproval you abide by. When you were a child you owed your obedience to your father, but now you are a woman with a woman’s love in your heart and you should obey that love, even if it is in opposition to your father’s will.”