But Maria was inconsolable. “I want my Gabriel,” she moaned; “Ou meu Gabriel.”
But crying and wishing for him did not bring Gabriel to her, and the long, hard voyage to Honolulu was endured without him.
True to the plans which he had made in Madeira, Manuel did not go on a plantation, but remained in the city, where he soon obtained employment at a much better wage than he had been accustomed.
Maria was fairly good looking, and the young men of Honolulu were not slow in finding that fact out, and many a suitor she had had before she was in town many months. But she met them all with the same answer, “I am waiting for Gabriel.”
One day, news arrived that the Kumeric, with another load of Portuguese, was coming, and Maria was overjoyed.
“My Gabriel will surely come,” she told her father.
“Your Gabriel?” he replied, “why, when you were in Madeira, you said that he was not your Gabriel.”
“That was in Madeira,” she said.
While they talked on the subject one morning, three loud blasts from a whistle interrupted their conversation, and soon they heard that the Kumeric had been sighted.
“Oh, let us hurry to the wharf,” Maria said.