登陆注册
5161000000010

第10章 THE BONES OF KAHEKILI(1)

From over the lofty Koolau Mountains, vagrant wisps of the trade wind drifted, faintly swaying the great, unwhipped banana leaves, rustling the palms, and fluttering and setting up a whispering among the lace- leaved algaroba trees.Only intermittently did the atmosphere so breathe--for breathing it was, the suspiring of the languid, Hawaiian afternoon.In the intervals between the soft breathings, the air grew heavy and balmy with the perfume of flowers and the exhalations of fat, living soil.

Of humans about the low bungalow-like house, there were many; but one only of them slept.The rest were on the tense tiptoes of silence.At the rear of the house a tiny babe piped up a thin blatting wail that the quickly thrust breast could not appease.The mother, a slender hapa-haole (half-white), clad in a loose- flowing holoku of white muslin, hastened away swiftly among the banana and papaia trees to remove the babe's noise by distance.Other women, hapa-haole and full native, watched her anxiously as she fled.

At the front of the house, on the grass, squatted a score of Hawaiians.Well-muscled, broad-shouldered, they were all strapping men.Brown- skinned, with luminous brown eyes and black, their features large and regular, they showed all the signs of being as good-natured, merry-hearted, and soft-tempered as the climate.To all of which a seeming contradiction was given by the ferociousness of their accoutrement.Into the tops of their rough leather leggings were thrust long knives, the handles projecting.On their heels were huge-rowelled Spanish spurs.They had the appearance of banditti, save for the incongruous wreaths of flowers and fragrant maile that encircled the crowns of their flopping cowboy hats.One of them, deliciously and roguishly handsome as a faun, with the eyes of a faun, wore a flaming double-hibiscus bloom coquettishly tucked over his ear.Above them, casting a shelter of shade from the sun, grew a wide-spreading canopy of Ponciana regia, itself a flame of blossoms, out of each of which sprang pom-poms of featherystamens.From far off, muffled by distance, came the faint stamping of their tethered horses.The eyes of all were intently fixed upon the solitary sleeper who lay on his back on a lauhala mat a hundred feet away under the monkey-pod trees.

Large as were the Hawaiian cowboys, the sleeper was larger.Also, as his snow-white hair and beard attested, he was much older.The thickness of his wrist and the greatness of his fingers made authentic the mighty frame of him hidden under loose dungaree pants and cotton shirt, buttonless, open from midriff to Adam's apple, exposing a chest matted with a thatch of hair as white as that of his head and face.The depth and breadth of that chest, its resilience, and its relaxed and plastic muscles, tokened the knotty strength that still resided in him.Further, no bronze and beat of sun and wind availed to hide the testimony of his skin that he was all haole--a white man.

On his back, his great white beard, thrust skyward, untrimmed of barbers, stiffened and subsided with every breath, while with the outblow of every exhalation the white moustache erected perpendicularly like the quills of a porcupine and subsided with each intake.A young girl of fourteen, clad only in a single shift, or muumuu, herself a grand-daughter of the sleeper, crouched beside him and with a feathered fly-flapper brushed away the flies.In her face were depicted solicitude, and nervousness, and awe, as if she attended on a god.

And truly, Hardman Pool, the sleeping whiskery one, was to her, and to many and sundry, a god--a source of life, a source of food, a fount of wisdom, a giver of law, a smiling beneficence, a blackness of thunder and punishment--in short, a man-master whose record was fourteen living and adult sons and daughters, six great- grandchildren, and more grandchildren than could he in his most lucid moments enumerate.

Fifty-one years before, he had landed from an open boat at Laupahoehoe on the windward coast of Hawaii.The boat was the one surviving one of the whaler Black Prince of New Bedford.Himself New Bedford born, twenty years of age, by virtue of his driving strength and ability he had served as second mate on the lost whaleship.Coming to Honolulu and casting about for himself, he had first married KalamaMamaiopili, next acted as pilot of Honolulu Harbour, after that started a saloon and boarding house, and, finally, on the death of Kalama's father, engaged in cattle ranching on the broad pasture lands she had inherited.

For over half a century he had lived with the Hawaiians, and it was conceded that he knew their language better than did most of them.By marrying Kalama, he had married not merely her land, but her own chief rank, and the fealty owed by the commoners to her by virtue of her genealogy was also accorded him.In addition, he possessed of himself all the natural attributes of chiefship: the gigantic stature, the fearlessness, the pride; and the high hot temper that could brook no impudence nor insult, that could be neither bullied nor awed by any utmost magnificence of power that walked on two legs, and that could compel service of lesser humans, not by any ignoble purchase by bargaining, but by an unspoken but expected condescending of largesse.He knew his Hawaiians from the outside and the in, knew them better than themselves, their Polynesian circumlocutions, faiths, customs, and mysteries.

And at seventy-one, after a morning in the saddle over the ranges that began at four o'clock, he lay under the monkey-pods in his customary and sacred siesta that no retainer dared to break, nor would dare permit any equal of the great one to break.Only to the King was such a right accorded, and, as the King had early learned, to break Hardman Pool's siesta was to gain awake a very irritable and grumpy Hardman Pool who would talk straight from the shoulder and say unpleasant but true things that no king would care to hear.

同类推荐
  • 佛母般若波罗蜜多圆集要义论

    佛母般若波罗蜜多圆集要义论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 芦浦笔记

    芦浦笔记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson

    The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 开元天宝遗事

    开元天宝遗事

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 齿门

    齿门

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 看破不说破

    看破不说破

    本书收录了胡适研究中国禅宗思想的精华文章。全书对禅宗的传播、流布,以及对中国历史上各个时代思想、文化、艺术等方面的影响进行了全面的梳理和严谨细致的分析。胡适本人不信任何宗教,但他对禅宗的见解,对于那些从事禅宗文化研究的人士,以及文化爱好者而言,至今仍有着影响力。
  • 都市种子王

    都市种子王

    来自天外的种植传承,能培育超凡的种子。种田何必乡间农田,养鸡无需山林野地。想在客厅的天花板上采摘葡萄吗?想在床头种一棵冰淇淋果吗?想足不出户,每日收获天然美味的蔬菜水果吗?请寻找都市种子的提供者——都市育种师〔申明,不要说俺老司机了!取名的时候,真的没有想歪,都是被你们带歪了!〕【超级种植群:182183658】【种子vip群:576342767】
  • 外储说左上

    外储说左上

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 超完美恋爱手册

    超完美恋爱手册

    【已完结】【推荐自己新书《野性少夫人:早安,男神大人》】她为闺蜜打抱不平却不料认错了人,情急之下她说,“我怀了你的孩子。”某男勾唇一笑,“走吧,孩子他妈。”她气恼,“放开我,臭流氓。”“不放。你不是有我的孩子了吗?”“……”哼,文的不行,那么就来武的吧!很好,敢打他的女人这还是第一个。“臭丫头,被我抓到你就死定了!”【1V1双处】【高能爽甜】【日更】【请勿转载与改写】【请放心跳坑\(^o^)/】
  • 魔王将至

    魔王将至

    拥有不死之身,其他一无是处的肖安。除了自己的名字以外,连自由都没有的突变进化者。在被运输的过程中穿越到异世界,摆脱了被人研究的命运。失去一切的人终于得到最宝贵的财富——自由他的疯狂,他的理智,将给世界带来改变一个时代的汹涌浪潮。
  • 带二货系统闯界面

    带二货系统闯界面

    我叫曾风,是个贱……呸!我是刺客。我得到一个系统,它叫二货。
  • 天师神书

    天师神书

    千万年前,沈书来到神州大地,成神藏塔塔灵,与神灵同居,看遍神术,观尽仙法!千年后,神州大地末法时代降临,神灵陨落,众生喋血,神藏塔崩!千万年后,大道复归,神州大地生机再现,早已死亡的沈书意外魂归。并且这一次,他不再以口不能言,身不能动的神藏塔塔灵身份活着,而是一位人族少年!
  • 我的宫主大人

    我的宫主大人

    一个是天罗宫主,一个是相府千金,本想是纯粹的古代甜文,却偏偏沾了点武侠气。她曾以为,循父意听君命,便是她的宿命。他告诉她,遵己心顺己意,才是她的未来。人生而有七苦,命定之人,终是逃不开一个情字。
  • 内向者的能量:内向人玩转外向世界的成功心理学

    内向者的能量:内向人玩转外向世界的成功心理学

    内向者的能量:内向人玩转外向世界的成功心理学对内向人群进行了重新审视和深入剖析,说明内向性格的优势特质——坚强的韧性,强大的思考能力,持久的耐力和专注,强烈的上进心,以及在内省和独处中获取力量的能力。
  • 总经理要抓好八件大事

    总经理要抓好八件大事

    “一头狮子带领一群绵羊,可以打败一头绵羊带领的一群狮子。”在一个企业里,总经理是企业的主心骨和带头人。在企业的发展过程中,总经理所表现出的能力或毅力,常常左右着整个局势的成败。本书总结了当今世界最新、最典型的管理经验,详细介绍了总经理要抓好的八件大事:识人与用人、规章与制度、社交与沟通、质量与创新、诚信与服务、渠道与营销、资本与利润、防腐与防危。