Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1893 — AN IDYL OF HONOLULU. [ARTICLE]

AN IDYL OF HONOLULU.

A Bold Stroke for a Husband. Written for This Paper.

BY LEON LEWIS.

CHAPTER V. * THE KANAKA LOVER. A look of marked aversion mantled the face of Miss Bullet, as the intruder emerged more distinctly from the evening shadows. It was such a look as only a woman can bestow after she is off with an old love and on with a new one. The new-comer was a Kanaka, as we have said, although only half native. His father had been one of the many runaway sailors domiciled upon the island, but as is often the case with the lower races, the blood of civilization had been assimilated and obliterated by the blood of the savage. Keeri had, in fact, inherited so completely from his mother that it would have been hard to detect any difference of color or form between him and his full-blooded brethren. He was tall and muscular, with keen, dark eyes, long black hair, a strongly marked nose, a wide mouth and prominent chin, and with a complexion that was brightly tawny, as if his whole person had been subjected to a vigorous polish. Aside from the passions of the moment, which were sufficiently violent, there was nothing rough or repulsive in his aspect, and there wafe ever a certain dignity in his bearing, and a rare intelligence in his glances. “O, it’s you, eh'/” greeted the old sailor’s daughter, in a voice of insolent indifference that annoyed her rejected admirer immensely. “Yes, it’s me,” was the rejoinder, as Keeri planted himself squarely before her.

you came,” declared Alma, with an anger under which was visible a certain uneasiness. “I will have nothing to do with you! I want no speech with you whatever!” “Then the proposed talk will be a little one-sided, for I have quite a number of things to say to you, Miss Bullet, and I am here to say them. I won’t leave this place until I have unburdened myself, or until I have made an awful row with your Mr. Benning. My decided impression is that you had better hear me!”

The manner of Keeri, no less than his declarations, impressed Alma strongly. She saw that he was in one of those sullen and ugly moods which can be inspired only by a bitter jealousy. Her decision was promptly taken. “If you can possibly have anything to say to me, after what I have already said to you,” she murmured, in a voice of soorn and with a look of defiance, “why, say it, and quickly.” Keeri took his pipe from his mouth, and his air became the attentive air of business. “When you sent me adrift the other day,” he began, “had you ever seen this Mr. Benning?” The girl’s features contracted and she blushed to scarlet. This questioning was visibly and deeply revolting to her. But she controlled her emotions and answered with an outward show of calmness. “No, I had never seen him. I rejected you because I did not love you; because you were a half-breed; because you are poor; because you have no home to take me to; because your wife must inevitably be a drudge and a nobody, and because I have other and higher views for myself—all good and substantial reasons, if I am not immensely mistaken. ” , The Kanaka’s countenance brightened in the same ratio that one would have expected it to darken. He evidently saw in all this series of declarations only one essential point, namely, that it was not because of the stranger under Bullet’s roof that he had been rejected. ’’There is no reason why you should abide by your former decision, Alma,” he declared, his voice softening, and a look of mingled love and admiration pleading in his eyes. “I have, not for a moment accepted it. I love you today better than ever. You are the prettiest and best girl in all these islands. As to the drawbacks you have heretofore refrained from mentioning, I have not been unmindful of them, and have sought and found a remedy for such of them as are important. With my love, I can now offer you a home all ready to move into, and a snug little fortune bequeathed to me by an aunt. I refer to the Creeka place, which is now mine.. As to my complexion, that does not paovent me from having both brains and heart. With my changed circumstances I shall be able to move in the best society of the capital, and in that way I shall acquire polish and all the marks of a gentleman. So that I shall become, if not so good a husband as you deserve, at' the least as good a husband as the island can afford. Let me hope, therefore, in conclusion, that you will change your mind in my favor and marry me.” This was all said so respectfully and so effectively that Alma could not, listen with entire stoniness of heart. She knew well the value of the inheritance which had reached her suitor, and had a sufficient appreciation of the man himself. But an immense gulf now exisited between his ideas and her own, and she did not hesitate an instant to place herself in direct opposition to him.

“Did I not tell you to keep away from here, that all was over between-us, that I wouldn’t have anything more to say to you, that I was tired of having you hanging around here eternally?” asked Alma, all in one breath. “Yes, you said so,” assented Keeri, still more doggedly. “Then why are you here?” “To have a talk with you —m C have already stated." “I do not want anything to do with you,” declared Alma, looking swiftly around to assure herself that Ralph was not within hearing. “You must go away from here immediately. I told you several weeks ago that it was impossible, and always would remain impossible, for me to marry you in your walk of life, and that it would consequently be as much for your peace of mind as for mine that you should turn vour attentions upon some other woman. Did I not tell you this?" Keeri nodded grimly. “Well, I said my last say on that occasion, ” resumed Alma. “My views are just the same now as then—and always will be. You must go away immediately.” It was clear, that this repeated injunction fell upon unwilling ears. So far from complying with it, Keeri dropped into an easy attitude upon the old sailor’s favorite rustic seat under the flowering vine that shaded the door-way of the cottage. “Well, that's cool,” commented Alma, as she began tearing the nearest flowers to pieces in her impatience. “What great regard you have for my feelings and wishes! It’s easy to see what an obliging and gentlemanly comE anion you would have made if I had een such a fool as to accept your proposal of marriage.” Keeri was not affected at all by this scorn and bitterness, or if so, his countenance onlv became more adamant.

“I did not, of course, make any allusions to your stove-pipe complexion upon the occasion in question,” proceeded Alma, with increased vehemence. “I didn't even hint at the dilapidated state of your treasury. But if you insist on forcing your presence upon me in this way, I shall be compelled to say things to you that will be decidedly unpleasant. ” Keeri fumbled in one of his pockets, drew out a pipe and tobacco, and was soon smoking like a furnace. “Say them,” he muttered. Alma’s face reddened instantly. She looked around twice in quick succession; first, to see if her father were visible; secondly, to see if Ralph were still invisible. “This is too much for human endurance,” she then proclaimed angrily. “If you do not go away immediately I will call my father. ” “You may call him a long time before he will hear you,” rejoined Keeri, with a fresh cloud of smoke, as a mocking smile curled his'iips. “He is just now busy with Kulu —particularly busy. I overheard him riding his high horse under Kulu’s shed as I came along the road.” , “Do you mean that he was quarreling with Kulu?” demanded Alma, her anxieties changing their object, or rather widening. “Yes, they were quarreling.”“You are not the kind of man to come away without learning what they were quarreling about. What is it?” Keeri took a still more vigorous pull at his pipe, and jerked his head with an air of mystery toward the interior of the cottage. “They were quarreling about the very thing that you and I are going to quarrel about,” he muttered. “They were quarreling about him!” The girl started, her looks attesting that she considered the matter serious. She turned and closed the door, and then seated herself upon a rustic bench, opposite that so freely appropriated by her rejected suitor. “They were talking about Mr. Benning?” she asked slowly. l “They were not onfy talking about him,” communicated Keeri, “but quarreling. Mr. Bullet has heard some rumor in town to-day that does not please him—some rumor as to this Mr. Benning, who he is, how he came here, what he is staying here for, or who his friends are, or what is the secret of all this mystery in which Mr. Benning seems to be living and moving, ana having his being.”* Keeri talked so fast, now that his tongue was loosened, that it made Alma breathless to listen. “And it seems that Mr. Bullet blames Kulu for not having kept the secret sufficiently close—whatever the secret may be,” said Keeri, continuing to make himself quite at his ease. “But Kulu responded that no word or hint of the real state of affairs had ever passed his lips, from the hour when he first discovered Mr..Benning until now. I must do the dog the justice of saying that he seemed to me to be perfectly sincere and honest in all he was saying. Very naturally I should have bees giad to witness the conclusion of the quarrel, but I was in a great hurry to improve your father’s absence, and here I am accordingly.” “Well, you can go back as quick as

“You have reached your good fortune too late for it to have arty weight in this matter,” she declared, in a hard voice and with an icy manner. “I congratulate you, of course, as a friend, upon your improved condition in life, but it can never change my late decision. It is impossible that I should ever marry you.” “And why impossible?” asked Keeri quickly. “Do not ask me.” _ “But I will ask you, and I have a right to an answer. Why is it impossible for you to marry me? Mr. Bullet has never seemed very friendly to me, but he will not now refuse ” “Oh, he will—he does, as I do.” The declaration served as prompt fuel to the flames already raging in Keeri’s soul. “But why should your father object to me?” he demanded, in a hoarse, concentrated voice. “And why do you refuse me?” “Since you force me to tell,” replied Alma, looking him coldly and squarely in the eyes, “it is because I love another.” The shock of this assertion was so terrific that Keeri, old smoker as he was, dropped his pipe for the first time in his life through a mental cause. “And who is the man you love?” he breathed, in a hoarse whisper, as he leaped to his feet and stood trembling before her in a jealous and despairing rage. “Is he Mr. Benning?” Either Alma thought she had gone too far to hesitate now, or she was willing to make an end of Keeri’s hopes in a breath, for she instantly anfiWPPAfl * “Yes’ he’s Mr. Benning.”

CHAPTER VI. keeri resorts to violence. Alma’s avowal instantly plunged the Kanaka into a state of mind bordering upon frenzy. “It is as I supposed, then!" he muttered, as he came nearer, while ’ his eyes gleamed as savagely as a wolf’s. “You rejected me because of this stranger?" Alma made a gesture of disgust. “No,” she declared, with angry edphasis. “Must I tell you a thousand times over how the case stands? I rejected you for the reasons I have given, and at the date of that rejection had never set eyes upon Mr. Benning.” “Then you have fallen in love with this man since that time?” “Yes, I have —since you are such a fool as to force me to say so many things that must annoy you. I expect to become his wife at an early day, and that day will come all the sooner, because of the annoyances to which you are now subjecting me. So, you now know that I will have nothing to do with you, and the sooner you take yourself off the better." The realization of the hopelessness of his suit that dawned upon Keeri’s mind was such as to drive him to desperation. “I thank you for your confidence,” he muttered, with an icy sneer, “and will answer it in kind. You sav. that you

are going to marry this Mr. Benning, but lam resolved that you shall never, never marry him. I’d sooner kill yon both, and myself afterward.” “Hush! What dees all this mean?” suddenly broke from the old sailor, as he emerged into view around the corner of his dwelling. The joy of Alma was so great at this timely,interruption that she could not immediately find voice to tell what had happened. But when she did find it, she talked so fast that her father was scon in possession of the facts, as seen from the daughter’s ttandpoint. “And now, hear me, sir,” said the Kanaka, with illy repressed excitement, as soon as ne could cast a word into the torrent of explanation and denunciation that flowed from the lips of Alma. “Is it not better that your daughter should marry a man she has always known, and ” “Hush! You don’t know what you are talking about!” interrupted Bullet. “ ’Familiarity breeds contempt.’ A girl should always marry as far away as possible from the paternal mansion, and choose, if possible, a husband with whom she has had no previous acquaintance.” At these declarations the Kanaka looked as blank as if he had received a s!ap in the face. But his passion was too ardent for * him to be easily impulsed and he hurriedly resumed: “Since I last had the pleasur e of seeing you, Mr. Bullet, a remarkable stroke of good fortune has befallen me. My only aunt has died ” “Silence! This is horrible!” cried Bullet, recoiling in pretended amazement. “What! you are so lost to all sense of shame, so hard-hearted as to rejoice with these untimely jibes over the scarcely closed grave of your unfortunate relative. Out upon you. Why, sir, if you were the husband of my daughter I should expect, at the very flrot reverse of fortune, to be carted off to the hospital.”

Keeri raised both of his hands in a frenzy of vexation. “I did not mean that I was glad of my aunt’s death,” he hurriedly protested. “I merely meant to say that having!, in her own goixl time, reached a happy and peaceful end, she has been so good as to leave me all her wealth ana assets, including the well-known Creeka premises, so that I am now the possessor of considerable money— —” “Enough! You shock me!” broke in Bullet again. “Am I indeed such a viper th at,you should suppose me capable of selling my only daughter for money? What is wealth but ‘vanity and vexation of the spirit?’ The marriages I am in favor of are marrirges of pure affection, and such, sir, I am proud and happy to say, is the marriage upon which my daughter is about to enter. Not a word! There is not the least use, Mr. Keeri, of pestering us with your vain hopes. We shall never, never marry you. And so, hall and farewell!” He whipped his daughter into the house by a dexterous and significant pressure, and then as dexterously entered himself, clcsing the door in the very face of the rejected suitor, and as promptly locking it. “That’s an iron well planted,” muttered the old harpooner, as he dropped into a chair and rubbed his hands gleefully together, “and I only hope it will hold until after you are married.” For a minute or two the Kanaka stood motionless at the door, as if at a loss what*to do with himself, and then he walked moodily away, soon disappearing in the direction in which ho resided. [TO BE CONTINUED. |