Michener, James

by Hawaii

  "He's in his study," Malama said gently.

  Whip entered without knocking, and before he spoke he closed the door. His uncle was surrounded by his father's missionary books, brought over from Lahaina, and by a substantial theological and legal library. As principal adviser to four kings he had been required to give many legal opinions, and his fine mind found pleasure in doing so. From the 1870's on he had paid little attention to the ventures of H & H, leaving that to the Hoxworths and his nephews; he had gladly accepted his proper share of the firm's enormous profits and had applied his income to the betterment of Hawaii. The Missionary Home for Lepers at Kalaupapa, the library, Punahou and the church had benefited from his charities, but mainly he had spent his income on helping to run the government efficiently. When one of the kings took a grand tour around the world, stopping off in most of the major capitals, it was Micah Hale who accompanied him at his own expense and who paid for many of the essentials. Most of the legal books owned by the cabinet were also purchased by Micah, for he constantly harangued his contemporaries: "We are all of mission extraction, and until Hawaii is completely stable, the job of our fathers is not completed." No island throughout the Pacific ever had a better public servant than Micah Hale, for if he was liberal with his money, he was thrice generous with his energy. Of the fine laws that were often cited in Europe to prove that Hawaii was civilized, an astonishing proportion had sprung from his energetic mind; and what was remarkable in that period was his

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  capacity to rise above personal interest: any laws passed in his regime that favored either sugar planters or shippers were proposed not by him but by the Janderses, the Whipples and the Hewletts who proliferated in the government. Four kings had thought of Micah Hale as their one trustworthy American adviser, yet each had known that he favored the ultimate submission of Hawaii to the United States, The present queen knew of his stand, and it had irritated her and she had dismissed him from all of his offices. He was seventy years old, of better than medium height, stately in bearing and with a long, spadelike white beard. He dressed only in white, including white-powdered shoes, and in public refused to wear glasses. This was the man that faced Whip Hoxworth on the night of Saturday, January 14, 1893.

  "Uncle Micah," Whip began forthrightly, refusing the chair offered him, "there's bound to be a revolution within the next two days."

  "Have you fomented it?" the spare old man asked.

  "Yes, sir, I have. And the Hale boys and the Hewletts and Janderses. The Whipples have also joined us and my brother. There can be no retreat."

  Micah leaned back in his office chair and studied his nephew. "So there's going to be a revolution?"

  "Yes, sir." Whip was accustomed to addressing older people in the style he had been taught aboard the whaler.

  "How old are you, Whip?"

  "Thirty-six."

  "How many wives have you had?"

  "Two."

  "How many knife battles in Iwilei?"

  "Twenty, thirty."

  "How many illegitimate children?"

  "I'm supporting half a dozen or more."

  "Do you know what they call you around town, Whip?"

  "Wild Whip. They call me that to my face. I don't care."

  "I wasn't thinking about what they call you to your face. I was thinking of the other name."

  "What other name?"

  "The Golden Stud. That's how you're known, Whip. And you consider yourself qualified to step forth as the leader of a commune dedicated to the overthrow of a duly constituted government?"

  "No, sir, Uncle Micah, I don't."

  "I thought you said your group was plotting the revolution."

  "We are. And I'm directing it. And when I say, 'Fire,' by God, sir, we'll fire. So don't be in the way. And I'm well qualified to direct a revolution, Uncle Micah, because there's nothing on this earth I fear, and within two days I'll have a new government in Hawaii. But I am not qualified to step forth as the public leader of the revolution. You're right on that, and I know it.", j2

  "Who is to be the leader?"'�

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  "You are." As Micah gasped at this suggestion, Whip sat down.

  The two men, so unalike, stared at each other, and each sensed the tremendous New England force of the other. Micah Hale lived by a code of fierce rectitude and he persuaded those who associated with him to do the same, while Whip Hoxworth had never outgrown the brawling fo'c'sls of the Pacific. He knew that all men were swine and that they enjoyed being kicked into line; yet on the eve of the revolution he also knew that certain focal points of history required a man better than himself to stand forth as leader. There were limits to what even Whipple Hoxworth could attain without the assistance of decency.

  "This is pretty much a sugar revolution, isn't it, Whipple?" Micah asked.

  "From my point of view, yes, sir. From yours, no, sir."

  "How can there be two interpretations of an evil act, Whipple?"

  "If there weren't two interpretations of our necessary act, Uncle Micah, I wouldn't be here pleading with you. I want a revolution so that sugar will be forever made safe in these islands. You want it so that the islands can join the United States in accordance with a destiny that you foresaw fifty years ago. Uncle Micah, you've always been right, and you are tonight. Hawaii is doomed unless it contrives some trick to make America accept these islands. And I control that trick. Sir, the only way your dream will ever be realized is through me."

  "Not so, Whipple. The day will come when Washington will see the inevitability of annexation."

  "Neverl Only actions make things inevitable."

  "Justice and dawning conscience produce inevitability. Slowly, Washington will see what the right step is. And we must rely upon Washington to take it."

  "No! If you live to be a hundred, you'll die talking about the slow inevitability of justice. There's going to be a revolution, my revolution, and you're going to lead it so that your dream of justice can come true."

  Micah Hale rose slowly and stared down at his vigorous young nephew. "I am appalled, Whipple, that you so misjudge me as to think that I would be partner to such an evil action. I will not divulge your plans, although I should. But now you had better go." To his surprise, his scar-faced nephew did not rise. Insolently he kept his position, raised one foot to kick his uncle's chair into place, and said, "Now we understand each other. Sit down, Uncle Micah, and let's talk about revolution. Let's forget everything we've said so far. And you might as well forget about threatening to divulge our plans to the government. Charley Wilson knows about them and wanted to arrest us all but the cabinet didn't have the guts to back him up. So let's see what you and I can do for one another. You despise my position and I think yours is pathetic. Okay, let's not revert to that again. Uncle Micah, there's going to be a revolution in two days. You can't possibly stop it. We've got the American

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  Minister waiting on the edge of his chair to recognize our de facto government. We've got American troops out there in the harbor just itching to swarm ashore and protect decent Americans against Hawaiian savages. We've got our targets pinpointed and our schedules kid. Even if you were to inform the queen herself, you'd only move up the timetable by the hours you stole from us." He leaned forward and looked hard into his uncle's eyes. "It's a revolution, Uncle Micah."

  Micah Hale was not the kind of man to find his lips going dry at moments of crisis. He had weathered too many abortive revolutions when only his courage had saved the government from irresponsible outrage, and he did not sense any unusual quickening of his pulse now. With eyes as hard as his nephew's, but from a different cause, he said, "You've thought of everything."

  "Let's accept the revolution as accomplished," the young sugar planter proposed. "I'm not the man who ought to stand before the bar of world opinion and explain why it was necessary. My record wouldn't read very well in London or Berlin. So let's say my part of the
revolution has been successful, and that all it represents is my personal greediness . . . sugar . . . land. What happens then? America won't accept us. Maybe Japan would."

  The idea that Wild Whip was developing had several other subsidiary clauses, but bearded old Micah Hale did not hear them, for with the mention of the word Japan he was suddenly transported to the mysterious city of Tokyo in the year 1881, when he served as privy councilor to the last king of Hawaii on the latter's triumphal journey around the world. The royal party was stopping in a Japanese mansion that contained no chairs; the floors were of the most exquisite wood polished by centuries of use and the sliding doors were joyous to behold. It was March and a horde of busy gardeners scurried about pruning pine trees with gnarled red branches. A row of plum trees showed white blossoms, cherries were eager to burst into bloom, and as the first warm days of the year approached, the Hawaiian party relaxed to enjoy the gracious scenery.

  Suddenly Micah had looked up and asked, "Where's the king?" No one knew. At first there was excitement; then, as the hours passed, there was panic, on the part of both the Americans and the Japanese, for the King of Hawaii was clearly missing. No one had seen him leave the spacious grounds of the mansion and a frantic search revealed no betraying signs of foul play. He had vanished, a great hulk of a man dressed in conspicuous western clothes and a long black London-tailored coat. It was one of the few times that Micah Hale had experienced real dread, for he was aware that in relatively recent years Japanese samurai, outraged at the invasion of foreigners, had sliced off the heads of several. Consequently he knelt in the chairless room and prayed: "God, save the king! Please!"

  In the third hour of panic, the king appeared, in jovial mood, holding his shoes. He had obviously been crawling through the

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  stream that separated the mansion from the Imperial Palace, and he had obviously been having a rare time. He refused to expkin where he had spent the missing three hours and he went to bed that night highly pleased with himself. In the morning the emperor's chamber-kin waited until the king was occupied with other matters and then quietly slipped in to see Micah.

  "Utterly extraordinary," the little man in the shiny black London morning coat said in good English. "Yesterday afternoon we heard this strange noise at the Imperial Pakce, and the guards were about to shoot an intruder when I saw that it was your king. He was barefooted, muddy, kughing. His great brown face was wet with perspiration when he pushed aside the shoji, walked with his dirty feet over the tatami and said, 'I'd like to talk with the emperor.' We were appalled, because nothing like this had ever happened before, but Mutsuhito is a superb man and he said, 'I'd like to talk with you.' And they went into Mutsuhito's private audience chamber. And what is astonishing, they stayed there for nearly three hours."

  Micah Hale wiped his forehead and straightened out his beard. "Believe me, Excellency, it was not I who sent the king."

  "Hardly," the chamberkin replied. "In view of what he talked about."

  "What did he speak of?" Micah probed.

  "Don't you know?" the Japanese asked.

  "No."

  "The king said, 'Hawaii is tired of being pushed this way and that by America and England and Russia. It is a Pacific power and must remain so.' " The chamberkin paused for effect and it became apparent that Micah was expected to pursue the inquiry.

  Instead he relaxed, bowed to the chamberlain and said, "I am grateful to you for having looked after my king."

  "Are you a subject of his Majesty?" the Japanese asked.

  "Yes. When I took service with the government, I swore allegiance to Hawaii."

  "How interesting. Would you care to join me in a cup of English tea?"

  "I'd be delighted," Micah said. They walked through lovely pine-kden gardens and came to a small rustic house, where a serving-maid waited.

  "What your king proposed," the Japanese said, afraid that Micah was not going to ask, "was that the heir to his throne, the Princess Kaiulani, be given in marriage to the son of the emperor, so as to bind Japan and Hawaii closer together."

  Micah lost his aplomb. He choked on his tea, spilled it, skmmed the cup down, and gasped, "What did you say?"

  "He proposed an alliance of mutual interest, to be sealed by the marriage of the princess to one of our princes. When I heard the facts, Mr. Hale, I choked, too."

  The two diplomats stared at each other, aghast. Finally Micah stammered, "What had I better do?"

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  "You'd better get the king out of Japan immediately." "Of course, of course. But I mean . . . with the emperor?" "A formal offer of marriage has been extended. It's got to be considered by the Imperial family . . . and the staff. In a year or so we'll send an answer."

  "Excellency, please take pains to insure that the answer is no." "It is now beyond my control. How old is your princess?" "Let me see, she's six." "We have time."

  That night Micah completed plans to whisk his unpredictable king out of Japan, but as they sat at supper, the king still having said nothing concerning his impromptu visit with the emperor, Micah studied his fat, jolly face and thought: "I wonder what transpires in that surprising brain? How did he think up a state marriage with the Japanese royal family? Where did he get the idea for an alliance with Japan? Such a thing would destroy all hope of eventual union with Americal My goodness, what can we expect him to do when he gets to Europe!" From that prophetic day, Micah Hale had appreciated the inherent danger that Hawaii might one day associate itself with Japan. He had therefore fought against the importation of Japanese farmers onto the sugar plantations, but greedy men like John Janders and the Hewlett boys had insisted upon it. He was frightened by the adroit manner in which the little Japanese, who had begun arriving in the 1880's, accommodated themselves to Hawaiian life, and he had tried to pass kws forbidding them to leave the plantations and open stores. When alone with friends he often referred to the "Yellow Menace," and he foresaw that the Japanese would multiply and grasp for political power in a way that the more easygoing Chinese never would. Therefore he had constructed an international-relations platform that had only two planks: "Make Hawaii American. Keep the Japanese away."

  Consequently, when Wild Whip uttered the phrase, "It begins to look as if Japan might . . ." vibrant chords were struck in Micah Hale's memory. "What was that last point, Whip?" he asked his nephew.

  "I was saying that if you want to see your basic dream come to pass, you can do it only through me."

  "I mean about Japan," Micah explained, and suddenly Whip realized that his uncle had heard nothing of his last statements. He had been daydreaming about some forgotten incident that Whip didn't know about, but with sure instinct, Whip knew that his uncle's reverie concerned Japan and that it had produced fear. He therefore decided to play upon that fear.

  "I was saying about Japan, that there is a good deal of evidence that the Yellow Menace would be glad to take Hawaii if the United States doesn't."

  "Do you think so?" Micah asked fearfully.

  "What more natural?" Whip asked, shrugging his shoulders.

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  "Do you think Japan would extend herself so far from her own islands?"

  "Not by design, but if we don't get Hawaii into the United States, she'll have to."

  "I am terribly afraid of that," Micah admitted. "And if not Japan, then England or Germany."

  "Obviously, if we allow the islands to lie around unwanted, someone will surely grab them."

  "But suppose the monarchy cleansed itself," Micah temporized. "Suppose we got rid of Liliuokalani and put somebody else on the throne?"

  Wild Whip saw that his uncle was clutching at straws, so he hammered home his points: "The revolutionists will tolerate no Hawaiian monarch. None that you could propose, Uncle Micah, would be acceptable."

  His nephew's position startled the white-bearded old man and he said, "Then even though you are uncerta
in of what comes next, you're determined to overthrow the monarchy?"

  Whip was not to be trapped into such an admission of irresponsibility. Suavely he replied, "But we are certain of what comes next, Uncle Micah. You come next. You justify us before'world opinion and lead us into the United States. It's what you've always wanted. It's what you know is right."

  The two men fell into silence, as Micah, a leader on whom all the glories and perquisites available to the kings of Hawaii had been visited, considered what he must do. He was caught in wild currents of confusion, and any antagonist other than Wild Whip Hoxworth would have retired at this moment and allowed his uncle to study the matter through the remainder of the night, but now the mark of Whip's character stood out. He rose from his chair, went to the door, stretched as if he were leaving, looked out at the stars dancing over Diamond Head and turned back toward his uncle. Lifting a chair and placing it so that its back faced Micah, he sat with his arms folded across the top of the back and his legs straddling the seat. This brought his scarred face close to his uncle's, and he said coldly, "Uncle Micah, so far we've been sparring. Now we've got to get down to the bedrock base of this revolution. There's no escape. You've got to stand before the public."

  Micah replied: "I cannot betray the Hawaiians who have befriended me."

  Whip said: "But you're ready to betray the Americans who own these islands."

  Micah replied: "When I took my oath of allegiance to Hawaii, I believed what I was doing. I became a Hawaiian."

  Whip said: "I didn't. I remained an American. I'm going to call on American warships to protect my property for me."

  Micah replied: "You can act that way. I can't."

  Whip said: "That is not the action we're talking about, Uncle Micah. I'm saying that I am determined to lead a revolution against