Short Stories
billows from wall to wall, dripping from the cliff-lips in great
vine-masses, and flinging a spray of ferns and air-plants in to the
multitudinous crevices. During the many months of Koolau's
rule, he and his followers had fought with this vegetable sea.
The choking jungle, with its riot of blossoms, had been driven
back from the bananas, oranges, and mangoes that grew wild. In
little clearings grew the wild arrowroot; on stone terraces, filled
with soil scrapings, were the taro patches and the melons; and in
every open space where the sunshine penetrated were papaia
trees burdened with their golden fruit.
Koolau had been driven to this refuge from the lower valley
by the beach. And if he were driven from it in turn, he knew of
gorges among the jumbled peaks of the inner fastnesses where
he could lead his subjects and live. And now he lay with his rifle
beside him, peering down through a tangled screen of foliage at
the soldiers on the beach. He noted that they had large guns
with them, from which the sunshine flashed as from mirrors.
The knife-edged passage lay directly before him. Crawling up-
ward along the trail that led to it he could see tiny specks of
men. He knew they were not the soldiers, but the police. When
they failed, then the soldiers would enter the game.
He affectionately rubbed a twisted hand along his rifle barrel
and made sure that the sights were clean. He had learned to
shoot as a wild-cattle hunter on Niihau, and on that island his
skill as a marksman was unforgotten. As the toiling specks of
men grew nearer and larger, he estimated the range, judged the
deflection of the wind that swept at right angles across the line
of fire, and calculated the chances of overshooting marks that
were so far below his level. But he did not shoot. Not until they
reached the beginning of the passage did he make his presence
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