Hawaii by James A. Michener, Steve Berry Read Free Book Online Page B

with a handsome thin face, he loved brawling, had an impetuous temper and was slow to grasp abstract ideas. But his greatest failing was that he could not memorize genealogies or sacred chants. His love was navigation and the challenge of unknown seas. Already he had driven his canoe to distant Nuku Hiva, while a run down to Tahiti was familiar play.
    "I am afraid it is for you the gods will send the rainbow," Tamatoa whispered.
    "We have stood against them in the past, we can do so again."
    "In the past they had canoes and spears. Now they have plans and plots. I don't feel hopeful."
    "Are you afraid?" Teroro asked bluntly.
    "Yes," the king confessed. "New ideas are afoot, and I can't seem to grasp them. How has the High Priest succeeded in manipulating our people so successfully?"
    "New gods are popular, I suppose," Teroro hazarded. "When our people see many sacrifices they know the gods listen. It makes the island seem safer."
    The king studied his brother for a moment, then asked cautiously, "Would it not be possible for you to accept their new god?"
    "Impossible," Teroro said flatly. "I was born with the blessing of Tane. My father died defending Tane, and his father before him. I will never consider another god."
    The king breathed deeply and said, "Those are my thoughts, too. But I am afraid the High Priest will destroy us, Teroro."
    "How can he?" the impetuous young warrior demanded.
    "By tricks, by plans, by clever ideas."
    FROM THE SON-SWEPT LAGOON
    25
    "I'll trick himl" Teroro cried in frustration. Slashing his hand across his knee he muttered, "I'll trick his head into a mass of coconut jelly."
    "That's why you mustn't attend this convocation," Tamatoa said. Teroro stood humbly before the king, yet spoke stubbornly: "Beloved brother, that is why I must go." Then, rising, he moved about the palace mats and said prophetically, "The High Priest will not destroy us. If we go down, he goes down with us. The whole island goes down. Brother, I swore to our father that I would protect you. I'm going to the convocation, to protect you. But I will give you my promise not to riot unless they strike you." "They won't strike me, Teroro. They'll strike you." "They had better strike with the speed of a hungry shark," Teroro laughed, and with this he walked out into the glorious high noon of Bora Bora, when the sun blazed overhead and filtered through palm fronds and breadfruit leaves, making soft patterns in the dust. Naked children called back and forth in their games, and fishermen hauled their canoes onto the beach. The soporific haze of noon, compounded of sunlight and dust was upon the island, and all things were beautiful. How restful this moment was, when the sun hung for a moment in midheaven, casting no shadows; flies droned and old women slept. Through the beautiful and dusty heat Teroro moved slowly to where the great ceremonial canoe of Bora Bora rested, and as he went he called, "Into the water! Into the water!"
    From various grass houses along the lagoon, men appeared, drowsily wrapping themselves in tapa and swallowing the last bits of coconut. "Send for the priests to bless our canoe," Teroro called, and soon four holy men arrived, pleasure on their faces, for among all the functions of this island, there was nothing that exceeded in common joy the returning of the ceremonial canoe to its natural element. Palm fronds that had enclosed the seaward end of the long shed were taken down, and the twin hulls of the immense canoe were edged carefully toward the water. Then a rare old priest named Tupuna, his long white hair piled on his head and stuck with skewers, separated his beard, and with his eyes on the lagoon and on the open sea beyond, cried:
    "Ta'aroa, god of the dark and sweeping sea, Ta'aroa, master of tempest and gentle calm, Ta'aroa, protector of men with vision of the reef, Ta'aroa, take Wair-for-the-West-Wind to thy bosom, Take it to Havaiki and to Moorea and to Nuku Hiva, To the Black Shining Road of