Behind it, two horrible goggle eyes shone forth with lurid gleams into the blank room. I knew those too, they were the eyes of the mask--that grinning mask that Kalaua wore as the sign of his priestship.
Hideous, barbaric, staring things; but Kalaua regarded them with the utmost veneration.
"Everything is correct," he whispered, looking over the strange paraphernalia with a stern look of content and handling them reverently. "The wedding shall come off, then, duly as arranged. We know the place, the day, and the hour. I answer for the bride: you answer for the bridegroom. All is well. It is an auspicious marriage. May they live happily ever after!"
"Such is the prayer of all the Hawaiians," the stranger answered, with the air of a man who recites some liturgy.
[Illustration: "'EVERYTHING IS CORRECT,' HE WHISPERED."]
Kalaua bowed his head solemnly. "Among the faithless," he said, "we at least are faithful."
He shut the door once more, and locked it securely. Then he turned towards the room where I was eagerly watching him through that narrow key-hole. How I knew what was coming next I can never tell, but I _did_ know somehow that they were moving across once more to my hiding place. Fear supplied me with strength and agility. Dragging my leg after me again with breathless haste, I managed to scramble back into my bed somehow, and, pulling the sheet over me, to feign sleep, before those two savage devotees of a dead religion were once more leaning over the pillow beside me. Next instant, I heard the door pushed cautiously open a second time; and peering afresh through my closed eyelids, I saw Kalaua and his nameless satellite steal over softly to where I lay half dead with terror and excitement.
Were they really come to murder me or to carry me off by force? Were they going to marry me against my will to Kea? Did Kalaua mean to put me there and then through some hideous and inhuman wedding ceremony? Was I the bridegroom for whom the stranger was to answer? Was this the secret of their sudden kindness to me? Was I bound to atone for the saving of my life by accepting in wedlock the last daughter and heiress of the priests of Pélé?
But no! My suspicions must surely be wrong. It was Maloka, Maloka, that unknown Maloka, who was destined to be the simple little brown maiden's hated bridegroom. I must find out soon who Maloka was; but for the moment, fear got the better of curiosity.