"Because we are sick they take away our liberty. We have obeyed the
law. We have done no wrong. And yet they would put us in prison.
Molokai is a prison. That you know. Niuli, there, his sister was
sent to Molokai seven years ago. He has not seen her since. Nor
will he ever see her. She must stay there until she dies. This is
not her will. It is not Niuli's will. It is the will of the white
men who rule the land. And who are these white men?

"We know. We have it from our fathers and our fathers' fathers.
They came like lambs, speaking softly. Well might they speak
softly, for we were many and strong, and all the islands were ours.
As I say, they spoke softly. They were of two kinds. The one kind
asked our permission, our gracious permission, to preach to us the
word of God. The other kind asked our permission, our gracious
permission, to trade with us. That was the beginning. Today all
the islands are theirs, all the land, all the cattle--everything is
theirs. They that preached the word of God and they that preached
the word of Rum have fore-gathered and become great chiefs. They
live like kings in houses of many rooms, with multitudes of servants
to care for them. They who had nothing have everything, and if you,
or I, or any Kanaka be hungry, they sneer and say, 'Well, why don't
you work? There are the plantations.'

Koolau paused. He raised one hand, and with gnarled and twisted
fingers lifted up the blazing wreath of hibiscus that crowned his
black hair. The moonlight bathed the scene in silver. It was a
night of peace, though those who sat about him and listened had all
the seeming of battle-wrecks. Their faces were leonine. Here a
space yawned in a face where should have been a nose, and there an
arm-stump showed where a hand had rotted off. They were men and