Free Hawaii by James A. Michener, Steve Berry Page A

plans.
    But there was a mind at work that night much keener than either Mato's or Pa's, and it belonged to the High Priest. During the most solemn part of the convocation he had been thinking, and when great Oro was returned to the ark, the High Priest called his assistants to him, and they sat cross-legged in a shadowy corner of the great temple, with the bodies of men dancing above them in the night air.
    "Have you noticed anything today?" he began.
    "Only that you are right," a young priest reported. "Teroro is our mortal enemy."
    "What makes you say that?"
    "As you directed, I studied him constantly. Four separate times I caught him struggling against the will of Oro, terrible be the name."
    "When?"
    "Principally, when the king's courtier was slain. He drew back, markedly."
    "I thought so, too," the High Priest agreed.
    "And when one of his crew was sacrificed to guard the canoe."
    "He did?"
    "And it seemed to me that when it came time for Teroro to lead the king away from the temple, while we came in, he acted joyously lather than in sorrow."
    "We thought so, too," several priests chorused.
    "But what confirms it is that this afternoon Teroro must have held some kind of meeting with his men."
    "Is that correct?" the High Priest snapped.
    "I can't be sure, because as you know, I had to leave him when we entered the temple, but immediately after Oro was returned to the ark, I slipped out to check on our men."
    "What did you find?"
    "Nothing. They had vanished."
    "How could they?" the High Priest demanded.
    "I don't know, but they had vanished."
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    "Was the king with them?"
    "No," the spy reported. "He sat properly with the other kings."
    "Can we be sure that Teroro held a meeting? If we were
    sure . . ."
    "I searched everywhere," the young spy insisted, "and in my own
    heart I am sure."
    For a long time the High Priest contemplated this unwelcome news, fingering his staff and driving it into the ground. Finally he mused: "If we could be certain that a meeting was held, we could eliminate the entire canoe. We would ..." But when he weighed all consequences he apparently decided against this, for he suddenly turned to his burly executioner and said softly, "Tomorrow I don't want you at any time to stand either near the king or near Teroro. Keep completely away. You, Rere-ao," and he addressed his spy, "are you as swift of club as you once were?" "I am."
    "You are to place yourself inconspicuously so that at an instant's signal you can kill Teroro. You are to watch him constantly. If he makes even the slightest move. Anything . . ." "Do I wait for a signal from you?" Rere-ao asked. "No, but as you strike I will point at him, and his dead body will be sacred to Oro."
    The High Priest moved on to discuss their roles with others, but he soon returned to Rere-ao and asked, "You understand? You don't wait for a signal. You kill him if he moves." "I understand."
    The High Priest concluded his meeting with a long prayer to Oro, at the end of which he told his men, "One way or another, tomorrow will see Bora Bora finally delivered to Oro. The old gods are dead. Ore lives."
    His assistant priests breathed deeply with excitement, for their struggle to implant their new god on the backs of Tane and Ta'aroa had not been easy, and for several months they had longed for some positive event of magnitude to assure them that they had won. Their leader, sensing this desire for the spectacular, cautioned them: "There are many roads to ultimate victory, my brothers. Oro has many paths by which he can travel to triumph. Tomorrow one of them will result in his final capture of Bora Bora, but you must not anticipate which one. That is up to Oro."
    With this the High Priest folded his hands, took off his skullcap, and inclined his head toward the inner sanctuary of Oro. His fellow priests did likewise, and in the deep silence of the night, dimly lit by distant fires and the glow of shimmering stars, the holy men prayed to their