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

all-powerful god. It was a solemn moment at the end of an exciting day, a moment sweet and meaningful, with the essence of immortality hovering above the assembly, the sacrifices in place, great Oro brooding over his faithful, and all the world subdued in silent reverence to him. At such a moment, with the greatness of Oro pulsing in the night and throbbing in the veins more powerfully than
    FROM THE SUN-SWEPT LAGOON
    37
    the beat of a drum, it was incomprehensible to the priests that anyone should cling to old gods when the new deity was so powerful, so rational and so benevolent.
    Next morning Hiro the steersman was up early, and with a sharp rock hidden in tapa he slashed several of the sennit strands that bound Wait-for-the-West-Wind together, shuddering with regret as he did so, then burying the rock and hurrying to the priest in charge of the canoe's welfare to announce: "We must have scraped coral."
    The priest hurried to the canoe, which rested under the surveillance of the dead crewman lashed to the stern, and studied the broken sennit. "It can be mended with fresh cord," he said, hoping to get the accident repaired before the High Priest blamed him for it.
    "Yes," the crewman agreed, "and we ought to do it while we are all under the protection of Oro."
    Such sentiment charmed the priest, and he was therefore receptive when Hiro suggested, "Wouldn't it be easier to drag the canoe out here, where the sun can tighten the new sennit?' And they edged the canoe into the exact position Teroro required.
    "Will the mending take long?" the priest asked.
    "No," Hiro assured him. "I mustn't miss the convocation of Oro."
    "You must not," the priest agreed, recalling the High Priest's assurances of the night before that on this day Oro would consolidate his victory over Bora Bora, and it seemed a good omen that Hiro, one of Teroro's prominent supporters, had thus voluntarily signified his affection for Oro.
    The convocation began with a startling scene, so that all who later reviewed the day agreed that it had been doomed from the beginning, although at the time that was not apparent, since the priests had quickly converted an error into a blessing. The assembly had seated itself on rocks stretching out from the main altar, and the first two pigs were being disemboweled when a boy of seven came running into the temple, crying for his father who sat near the altar. "Father!" the lost little child shouted.
    The man, a lesser chief of Havaiki, looked in horror at the approach of his son, for the boy had committed so vast a sin that no excuse could pardon it. No woman, or child, or animal had ever strayed into the temple, and the father's arms trembled as he gathered the handsome little fellow to his heart. "I was looking for you, Father," the lost child whimpered. In austere silence the priests at the altar, their sacrifices to Oro interrupted, stared at the offending child. His father, aware of the tabu his family had broken, rose haltingly with the boy still in his arms. Suddenly, in an act of total dedication, he thrust his son toward the altar, the child's hair falling over his father's strong left arm.
    With anguished but unfaltering conviction the man spoke: "Take
    this child and sacrifice him to Oro! For the consecration of the temple has been broken by him, the thread of our union with Oro has been entangled. He is my son. I begat him. But I do not weep in losing him, for he has outraged Oro."
    At first the priests ignored the man and left him standing with the boy in his arms while with haughty indifference they finished slaughtering the pigs. Then, with fresh blood for Oro on their hands, two priests picked up a pair of stout bamboo rods. Holding one pair of ends rigidly together, they opened the others and formed a giant pincers which they deftly dropped over the child's head, one bamboo catching him at the nape of the neck, the other across the throat. With remorseless force they closed the pincers and held the little boy