The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1902-02-20
CHAPTER XVIII.

duty Dy the last testament OF Oncle
Tom-to find his daughter Helene,
and restore to her her proper Inherit
ance-and the still greater eagerness,
amounting almost to blood-thirstiness,
which consumed me, to reach the
hateful and false priestess Kaumai
and punish her for my poor sisters
death, fastened my recovery. My
will asserted itself, and I rapidly i'm
proved, so that before week longer
had passed was fit to undertake the
Journey either to Lanai, to find the
priestess, or to Wailuku to hunt up
the wicked Jean Chicot or his de-
scendants, if he had any living, and
wrest from them the knowledge of my
cousin Helene's present whereabouts.
Gordon had so arranged his official
matters that lie could leave his next
highest officer in command, and devote
his entire time to my assistance. But
Gordon went into the search for the
heiress to The Corals with far less
sense of duty than I did. In fact, he
often said that it would be no more
than right to let the thing 60 by de-
fault. and keep the estate myself. He
claimed that the daughter of Annette
Chicot, and the granddaughter OF the
wicked Jean and his equally wicked
wife, would, by this time, have i'm.
bibed their views and grown up in
their ways, which would render her
an unfit custodian of SO vast an
estate. But Gordon's views were
warped by his affection for me. I
knew perfectly well that had he been
placed in the same circumstances, he
would not leave a stone unturned until
he had found the rightful owner and
placed her in possession Of everything
that belonged to her.
And there was another reason for
Gordon's disinclination to pursue this
search-at once. He had become
somewhat stern and forbidding-al-
most morose-the change dating prin-
cipally from the day I proved to him
on the porch that what he had learned
to fear from my utterances while in
the fever was only too true. He had
felt all the time great sorrow over the
unfortunate loss;of my sister, but had
plunged into the search for her, and
had carried the search on months after
month with an energy and hope born
only of love. This hope had sus-
tanned his equanimity to a certain ex.
tent. But now that he had learned
of Winnie's death, and the horrible
manner in which it was brought
about, he was simply mad with the
one idea to find the murderers and
their priestess and bring them all to
punishment. Now that I was well
out of danger, the thought OF revenge
was uppermost in his mind, and
crowded and dwarfed every other
thought.
Twas as eager to find the murderers
Of Winnie as he was, but felt that ]
owed it to Uucle Tom to attend
to his affairs first. I was forced
to swallow my sorrow and
look at the question philosophi-
cally. Winnie was dead. No matter
what we did, or how much we hur-
ried, we could do her no good. Had
it been otherwise, I would have been
on the way to the island of Lanai be-
fore was able to walk without assis-
tance. But knew that my poor sis.
ter's beautiful form lay imbedded in
the lava somewhere Oh Kapatoli, and
all my haste would be of no avail in
her behalf. And my revenge could
wait. It would be sweeter when it
came. No matter if years elapsed. I
would, when T found Kaumai, delight
in watching her death struggles.
So Gordon and I argued the ques.
ton, but as it was really my affair
either way, he finally came around SO
far as to agree to go to Wailuku first,
aad if we found but little difficulty in
tracing the Chicots and my uncle's
daughter, to pursue that errand first.
But he stipulated that if We found
difficulties in our way, or the search
promised to be q long one, we were
to 90 to Lanai, dispatch the priests
that had escaped the volcano, and deal
with Kaumai as she deserved, if she,
too, had escaped the eruption.
So, with twenty soldiers from the
garrison at Honolulu, we started for
Wailuku.
There was attached to the war
department a little steamer, pur-
chased to convey officers Of that de-
partment or others high in authority
to and fro among the islands.
It was a splendid little sea-going