Kaula Hao 2 2022

Nearly a month transpired before Abner could have visitors to attend to him and keep him company, if only for a short while.

Only the priest from a nearby parish came and sat with Abner to pray, but the old slave owner would have none of it. He only asked to see the plantation bosses with him. He felt he acquainted a true friendship, but as the priest would tell Abner, "They have no desire to keep company with you, brother Abner. Their reputations cannot afford it."

So Abner sat alone with only the food they gave him and the time to exercise in the yard. It was the middle of the second month was he finally had a visitor. "Mister Abner," Manu greeted him while taking a stool to sit where the two were separated by the iron bars of his jail cell. "Have you been keeping well?"

Abner jumped up from his makeshift cot and growled at Manu about the audacity of coming to see him and asking such a stupid question. "I'm here because of you!" He bellowed. Picking up the make shift chair next to his cot, he flung it across the room, shattering the useless piece of furniture up against the bars. The guards opened the cell and rushed Abner, cornering him and beating him about the head and body with their billy clubs and blackjacks until he crumpled to the ground. "When you are prepared to be civil and more moved toward decent conversation, I will return in one mahina from today," Manu said, unbothered by what transpired. "We'll see how you do then."

Credit: Lahaina Restoration Foundation