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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76499 ***
+
+
+[Illustration: Statue of Kamehameha I, Honolulu.]
+
+
+
+
+  Hawaiian Idylls of
+  Love and Death
+
+  BY THE
+  REV. HERBERT H. GOWEN
+  F.R.G.S., M.R.S.A. (LOND.)
+  _Author of “The Paradise of the Pacific,” etc._
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  NEW YORK
+  COCHRANE PUBLISHING CO.
+  1908
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1908, by
+  COCHRANE PUBLISHING CO.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The following stories are concerned mainly with incidents bearing
+on the career of the first sovereign of the Hawaiian archipelago,
+Kamehameha I, worthily distinguished from his successors as “Kamehameha
+the Great,” who, born about the year 1736, achieved the unification of
+the group in 1795, and died in 1819, leaving behind him no one capable
+of following in his footsteps.
+
+A few words about this notable ruler of a kingdom now no more may not
+be amiss as introductory to the stories to follow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every visitor to Honolulu finds his way in course of time to
+the splendid square between the Iolani Palace and the Aliiolani
+Hale. At least, such were the names borne till recent years by
+the dwelling-place of the sovereign and the meeting-place of the
+legislators of Hawaii. But times are changed, and names have changed
+with them. Now more prosaic names have been adopted by more prosaic
+times.
+
+Changing times, however, can never take away the interest attaching to
+one prominent object in this square, just in front of the Legislative
+Buildings. For monarch and legislature, ay, and people, too, may pass
+away and only bring into greater relief the true greatness of the man
+whose statue here keeps sentry guard.
+
+It is the statue of the chief who made Hawaii a kingdom, and gave it
+such cohesion and such stability that as a kingdom it endured for just
+a century. Here stands Kamehameha I, “the lonely one,” as his name
+implies, represented by the artist as he might have appeared in life
+at the head of his army in those heroic days when the chiefs of Hawaii
+fought “like gods of war dispensing fate.”
+
+We see him here a man of gigantic mould, with furrowed and smileless
+countenance, as of one who seldom spoke save to command, and who
+commanded to be obeyed. Spear in hand, feather-helmet on head, and on
+his shoulders the famous feather cloak which took nine generations of
+kings to construct--we seem to see before us that “Mars armipotent,” of
+whom it might be said, as it was said of the Homeric hero:
+
+  “On him the war is bent, the darts are shed,
+   And all their falchions wave about his head:
+   Repulsed, he stands, nor from his stand retires,
+   But with repeated shouts his army fires.”
+
+The statue was modelled after a fine specimen of the Hawaiian race,
+named Kaopuiki, with whom the writer has several times crossed the
+channel from Maui to Lanai, but we have authority for the features in
+the portrait painted by M. Choris, the artist attached to Kotzebue’s
+expedition in 1816. This is the only authentic picture of Kamehameha in
+existence, and was painted when he was nearly eighty years old.
+
+Over a hundred and ten years ago, in the year of our era 1795,
+this man effected what, under the circumstances, seemed a task of
+insuperable difficulty--the union of the eight islands of the Hawaiian
+group under one government. What those difficulties were only those
+who have studied the matter will be able to appreciate. Here it will
+suffice to say that of his race there was none like him before, there
+has been none like him since. In all that shadowy time from the dawn of
+Hawaiian history to the establishment of intercourse with the western
+world, the time of heroes eight or nine feet high, who wielded spears
+ten yards long; heroes who fought with gods and received aid from gods,
+as the Greek warriors at Troy from Minerva and Apollo--heroes like
+Kiha of the magic conch, like Liloa and Umi and Lono, there was none
+who accomplished what Kamehameha did by the patient toil and dauntless
+courage of forty years.
+
+And in all the time since, in spite of that unexampled advance in
+civilization, which has made of Hawaii a land of telephones, electric
+light, public schools, universal suffrage and the rest, there has
+arisen no Hawaiian with one-tenth part of the manhood possessed and
+used, mainly for good, by this heroic savage.
+
+If the conquests of Kamehameha were inferior in extent to those of
+Alexander, it was because he had not Alexander’s scope. At any rate,
+he fought till he had no more worlds to conquer, and what he conquered
+he kept for himself and his family until the dynasty expired. Like
+Napoleon (and Kamehameha is often spoken of as the “Napoleon of the
+Pacific”), he had an unswerving faith in his destiny. Otherwise, he
+never could have overcome so completely the obstacles in his way.
+
+For, although the uniting of eight small islands into one kingdom
+may appear to us a slight achievement, as a matter of fact, the task
+was anything but easy. Each of the islands had its traditions of
+pre-eminence, and the relations of island with island were marked by
+furious jealousy and hostility. Intercourse, for many generations, was
+almost suspended, except for purposes of war. Even a few years ago the
+natives of the windward and the leeward islands could be distinguished
+by their language--the Kauai and Oahu people using _t_ and _r_ in the
+Tahitian dialect, where the natives of Hawaii and Maui used _k_ and
+_l_. But the fusion commenced by Kamehameha has progressed so well that
+the ancient differences of language are nearly as much obliterated as
+the desire for separate and independent governments.
+
+The consolidation of the kingdoms had been attempted before by able
+soldiers and statesmen, but had failed. Even the wise and philanthropic
+Vancouver tried to dissuade Kamehameha from what he believed a Utopian
+scheme which must result disastrously. Nevertheless, the savage
+followed his stars and prevailed.
+
+The late king--Kalakaua--an unbiased witness, since he succeeded to the
+throne as the first of a new line, unconnected with and in a measure
+hostile to the dynasty of the Kamehamehas--thus passes judgment on his
+illustrious predecessor:
+
+“Kamehameha was a man of tremendous physical and intellectual
+strength. In any land, and in any age, he would have been a leader.
+The impress of his mind remains with his crude and vigorous laws, and
+wherever he stepped is seen an imperishable track. He was so strong of
+limb that ordinary men were but children in his grasp, and in council
+the wisest yielded to his judgment. He seems to have been born a man
+and to have had no boyhood. He was always sedate and thoughtful,
+and, from his earliest years, cared for no sport or pastime that was
+not manly. He had a harsh and rugged face, less given to smiles than
+frowns, but strongly marked with lines indicative of self-reliance
+and changeless purpose. He was barbarous, unforgiving and merciless
+to his enemies, but just, sagacious and considerate in dealing with
+his subjects. He was more feared than loved or respected; but his
+strength of arm and force of character well fitted him for the supreme
+chieftaincy of the group, and he accomplished what no one else could
+have done in his day.”
+
+This extract does no more than justice to Kamehameha’s powers of body
+and mind. Indeed it was his intellectual greatness which distinguished
+him so much from his contemporaries, and which forms his chief claim to
+the recognition of thoughtful men of all times and races.
+
+He is, in the first place, worthy to be put beside Fabius Maximus
+for his invincible pertinacity and patience. “_Unus homo cunctando
+restituit rem_,” was said of Hannibal’s great conqueror, and of the
+conqueror of Kalanikapule and _la haute noblesse_ of all Hawaii it
+might be said with truth that not less by waiting than by fighting
+did he make for himself a kingdom. There may have been something
+of the Hawaiian indifference to the flight of time in the patience
+which enabled Kamehameha to take defeat so easily and to retire so
+contentedly, like another Cincinnatus, to cultivate his patrimonial
+fields at Waipio, but there was also without doubt abundant faith in
+waiting for the fullness of time--a faith the very reverse of common in
+barbarous or semi-civilized communities.
+
+None knew, like Kamehameha, how to endure defeat so as to make it but
+a step to a deferred but more complete victory. Had he been a student
+of history he might well have adopted the words of Admiral Coligni,
+who said of himself: “In one respect I may claim superiority over
+Alexander, over Scipio, over Cæsar. They won great battles, it is true.
+I have lost four great battles; and yet I shew to the enemy a more
+formidable front than ever.”
+
+Nevertheless, Kamehameha knew when to strike and did strike hard. Like
+Napoleon, he could hurl all his force at a given point with marvellous
+celerity and precision, and, once having developed his plan, he
+suffered no obstacle to prevent its being carried into effect.
+
+In the third place, he had a singular power of knowing the right
+instruments to employ in his undertakings. Very many great men ruin
+the work they take in hand, either by undertaking too much personally,
+or else by employing inefficient and unsuitable instruments. In either
+case, the work fails to outlive the worker, even if he be not destined
+to see the ruin himself. It is sometimes said that such and such a
+successful ruler had the good fortune to be surrounded by such and
+such a brilliant galaxy of statesmen. The good fortune is in reality
+the good sense and insight which lead a ruler to select the fit
+instruments for his purpose.
+
+Kamehameha’s throne had for its pillars of support men who might very
+well have been his rivals, and among all the notable chiefs of the
+time none was discarded or neglected, save such men as Kaiana, whose
+fickleness made him more of a menace than a mainstay. As it was, few
+kings ever had an abler council--more conspicuous for courage in battle
+or for wisdom in the arts of government--than that which included men
+like Kalanimoku, _alias_ William Pitt, Kameeiamoku and Keeaumoku, and
+the Englishmen--Young and Davis.
+
+Kamehameha, too, lived long enough after he had crushed out all
+opposition to his rule to show that he understood the art of
+consolidating as well as that of establishing a monarchy. For
+twenty-five years he governed Hawaii with steadily increasing skill
+and enlightenment, piloting the new kingdom through every kind of
+embroilment with the nations represented in the realm.
+
+Like William the Conqueror, he purposed to govern with good laws what
+he had won with a cruel sword, and, if he was overstern to repress,
+he undoubtedly spared the country much misery which a weaker or more
+lenient policy might have entailed.
+
+Finally, looking at Kamehameha as a man, rather than as a ruler,
+we need not deny him the title of “Great.” He could be loved as
+well as feared. He was scrupulously just, even when it came to the
+condemnation of his own past actions, and perhaps greater than any
+victory over the rival chiefs was the victory he won over himself when
+he broke free from the trammels the “fire-water” of the foreigner were
+fast making for him, and bade his countrymen imitate him and be free.
+
+Enough has been suggested in these introductory remarks to make
+clear that not only to the antiquary, searching amid the ruins of a
+perishing people for some faded remnants of romance; not only to the
+historian, seeking here and there in the archives of nations to glean
+illustrations of some great historical generalization; not only to the
+lover of the story of war and adventure; but, above all, to the student
+of men as men the memory of the first monarch of Hawaii ought to be of
+sufficient interest not to pass into oblivion.
+
+For heroism is of no one age, and of no one race. It commands the
+sympathy and respect of all, and it is the writer’s hope that these
+simple sketches may show, in the story of the first Kamehameha, that
+touch of Nature which makes the whole world kin, that quality of
+manhood which obliterates the distinction between white and black,
+between East and West, between the man of yesterday and the man of
+to-day.
+
+  “For East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
+   Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
+   But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
+   When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the
+     ends of the earth.”
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                         PAGE
+
+     I--THE POISON GODDESS OF MOLOKAI      11
+
+    II--THE STORY OF THE KIHA-PU           19
+
+   III--THE SPLINTERED PADDLE              27
+
+    IV--THE SLANDERED PRIEST OF OAHU       34
+
+     V--KEALA                              43
+
+    VI--PELE DECLARES FOR KAMEHAMEHA       51
+
+   VII--THE CITY OF REFUGE                 59
+
+  VIII--SWEET LEILEHUA                     67
+
+    IX--THE SPOUTING CAVE OF LANAI         78
+
+     X--LONO’S LAST MARTYR                 89
+
+    XI--KEOUA, A STORY OF KALAWAO         101
+
+
+
+
+Hawaiian Idylls of Love and Death
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE POISON GODDESS OF MOLOKAI
+
+
+Kaneakama was as handsome a young fellow as you could have found on the
+eight islands; neither unknown to war nor unskilled in divination and
+the learning of the priests. But he had one vice--he was an inveterate
+gambler.
+
+And here he sat in his grass hut on the slopes of the Olukui, feeling
+as miserable as any wretch of to-day who had squandered his patrimony
+at Monte Carlo, for he had been playing _maika_ the whole day long and
+luck had been against him at every throw. The devil, he thought, must
+have been in the smooth black stones; throw as he might, they would not
+go straight. Yes, they were certainly bewitched. And now he had nothing
+to call his own but one little pig--everything was lost.
+
+Why did he not stake the pig? you ask. Ah! Kaneakama had asked himself
+that question many a time that evening, but had each time repelled the
+very thought as a temptation. For he had dedicated this pig to his
+Aumakua, or tutelary divinity, and with all his faults he was too
+pious to break his vows to the gods.
+
+So, although happy thus far in the possession of a good conscience,
+he nursed his grief until the kind divinities sent their messenger,
+sleep--welcome to all men everywhere.
+
+And, as Kaneakama slept, he had a wonderful vision. The song of a bird
+broke upon his ear, then the sweet sounds transformed themselves into
+an aura of radial light and in the light he beheld the loveliest form
+he had ever seen.
+
+It was that of a young girl, but Kaneakama’s first impression was
+that it was some glorious bird, for he wanted to get up and throw a
+mat across the door lest she should fly away. Her black hair fell in
+a great shadow behind her like a pair of wings; no chief arrayed for
+battle had feather cloak so rich in orange and scarlet as that which
+clung to her perfect form from throat to shapely knee. Her eyes, too,
+even in the bright aura which encircled her, shone like stars in the
+night.
+
+Kaneakama gazed he knew not how long, and when he came to himself he
+was only conscious of having received a command from the goddess (for
+such indeed was his adorable visitant) to take his dedicated pig and
+stake it as he had done the rest. You see, the gods and goddesses of
+ancient Hawaii had rather backward ideas regarding the morality of
+gambling.
+
+However, Kaneakama is not to be blamed for this. He did as his divinity
+had told him, and now if the ill-luck of his former experience had been
+surprising, still more so was the turn of fortune which seemed to pour
+riches into his lap. He went home from that day’s _maika_-playing a
+rich man, but, remembering the source of his wealth, he determined to
+dedicate one-half of it to the service of the goddess, and to build a
+temple where she might dwell and receive his worship.
+
+This he did, and no sooner was the temple so far completed that it only
+lacked its central idol, than once more the vision of the Aumakua broke
+in upon his sleep.
+
+This time there was no doubt about the voice. It was as sweet to hear
+as the vision was to see.
+
+“Go to the king, O Kaneakama,” it said; “tell him that the _akua_ wish
+to dwell in the temple made by man in the shadow of his court. Power
+shall be his if he will shelter them. Let him send warriors with their
+axes and knives to the top of Maunaloa. Out of the wood let them hew me
+an image, and this shall be my shrine in the _heiau_ you have built,
+and you, O Kaneakama, shall be my high-priest, worshipper and lover of
+Kalaipahoa, terrible to mortals.”
+
+When Kaneakama awoke he hastened to obey the command, and the king was
+pleased to hear of the honours in store. Three hundred men were chosen;
+and these, carrying, besides their weapons, great folds of _kapa_ (for
+the venom of the poison goddess was a thing to be dreaded), set out on
+their march. Kaneakama, commissioned by the king, went before them as a
+guide to the spot designated in his sleep.
+
+As they marched they recalled all they had heard of the poison
+goddess--how she had come from an unknown land to Molokai and had made
+her home on Maunaloa. There, so it was said, the earth was burnt
+and blackened, and the birds fell dead as they flew over it. It was,
+moreover, the dwelling-place of Laamaomao, the god of the winds, and
+at any moment a strong spirit of the air might break loose from the
+calabash of the god and hurl the intruders afar into the Paiolo Channel.
+
+So they journeyed on with teeth chattering and hearts cold within them.
+They climbed upwards along the torrent-bed over boulders for two hours
+or more; then they came to the forest belt where the silver leaves of
+the _kukui_ seemed to shiver with sympathetic fear; then they came to
+the black lava slopes, where they had to look carefully to their steps.
+
+At last they heard a rumbling like that of the winds of Laamaomao
+wrestling in his calabash, and suddenly before them lay the vast
+extinct crater, half hidden in the mist.
+
+Their way lay downwards, the mist parting to receive them, until they
+saw in front of them a great black blot, such as a fire would make in
+some weird forest which shrivels and blackens but will not burn. The
+only whiteness was the whiteness of the bones strewn around, and the
+only greenness came from one tree in the centre, which rose erect and
+plumy in this wilderness of death. Some said they beheld a scarlet and
+yellow bird perched in its branches, but many doubted, as they saw
+strong-winged birds fly right up to the rim of the circle and fall dead
+as though pierced by an arrow.
+
+It was true, then, this story of the poison goddess; it was true that
+her touch was death. One hundred men went straightway back to the
+king, afraid. But Kaneakama stayed the fear of the others and commanded
+them to do their work.
+
+Twenty men took their axes and went forward to hew down the tree,
+but, alas! they fell dead before they had advanced twenty yards. Five
+times did Kaneakama send fresh detachments forward, moving slowly in a
+circle, and five times did they perish as beneath a blast of death. So
+five circles of dead men lay round about the tree.
+
+Then Kaneakama commanded half the remaining hundred to take _kapa_ and
+wrap themselves in it, making of it masks and shields, and they went
+forward till they reached the tree. Then they hewed at it, each man
+dying with the blow he struck, till, with a noise that awoke echoes in
+Maunaloa, the great tree fell crashing through the shrivelled trunks
+around it. Then the remaining band, still shielding themselves as
+best they could with the _kapa_, took their _pahoas_ and cut away the
+branches, working feverishly, for men fainted and fell apace, till at
+last a rough shape was ready to be carried back to the _heiau_.
+
+It was a rough and ugly idol, with widely distended mouth (to be filled
+presently with hideous rows of shark’s teeth), extended arms, hands
+and fingers, but Kaneakama looked beyond the art of the craftsman,
+and, wrapping the image in fold upon fold of _kapa_, he with his few
+remaining men wended his way down the mountainside, through the long
+valley to the seashore.
+
+There was great rejoicing at the court when Kalaipahoa, for so the
+goddess hewn out with daggers was named, was placed in her shrine, and
+the temple dedicated with many victims; but all the rejoicing was
+faint and hollow as compared with the joy of the man who was at once
+the high-priest and lover of the goddess.
+
+When he ministered before the shrine he saw not the rough and hideous
+idol, but the celestial beauty of the birdlike maiden who had visited
+him in the night visions. If she was terrible to others, she was always
+smiling and beneficent to him.
+
+Yet, though he faithfully performed his duties at the _heiau_, carrying
+and presenting the offerings, interpreting the wishes of the goddess
+to the king, performing all the accustomed rites and observing all the
+prescribed tabus, he was not yet satisfied. It grew more and more hard
+to nourish himself on visions of the past. He recalled how that Pele,
+the volcano goddess, had had a mortal lover and had come down on earth
+to dwell. Why should not Kalaipahoa give him at least a sign? From
+pitying those who had died in the mountain, he began to envy them.
+
+O man of little faith! The sign came. He dreamed and seemed in his
+dreams in Paliuli, the Elysian land, land of the blue mountain and the
+water of life, and, as soon as his eyes could bear the light, he saw
+Kalaipahoa in all her radiance, and around her stood the men who had
+perished at the shaping of the idol. They bore her calabashes, waved
+her _kahilis_, and stood about her as her soldiers and her slaves. But
+after one swift glance around him, Kaneakama saw only Kalaipahoa, and
+she, so he believed, saw only him.
+
+“O Kalaipahoa,” he cried, “why am I worse off than the serfs who died
+in Maunaloa? They stand in thy presence and see thy face, while I toil
+in thy service and have no reward!”
+
+Kalaipahoa’s face lightened with a smile.
+
+“Foolish mortal!” she cried, “did you not see that my court is
+incomplete, wanting its greatest? The great chiefs have their
+‘companions in death,’ but you have your household gone before you.
+However, you shall have your reward to-night.”
+
+Then she bade him bring the _puhenehene_ board and play.
+
+He played; but, alas! such was his confusion that he lost every game,
+and such his preoccupation that he was not even sorry to find himself
+once again a pauper. At last he had nothing left to lose, and knew not
+what to do.
+
+“Stake yourself!” cried a sweet voice.
+
+No sooner said than done. Once more the stones were thrown. Once more
+Kaneakama lost. And the vision vanished, the goddess with a smile still
+upon her face.
+
+“Ah, well!” said Kaneakama, “I am the lover of the goddess; I will die.
+Let me prepare an offering for her; I will place bananas in her hands
+and will share her feast. It may be she will bid me come sit at her
+feet.”
+
+He prepared his offering, and dared to take of the food presented to
+the goddess. The banana he ate must have received from the hands of
+the goddess the gift of death, for when the temple slaves came next
+morning to the _heiau_, there, before the shrine of wickerwork, lay the
+lover of the goddess--dead, and, by the look of his eyes, he had died
+neither unwillingly nor afraid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was this image of Kalaipahoa that Kamehameha long begged in vain
+from Kahekili. It came to him after the death of the savage old Maui
+chief and he kept it always near him. It was a useful idol to him, for
+a single chip placed in the food of an obnoxious person would send
+him to the shades in less than twenty-four hours. Kamehameha, by his
+will, had the image divided among some of his chiefs, but the good
+Queen Kaahumanu collected all the chips she could lay her hands on, and
+burned them.
+
+It is said, however, one or two fragments are still in existence.
+Perhaps the visitor to Honolulu may find them in the Kamehameha museum,
+but let us hope their virulent properties may never be put to the test.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE STORY OF THE KIHA-PU
+
+  “Of this small horn one feeble blast
+   Would fearful odds against thee cast.”
+
+                             --“_The Lady of the Lake._”
+
+
+The minstrels of the olden world were wont to sing of the marvels of
+Olifant, the magic horn of Roland, which that glorious paladin had won
+in battle from the giant Jatmund. All nature trembled at its blast, the
+fowls of the air fell dead, the trees shivered and the hearts of the
+Saracens failed them for fear, even though the sound came from thirty
+miles away.
+
+The counterpart of this famous horn is, we believe, still to be seen
+among the relics of the old savage world of Hawaii preserved in the
+museum at Honolulu. Let the visitor not fail to ask for a sight of
+the Kiha-pu, the famous war trumpet or magic conch of Kiha. It is a
+huge nautilus-shell of a species exceedingly rare in the island group,
+adorned (one can scarcely say beautified) with the inlaid teeth of
+conquered chieftains whose death-cry was once drowned by that strident
+blast. Whenever the trumpet is blown, such at least is the popular
+belief, the groans and cries of these old warriors are heard on the
+wind. Far back in the generations of old, in the twelfth century of
+our era, this wonder-working shell was brought from the distant isles
+of Samoa, but its historical career in Hawaii does not commence till
+the reign of the mighty warrior Kiha, who ruled the land for forty
+years midway in the fifteenth century.
+
+Since then in what innumerable battles has it played its part!
+Kamehameha prized it as he prized Kalaipahoa, the poison goddess;
+Kaili, the war god, or even as he prized the fire-vomiting guns of the
+white men. The unique qualities of the Kiha-pu caused its possession to
+be eagerly coveted by the rival chiefs. When blown with skill, it had
+power over the gods and over the legions of genii. Were the canoes at
+sea and the rowers lacking food, one blast of the Kiha-pu would summon
+Ukanipu, the shark god, to drive the flying fish so that they might
+fall into the open boats. Were it necessary to replenish the water
+calabashes, then the trumpet could call upon Kuluiau, the goddess of
+rain, and the oarsmen would have scarce time to arrange the vessels
+ere the rain came down from the clouds in torrents. Was it wind that
+was wanted, lo! in answer to the prayer of the Kiha-pu, Laamaomao,
+the god of wind, would open his swelling calabashes towards the sea,
+and the breezes would rush forth. Thus useful in peace, it was a
+hundredfold useful in war. The king could send forth at will strident
+voices such as startled the ears of the enemy with challenge to battle
+and premonition of defeat. He could make the magic conch utter clarion
+notes such as would summon the forces of the spirit world to his aid
+and rally his people from the most hopeless fight. The sound was like
+the sound of breakers against the rocky shores of Hawaii.
+
+To-day, alas! though the horn may still be blown, no deity responds to
+its despairing wail. When, during the native insurrection of 1889, the
+shell conches sounded out shrilly upon the air, many of those present
+thought of the Kiha-pu and its traditional magic. But Lono came not
+from his age-long sleep, and all things conspired to show that the
+potency of the trumpet of Kiha was no more.
+
+Here is a tale founded on the old meles, of the times when the famous
+conch was in the hands of the king who gave it its name.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kiha was desirous of a new feather cloak to mark his dignity among
+the _alii_. He would summon to his presence the feather hunters to
+go forth into the forest to snare the _mame_ and the _oo_, that from
+their brilliant feathers of scarlet and yellow he might weave his royal
+mantle. To bring them to the royal enclosure he bethought himself of
+the Kiha-pu and dispatched its trusted guardian, whose name was Hoilo,
+to bring it forthwith from the _heiau_ or temple. In a little while
+Hoilo came back with rueful countenance and announced that the treasure
+had disappeared. In its place was an ugly, carved black stone.
+
+The king, as may be imagined, was terribly wroth, but waxing wise with
+cunning he concealed from everybody his loss, even announcing to Hoilo
+that the shell was in a place known to himself. But, as soon as he
+dared, he hastened to the _heiau_ and there made a confidant of the
+high-priest, with whom he consulted as to the fate of the Kiha-pu.
+After the due sacrifices, there came a response from the oracle. A
+voice from the wicker shrine announced that the conch had been stolen
+by a band of marauders, half human and half demon, who had for some
+time been prowling about the neighborhood. The king was in despair,
+but presently a gleam of hope was vouchsafed by the tidings that the
+lost treasure should be recovered by the king on the day when Kiha
+ate of the first fruit of the cocoanut tree to be planted by himself
+at the next fullness of the moon. In answer to the question as to who
+should be the instrument of the restoration, only the mysterious reply
+was given that it would be a being without hands and wearing neither a
+_malo_ nor mantle.
+
+It was with a very heavy heart that Kiha returned to his palace,
+knowing that his trumpet was in the hands of the demi-demon band, but
+nevertheless he dissembled his grief, kept his secret manfully, planted
+his cocoanut and watered the soil daily with his own hand.
+
+In the meanwhile the demons departed with their spoil northwards to
+Kauai, where after many adventures they arrived and settled themselves
+down in the mountains at the back of Waimea.
+
+Here Ika, the leader of the band, who took care to retain the personal
+control of the Kiha-pu, had the misfortune to provoke, by some unusual
+piece of tyranny, a quarrel with one of his comrades, and this latter,
+bent upon revenge, determined to repeat the theft, for his own personal
+ends, of the magic trumpet. Not willing to run the risk of being
+its possessor, however, he contented himself with robbing it of its
+miraculous powers. He found out that this could be effected by placing
+a cross mark upon its rim, accompanying the operation with incantations
+and prayers to Lono. So, while Ika lay, made drunk with _awa_, the
+Kiha-pu was stolen, marked with the tabu sign by the priest at Waiolani
+and returned again to its place. The next day Ika arose, hung the horn
+by its cord of human hair around his neck and sallied proudly forth,
+as he had been wont, to exhibit its wonderful powers, and extort the
+admiration of his followers. But, alas! when he raised the conch to his
+mouth and blew, even though he blew with the full force of his lungs,
+there came back nothing but a comparatively feeble, natural hollow
+sound.
+
+Ika was sadly mortified at his humiliation in the sight of men, and
+still more so when, after further and fruitless experiments, he had to
+confess that the virtue of the ill-gotten trophy had departed.
+
+He came to the conclusion that supernatural powers had been invoked
+against him, and in search of further light paid a visit to an aged
+seer at Waialua to enquire whether the voice of the Kiha-pu would be
+ever restored. To his great joy the answer was returned: “Yes, once
+more among the hills of Hawaii the Kiha-pu shall speak to the ears
+of gods and men.” More than this, the prophet, after the manner of
+oracles, refused to tell.
+
+Thereupon Ika decided to return at once with his companions to Hawaii,
+and in a few days they had crossed the channels, beheld once more the
+snows of the very district from which they had so suddenly decamped
+eight years before.
+
+Now it happened that on this very day King Kiha, who, to the amazement
+of his people, had been apparently spending eight years in the
+cultivation of a single palm, went out to his tree and was delighted
+to find that three cocoanuts had attained their maturity and were
+ready for his eating. In accordance with the ritual prescribed by the
+priests, these were now solemnly eaten, and at the very moment the
+feast was consummated came the news that the band of demoniac marauders
+had reoccupied the marshy wood behind the mountains of Waipio.
+
+The tidings had scarcely reached the expectant chief when, lo! there
+was a tumult at the palace gate and, advancing a few steps, Kiha beheld
+the royal guard bringing into his presence the strangest looking old
+man he had ever seen. His hands were tied behind his back for more
+security, but at his heels followed an object still stranger to the
+eye. It was a dog, a big, ill-shapen beast of no earthly breed. It had
+blue bristles, its ears were human and the eyes were small and fiery,
+like those of a demon, one burning with a greenish light, and the other
+white.
+
+The charge against the man was that of stealing _awa_, and it was
+represented that the dog, in this business, was his accomplice and a
+marvellously cunning brute. Across the mind of the king, however, there
+flashed the prediction of the oracle, which he had kept hoarded up in
+his mind. Surely, here, in this dog, was a being without hands and
+wearing neither _malo_ nor mantle. Was not this the instrument of the
+gods, sent to his aid?
+
+Without a moment’s delay he had the two, the man and the dog, sent to
+the _heiau_ at Pakaalani, and thence he sent forth the dog to hunt
+through the mountains the wonder-working conch, and recover it from the
+hands of the thief.
+
+There could be no doubt that the strange hound understood his mission,
+for he leaped through the open door, hurried to the mountains, and,
+after a long hunt, at length seized and bore away in his teeth the
+object of Kiha’s eight years’ quest. As, however, he was returning down
+the mountains, for one moment he dropped his spoil, and then there
+rang out upon the air a sound terrible to hear. For in the fall a tiny
+piece of the Kiha-pu, the very piece upon which was scratched the tabu
+cross of Lono, was broken off, and, liberated from silence, the old
+voice sounded forth as in the years gone by, startling the unaccustomed
+echoes of the mountains.
+
+The robbers heard and, discovering their loss, started in pursuit. The
+king heard, too, and found it hard to possess his soul in patience
+till the dog’s return. Presently the door of the temple burst open and
+in rushed the green-eyed dog with the Kiha-pu in his mouth. The weird
+brute dropped it at the king’s feet, and then immediately fell dead.
+His companion, the _awa_-stealer, was inconsolable for his loss, but
+Kiha awarded to him a royally generous compensation, and then placing
+the horn to his lips blew such a blast as the mountains of Hawaii had
+not heard for many a year. The troops rushed together at the potent
+summons, and, led at once into the mountains, fell upon the demon band.
+
+In a few hours the whole gang was exterminated, with the exception
+of Ika and two or three of his comrades, who were reserved for the
+sacrifices at the _heiau_, to be offered on the rededication of the
+Kiha-pu.
+
+After this, Kiha took more care of his famous trumpet and regarded it
+as one of the chief talismans by which the authority of the throne was
+supported, but the _awa_-stealer, though having no further need of
+recourse to his old trade, deemed his new fortune no true compensation
+for the loss of his old friend, the green-eyed dog.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE SPLINTERED PADDLE
+
+
+In the year 1784 there was raging on the island of Hawaii the conflict
+known as “_Kaua awa_,” or “the bitter war,” a name very accurately
+descriptive of its exasperating and unmerciful character. There were in
+those days two kinds of wars in Hawaii, viz., wars of courtesy, when
+the arrangements for the contest were made with the most punctilious
+regard for the etiquette of Hawaiian chivalry, when the object of the
+invasion was considerately notified, and the place of landing and of
+battle carefully chosen, and, in the second place, wars of devastation,
+when everything was done to harass a foeman without respect to his
+feelings.
+
+The “bitter war,” however, outran even this latter in the envenomed
+nature of the hostility aroused between the contending chiefs. These
+were, on the one side, Keoua and Keawemauhili, high chiefs who had
+lately shared the defeat of the ill-fated Kiwaloa in the battle of
+Mokuohai, and, on the other side, Kamehameha, whose future destiny had
+already been revealed to men like Keeaumoku, “the king-maker” of Hawaii.
+
+These three waged a kind of triangular contest for the sovereignty
+of the island and brought to the struggle animosities which had been
+intensified by the events following the death of Kalaniopuu and his
+son.
+
+For the moment, however, there was a lull in the campaign. Kamehameha
+had retired foiled, with his fleet, upon Laupahoehoe. Keawemauhili had
+just lost the help of the mercenaries from Maui, and Keoua was busy
+collecting his forces. In fact some parts of the country were enjoying
+the unwonted feeling of peace, and remained undisturbed by the arrival
+of the fleet-footed _lunapais_ to gather together the tribesmen for the
+war.
+
+Such was the case along the Puna coast, near the extreme southeastern
+point of the island, not far from the ever-burning abode of Pele in
+Kilauea. A traveler, dropping down near the village of Kapoho one
+morning in the early summer, would have thought the scene an ideal
+picture of peace. The purple mountains in the background seemed still
+asleep under the morning shadows which hung among the groves of _kukui_
+and _kou_; the surf on the white reef was lazily playing with the
+branching coral; and the blue-green water of the Pacific slumbered
+under the long, level rays of the awaking sun. Yet, early as it was, a
+hundred dusky fisher folk of the Puna coast were plying their business,
+not with the fierce energy of western workers who rise early to wage
+war with the hours, but with the happy languor of those who have no
+quarrel with Time, and know that the whole day is before them, one long
+free leisure, in which they can lazily catch and prepare and enjoy the
+bounty of the sea.
+
+They have taken out in the canoes an immense rope of banana leaves,
+fully half a mile in length, and are spreading it in a circle upon the
+shining waters. When spread out it is a veritable magic ring. Glancing
+down into the waters beneath, you may perceive hundreds of strange
+creatures of the deep, blue, green, scarlet and yellow, with queer
+beaks and fins, darting hither and thither, but never daring--poor,
+silly fishes, like some inhabitants of the upper air--to cross the
+black shadow which hangs so threateningly over them. And, after a
+while, the fishermen enter with the canoes and, poising their spears,
+strike where and when they choose, till the boats begin to sink deeper
+in the sea with the weight of their finny spoil.
+
+Such was the aspect of things on the Puna coast a moment before it was
+suddenly changed by a very unwelcome apparition. Sweeping around the
+headland of Kumukahi, there bore down upon the peaceful fishermen, from
+the direction of Laupahoehoe, the war canoe of a chief, one inspired,
+doubtless, with no amicable intentions. It was painted red from stem to
+stern and bore a pennon at the masthead. The sturdy rowers wore short
+cloaks of yellow feathers which gleamed in the sunlight. Now, a visit
+of a chief was at no time a very welcome event to the fishermen, as it
+meant the confiscation of their spoil to supply the necessity of a by
+no means scanty following. Sometimes they felt inclined to follow the
+example of the men of Kau and respond to the demands of the chief for
+fish by hurling enough into the canoes to sink them and their occupants
+to the bottom of the sea. In this case, however, there was evidently
+more to be feared than confiscation. And as, when some hungry shark
+enters the lagoon where all the children are bathing and surf-swimming,
+there rises the dread cry of “_Mao!_” and instantly there follows a
+“_pilipili_” scramble to the shore, so when this great red and yellow
+monster of the deep, with its swift paddles and its human voices, swept
+over the waves, there was such a movement shoreward as showed that the
+indolent Hawaiian could be agile enough when he chose.
+
+But the pursuit did not end with the shore. Leaping from the war canoe,
+the attendants of the ravaging _alii_ hurled their spears with effect.
+Some of the fishermen resisted and more than one with his paddle made
+things lively for his assailant. Presently, however, in the manner
+of Hawaiian warfare, the combat resolved itself into a duel. The
+combatants on either side grounded their spears and paddles to watch
+a single combat which promised to decide the fortunes of the day. The
+champion of the fishermen was Napopo, who, with a child slung upon his
+back, seemed unequally matched with his opponent, a chief of tremendous
+size and unspeakable ferocity of countenance. Once seen, this chief was
+not to be forgotten, and, as he rushed towards the unlucky fisherman in
+his path, he appeared to both sides alike irresistible. But Napopo was
+no coward, and he knew the ground better than his foe. Craftily he drew
+his antagonist over the coral beach and watched with lightning eye the
+moment when the spear should rush forth upon the air. Thus it happened
+that in launching his spear the chief tripped in a crevice of the rocks
+and fell face downward, while the missile whizzed harmlessly through
+the air. Then, leaping forward, Napopo used his paddle to such effect
+that he had surely left the chief dead upon the ground had not his
+followers rushed forward to the assistance of their lord. Encumbered
+with the child and fearing to risk its life by continuing as the
+aggressor, Napopo allowed the retainers to take away the battered and
+crestfallen raider. With his child and his splintered paddle he retired
+to his house a little distance from the shore, and was in time when he
+reached it to see the gaily painted canoe put back around the headland,
+the rowers somewhat sobered, doubtless, by their adventure and without
+a single fish.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Years have passed away and the wars of Hawaii are well nigh over.
+Kamehameha has won the reward of his patience and of his many defeats,
+and is now overlord of all the Eight Islands.
+
+He has been making his triumphal progress round the coast of Hawaii,
+consecrating new _heiaus_, superintending the construction of fish
+ponds and collecting his tributes in labor, sandalwood, yellow feathers
+and fish. He has come, in due course, to Kapoho, and many are assembled
+at the royal enclosure to meet him and present their _hookana_. Among
+these comes Napopo with an enormous calabash of fish. He has no reason
+to fear, but as he approaches the _lanai_ and sees the concourse of
+runners, heralds, soldiers, and executioners, priests and hula-dancers,
+it seems impossible for him to raise his eyes. What is there in the
+eyes which face him which seems to freeze his blood? Glaring at him
+with the recognition of an ancient enemy are the eyes of the man whom
+he had once encountered on the coral beach and whose head he had broken
+with his paddle. The recognition is, at any rate, mutual. Kamehameha,
+the quondam raider, and Napopo, the bold fisherman of Puna, have met
+face to face. It is in vain to attempt escape. Napopo feels that,
+even did not the soldiers crowd the entrance, there was no strength
+in his limbs to move. He can only await death with what composure
+he may. Kamanawa and Kalaimoku, and the two white chiefs, Young and
+Davis, glance at the king for orders, conscious of his emotion, though
+ignorant of its cause. But the king waved them aside and, rising amid
+the assembly, spoke in tones which reached the outer fringe of the
+spectators.
+
+“Chiefs and people of Hawaii, and ye men of Puna in particular, I thank
+you for your welcome and your gifts to-day. Not for the first time,
+however, have I come among you, and I venture to confess that when I
+came before, you treated me even better than you have to-day. For you
+gave me wisdom, which is better for kings than valor. I came among you
+in the bitterness of my heart, thinking to revenge the rebellion of
+Keawemauhili upon his subjects. I swooped down upon you as the shark
+upon the flying fishes, and had well nigh plundered you of your fish
+and burned your houses and slain your men. But this man here before me
+came against me, not with battle-axe or javelin, but with his fisher’s
+paddle, and therewith stayed the course of the blood-drinking spear
+and well nigh ended the battles of Kamehameha. Surely even then were
+the gods my friends, or I had gone down shamed into the halls of the
+dead. And now what shall be done with the fellow who lifted up his hand
+against me?”
+
+The chiefs looked upon one another, and no one ventured to speak. They
+knew the grim, sardonic humor of the man and, in spite of his words,
+would not have been surprised at some fearful sentence. As for Napopo,
+the bitterness of death was almost past. Hope had not yet begun to
+torture him.
+
+Then amid the silence of the multitude the king spoke again, almost a
+smile in his furrowed face.
+
+“My sentence is that the men of Puna be not required to pay the fish
+tax, except as a gift of love. Well do I deserve to lose the fish. That
+day, I remember, I felt lucky not to have lost my life. Go, Napopo, and
+defend the shores of Puna against every doer of a lawless deed. And the
+child thou didst bear upon thy back, what has become of it?”
+
+“He is here, my lord,” said Napopo, scarcely knowing whether or not he
+was dreaming, as he brought forward a young man, tall and erect and
+handsome as any warrior in Kamehameha’s suite.
+
+“It is well,” said the monarch, “he shall be my care and shall be
+numbered among my bodyguard. May the gods give him a heart as fearless
+as his sire’s!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day Kamehameha promulgated the law known as “Mamalahoe”--“the
+law of the splintered paddle”--by which it was decreed that any chief
+who should henceforth engage in a raid upon unarmed and helpless people
+should be surely put to death.
+
+Thus the king proved himself worthy to rule, because strong enough to
+condemn publicly the errors of his past.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE SLANDERED PRIEST OF OAHU
+
+
+The chiefs left the council chamber of Kahahana moody and displeased.
+Such a proposition as they had heard had never before been suggested
+by a king of Oahu. The wiles of Kahekili, the _moi_ of Maui, they
+knew. Like a greedy octopus, he was ever stretching out his tentacles
+to lay hold on everything within reach, and his eyes had for many a
+long year been on the coastland of Kualoa. But that Kahahana, their
+own feudal lord, the king who had but recently been installed with
+extraordinary solemnities and the sacrifice of an unwonted number of
+victims, the king whom they were expecting to bring back the glorious
+days of Peleioholani, should propose such a cession was far more than
+weakness; it was imbecility and treason. They gazed in imagination
+upon the beautiful amphitheatre of Koolau Bay, stretching in a perfect
+semi-circle from Kualoa Point to Kaneohe, counted up the revenue in
+whalebone and whale’s teeth it was wont to produce and at once, in a
+fierce kind of unanimity, overrode the proposal of the king. They then
+despatched, in the name of the whole college of the _alii_, a rejoinder
+to the king of Maui, such as would stir up that terrible old warrior
+even from his _awa_-drinking to order forth the _lunapais_ with the
+chant of war. However, better war than disgrace, they felt--better
+even defeat, better to prostrate themselves before Kahekili with the
+ignominious appeal of the vanquished, “_E make paha, e ola paha--iluna
+ke alo? ilalo ke alo?_” than tamely to give away the choicest of their
+lands. Let the country be parcelled out after defeat, and not before!
+
+Such had been the patriotic advice of the priest Kaopulupulu, who had
+long stood near the throne of Oahu, a support to its kings, learned
+in the traditions of kingship and in the lore of the gods, skilled
+not only to read the clouds and the auguries, but also to understand
+the hearts of mortals and of spirits. The white hair which descended
+over his dusky shoulders covered a brain whose like for experience and
+sagacity Oahu did not contain from Maena to Makapuu.
+
+So the chiefs departed to send their message, leaving Kahahana in no
+enviable mood, reclining on the _lanai_. Truth to say, he was ashamed
+of himself and had made his proposal not over willingly. He had been
+brought up with Kahekili on the island of Maui, had adventured with
+him in the wars against Hawaii, their spears had drunk blood together,
+nay, they had become almost one in family ties, for he had taken the
+half-sister of Kahekili for his bride. Thus, in making himself the tool
+of Kahekili, the weak and credulous chief had acted without considering
+the aspects his proposal would present to the rest of the _alii_.
+Now, ill at ease, bitter and angry, as well as ashamed, he could only
+anticipate what would be the wrath of Kahekili and what degree of
+revenge he would plan.
+
+Kahahana was right in one particular at least. Kahekili, when he
+received the news, went almost stark mad with anger. His followers
+whispered one to another that he had become “_hehena_,” and quailed
+before him, or, if possible, kept themselves afar from the royal
+enclosure. At length, however, the paroxysm passed and counsel took the
+place of passion. There sits Kahekili, a mighty man yet, in spite of
+his years, emaciated somewhat through the drinking of awa, but terrible
+to look on. One side of his body was tattooed almost black, the other
+retained its natural hue, his eyes were somewhat heavy, yet now and
+again lustrous with his thoughts. Long had he dreamed of being the
+possessor of Kualoa. It was his “Naboth’s Vineyard.” Here were ivory
+and whalebone enough to make him rich and envied. He had deemed the
+fool Kahahana sufficiently his creature and vassal not to gainsay him
+in such a matter as this. Now, wherefore should he not pronounce the
+word and send out the black _maika_-stone to the chiefs for war?
+
+But other and craftier counsels prevailed. Why go to the trouble of war
+if he could break the power of Oahu some easier way? Oahu was strong
+and formidable in battle array, thanks to the counsel of the priest
+Kaopulupulu. The issue of conflict on the field was by no means assured
+while he remained by Kahahana’s side. Kaopulupulu removed, the fruit
+of Oahu would fall from the tree into his hands. Were it not better
+to proceed craftily? Fortunately, he had in his court the younger
+brother of Kaopulupulu, whose jealousy of the high-priest of Oahu was
+notorious, and with him ere the day was done, had Kahekili speech and
+agreement.
+
+The days went by and Kahahana began to lose his uneasy mind. Kahekili
+had taken his rebuff much more readily than of wont, and there was no
+sign of hostile preparation or intent. Only Kaopulupulu persisted in
+urging the king to beware and remain ready for a visit from Kahekili’s
+flotilla of canoes at any hour of the day or night.
+
+One day, nearly two weeks from the time the cession of Kualoa had been
+rejected, he was on his way to the royal _lanai_ to urge a doubling of
+the coast watch, when, greatly to his surprise, as he went in to stand
+before the king, there went out Nanoa, his brother, who had come with
+messages from Kahekili. Kaopulupulu liked not the look which Nanoa cast
+upon him as he passed, but shame withheld him from mistrusting so close
+a kinsman, and he replied heartily to the other’s formal salutation.
+But when he stood before the king, Kahahana looked blackly on him and
+gave him no such greeting as had been customary. Kaopulupulu misdoubted
+in his heart that some evil was afoot, and presently learned from the
+king that he was adjudged a traitor to Oahu. Had he not, so the charge
+ran, conspired to aid Kahekili to the overlordship of Oahu? But for the
+desire of the Maui king to be true to his old roofmate and kinsman by
+marriage, the treachery had remained unrevealed.
+
+Kaopulupulu remained awhile silent, sorrowful, and in bitter anger
+before the king. “I scorn,” he said, “to defend myself with words--I
+whose deeds ought to speak louder than the calumnies of Kahekili. Yet
+is he laboring to overcome with guile those whom he fears to meet with
+the war-spear. Beware of Kahekili, but if ye will heed me not, suffer
+me to depart with my only son to Waianae to till my fields. Time shall
+be the judge between us.”
+
+The king, who was scarce prepared as yet to take upon himself the
+risk of an arrest, did not withhold his permission, and presently
+Kaopulupulu might have been seen with bowed head, led by the hand
+of his only son, and followed at a little distance by his amazed
+retainers, wending his way slowly to Waianae. Hither he arrived just as
+the rising moon had kindled its beacon on the mountain-tops.
+
+That very night, in spite of his dejection, he tattooed himself and all
+his followers upon the knee, in token of loyalty to Kahahana.
+
+“_He eha nui no, he nui loa lakuu aloha!_”[A] said the faithful slaves
+as the sharp instrument of fish-bones pierced their skin.
+
+  [A] “Great is the pain, but greater still is our love.”
+
+“Soon, I foresee,” answered Kaopulupulu, “you will tattoo yourselves
+not for the living, but for the dead.” And all the household uttered
+their loud “_auwe_.”
+
+And now followed lamentable days for Oahu. The king, distrusted and
+distrustful, held few parleys with his chiefs: more and more careless
+grew the guards along the coast; fewer and fewer the appeals to the
+gods. In the _heiaus_ the shrines stood neglected. A few tattered
+shreds of clothing washed by the rain and bleached by the sun were all
+that was left of their once gaudy array of idols, while piles of broken
+calabashes and cocoanut shells, with rotten wreaths of flowers and
+putrid masses of meat, formed unsightly heaps in the sacred enclosures.
+Men’s hearts seemed to have gone to sleep and even the old warriors
+allowed their spears to rust, and to dream only of the past.
+
+Into the midst of this doleful time came the news that Kahekili was
+preparing to muster his canoes on the beach of Lahaina, but Kahahana,
+so far from allowing the tidings to reveal to his heart the craft
+of the Maui chief and his emissary, kept still within his bosom the
+poisoned shaft and muttered:
+
+“Kaopulupulu predicted this. Surely the priest is skillful to ensure
+the fulfillment of his own predictions.”
+
+So his anger waxed against the aged priest and he sent canoes with his
+_ilamoku_, or executioner, to Waianae. In his frenzy it seemed better
+to slay one who had been his friend than to sit still and await the
+oncoming of Kahekili.
+
+Kaopulupulu and his son were fishing along the shore when the boat hove
+in sight, and, as it were, by the afflatus of the gods, the priest knew
+that it was an errand of blood.
+
+“Farewell,” he said, “my son, blood of my blood. A little while we
+shall wander apart, but Lono will see and hear, and will not allow
+death to sever us long, since we are true kin!”
+
+Nevertheless, he went courteously to the landing-place to meet the men
+and asked them whence they had come. But they answered roughly and
+straightway seized the boy, who cried piteously for his life. Out into
+the canoe they bore him, and then hurled him headlong into the water
+between the boat and the reef. When he tried to swim they smote him on
+the head with the paddles and with clubs, till the waves were reddened
+with blood and the sharks scented their prey afar. Then upon the shore
+stood Kaopulupulu, his white hair streaming in the breeze, and cried
+aloud under the inspiration of the gods:
+
+“It is better to sleep in the sea, for from the sea comes the means of
+life.”
+
+Men mused much upon this saying in the aftertime, but understood it
+not till many years had flown. The enemies of Kaopulupulu said: “It
+is a proof of his conspiracy with Kahekili,” but all men afterwards
+interpreted it of the coming of Kamehameha, the overlord of the Eight
+Islands, from the sea.
+
+Kahahana was, however, not content with the death of the son, and when
+he had allowed Kaopulupulu some space for the torment of grief, he sent
+again the death-boat for the priest.
+
+So Kaopulupulu was brought, not all unwillingly, to Puulio, and there
+in the presence of the king for whom he would willingly have died to
+preserve him from the impending storm, he was slain by the club of the
+_ilamoku_. All men wept to see such sacrilege committed, as the old man
+stood up for his death-blow before the king. Once more the prophetic
+fire glowed in his eye-sockets, and once more he cried aloud so that
+all the assembly might hear:
+
+“Farewell, my lord, O king! Alas! that I should in my death foreshadow
+thine own. When the fatal club whirls behind thee, then shalt thou know
+the faith of Kaopulupulu to Oahu and to thee!” A moment after he fell
+face foremost and was dragged away with a hook to the temple.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Great is the commotion on the beach of Waikiki. The echoes of Diamond
+Head are rudely awakened with the shouts of warriors. The forces of
+Maui have swept over from Lahaina and have effected their landing
+almost without opposition from Kahahana. The Oahu forces, undisciplined
+and demoralized, are driven helter-skelter to the valleys, and Kahekili
+may solace himself ere long with Kualoa, and all Koolau to boot.
+
+Kahahana fled to the mountains around Ewa and here for nearly two years
+was hidden, fed and clothed by his compassionate subjects. Then, having
+learned how lovely it is to rely upon fidelity, such fidelity as he now
+knew to have been that of his slandered priest, Kaopulupulu, he learned
+in his turn also how bitter it is to be betrayed.
+
+His wife’s brother, Kehuamanoha, yielded up the secret of his
+hiding-place to Kahekili, and he was dragged by the order of the
+conqueror from Ewa to Waikiki, to stand in the presence of his crafty
+antagonist.
+
+Thus in all points Nemesis overtook him, and when he died a sacrifice
+to the gods at Waikiki, he cried out for the vengeful deities to wash
+out in his blood the wretchedness of his unfaithfulness and allow him
+to meet the manes of Kaopulupulu in peace.
+
+But a man’s folly, so far as its consequences are concerned, does not
+end with repentance, and heavily did Kahekili lay his yoke upon Oahu.
+Men, women and children were butchered, the streams were piled high
+with the dead, and ran scarlet to the sea, and one of the Maui chiefs
+built a house at Lapakea with the bones of the slain.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+KEALA
+
+
+The man-eating _mu_ was in the street.
+
+This accounted for the silence in the village. No one was in sight when
+the two chiefs, Kakaua and Kapahala, met.
+
+“Ha, Kakaua, hearest thou the news? Kahekili is dead!”
+
+“_Auwe!_ dark the day of Maui! There will be pickings for crows, now
+the eagle is gone! Methinks the ‘Lonely One’ in Kohala will soon be
+looking this way again.”
+
+“Ay, said not Kahekili to him: ‘When the black _kapa_ covers me, then
+shalt thou be the _maika_-stone sweeping from Hawaii to Niihau’?”
+
+“What say Kaeo and Kalanikapule?”
+
+“Nay, I know not. When I left the royal enclosure they were wailing
+and knocking out their teeth, and between whiles they discussed the
+disposal of Kahekili’s bones.”
+
+“Ah, Kalani had best grind them to powder and mix them with _poi_ for
+the eating of the chiefs. They will need all the strength of Kahekili’s
+heart to stand up against the lord of Halawa.”
+
+“Yea,” said a newcomer, “and methinks, Kakaua, you need to eat his
+liver, for I hear the man-eating _mu_ is in the street, seeking some
+victim to please the gods and the dead chief therewith. The _mu_, who
+is, you may know, none other than Ahi, the priest, has a special love
+for you, Kakaua! Is it not so? _Aloha!_ I go a-fishing.”
+
+Kakaua turned white under his dusky skin, and apparently concluded to
+go fishing, too, for when an hour later the priest Ahi came to make a
+call of honor--having destined Kakaua for the sacrifice which was to
+appease the manes of the dead king--the intended victim was not to be
+found, nor was his canoe.
+
+This looked bad, for the surf was thundering upon the reef as though
+the shark god himself had come to attend the obsequies of Kahekili, and
+Laamaomao in his train--a big leak in his calabash, from whence poured
+forth angry gusts of wind along the shore.
+
+Meanwhile Ahi, acting the part of that unpopular functionary, the
+_mu-ai-kanaka_, was parading the empty streets with horrible yells and
+contortions of the body. In one hand he held a club with which to fell
+his victim from behind, in the other a hook with which to drag the body
+to the _heiau_. He was very angry, for he had calculated by this time
+to have had the hook in the flesh of Kakaua, against whom he bore a
+special grudge.
+
+The history, as is so often the case, concerned a maiden.
+
+Sweet Keala! ill was it for thy peace that thou wast beautiful as the
+_lehua_ which is wooed by the _olokele_ in the morning sun, and ill was
+it for Ahi and Kakaua that they, the one or the other, agreed not to
+give thee up and seek another maiden, whereof there were many in the
+Eight Islands!
+
+Ahi was a priest and cruel, and Keala loved him not, loved neither
+himself nor his vocation; but Kakaua she loved because he was a
+warrior, straight as a palm-tree and smiling as the dawn. This was not
+pleasant knowledge to Ahi, and he had loved the idea of personating the
+man-eating _mu_, because he might thereby rid himself of his rival,
+and, Kakaua away--why, surely Keala would love him.
+
+And now Kakaua was away--if not consumed upon the altar of the gods,
+assuredly eaten by the sharks outside the reef, for the surf which
+boomed upon the coral rocks had cruel white teeth which must have
+devoured any canoe out that night. Ahi protested to Keala that, beyond
+all doubt, Kakaua had gone down to the realm of Milu to eat lizards
+and butterflies and recline under ghostly trees--nevermore to revisit
+the upper air. But, somehow, such is the obstinacy of womankind, Keala
+loved Ahi none the more, and Kakaua none the less. Moreover, she told
+the priest to his face she would rather be the bride of the sharks than
+share his loathsome couch.
+
+In his heart, however, Ahi was by no means so sure of the death of
+Kakaua, and oftentimes at night he would build a fireplace on the
+hearth of his hut, plant _kapa_-sticks at the corners and make a fire
+by rubbing the firestick, _aulima_, on a twig of _akia_ and endeavor to
+send out his soul through the smoke, to discover the whereabouts of the
+man whom he feared absent even more than present.
+
+But his visions for many nights were vague--rolling seas, surf-beaten
+shores, groves of palms, slopes of lava, concourses of men, troops
+preparing for battle, but no Kakaua. Each night his soul came back to
+his body fruitlessly wearied.
+
+His disappointment he revenged upon the girl whom he hoped to win. Day
+by day he persecuted her with his advances, and day by day she repelled
+him with the bitterest scorn. All the power of the gods he denounced
+against her faithful obstinacy, but Keala refused to believe that the
+_akua_ were hostile to human constancy, and bore the revilings of the
+priest in patience.
+
+But it was hard to live in the Hawaii of olden time the enemy of the
+priests. The high chief Hua had ventured to oppose them, and of him it
+was said in proverbs: “Rattling are the bones of Hua in the sun.” Is
+it, then, to be wondered at that, week by week, the situation of Keala
+became more perilous? Till one day, after Ahi had been most violent
+in his protestations of love, and Keala most bitter in her repulse,
+the struggle ceased with the slaughter of the maiden--on a charge,
+supported by false witnesses, of having broken the _kapu_ and eaten of
+the forbidden food. Like a meek lamb, and amid the tears of the people,
+Keala was slain before the altar of the _heiau_, but with her dying
+voice she appealed to the only goddess whose power she knew--Pele, the
+mistress of the great volcano whose lava-floods ravaged the coasts of
+Hawaii. Pele was a fickle deity, she knew, but surely she would avenge
+the wrongs of her sex. So Keala died, faithful to Kakaua. Yet Ahi was
+not happy. The people hated him, and his own heart was not at peace.
+
+More zealous than ever in his priestly duties, he made daily offerings
+to propitiate the volcano goddess, for he feared the prayer of the
+dying maiden, and as the rumor of his subornation grew he feared even
+more the living arm of Kakaua, to be assured of whose death he would
+have given half his wealth. Again and again he projected his spirit
+into space, to search for his former rival, and each time he grew
+certain that Kakaua was alive and not dead.
+
+But one night, no sooner had he made his fire, prepared and drunk his
+_awa_, chanted his fire-prayer and called upon the terrible name of
+Uli, than he felt his soul go out through the smoke, like an invisible
+bird, over the sand plains and over the sea, till he came to a dark
+mountain mass rising far above the clouds. Here he once more felt
+himself touch the ground and able to look about him. Down below through
+the driving mists he could see the gray shore-line and the white reef.
+The locality seemed familiar to him, though he recalled not its name.
+Up above was the mountain sparsely covered with _ohelo_ and with clouds
+of sulphurous smoke rolling from its summit. Now he suspected his
+whereabouts, and when he glanced a second time along the road he was
+certain. The green water below was the bay of Hilo, the mountain was
+the terrible Kilauea, where in Halemaumau, the house of everlasting
+fire, the goddess Pele was wont to ride the red surges with her sisters
+and tilt with lances of flaming lava. The road was the mountain-path
+from Waiakea to Kapapala, and up the road, as the spirit of Ahi gazed
+at the well-known landmarks, a strangely familiar figure was making
+its way. A foretaste of malicious joy thrilled the disembodied spirit
+and he hurriedly gained the path which the toiling wayfarer must take.
+Right in the middle of the road he made the magic sign known only to
+the _kahunas_, uttered the imprecation of Uli, and then, although
+conscious that he was only a ghost, and invisible, withdrew to a cave
+near by to watch the working of his wizardry.
+
+Scarcely had he reached his place of concealment when he felt a strange
+trembling of the earth, and a moment later, gazing out, he beheld a
+sight which made him, spirit though he was, shiver like a leaf. The
+traveler had almost reached the spellbound square when from the top of
+the mountain there appeared the head of a tide of lava like a river
+of molten lead, and on the lurid crest, as though riding upon the
+surf-board, was the dreaded goddess of the crater. The tide of flame
+was making its way straight along the channel of the road, and Ahi saw
+with relief it would sweep by him and leave him untouched. And when the
+traveler lifted his face in terror toward the oncoming death, Ahi was
+happy at last, for the face was indeed the face of Kakaua. The spell
+was working. His old enemy was doomed, and by the very power to whom
+Keala had made her supplication.
+
+But Ahi’s joy was short-lived and gave way to convulsive rage when he
+looked again. For the terror had fled from Kakaua’s face and in its
+stead was joy, and the priest following the eyes of the doomed man
+looked upon the countenance of Pele, and lo! it was Pele no longer,
+but Keala. And the man stretched out his arms in ecstasy for the
+embrace of the goddess. Yes, Pele had, after all, hearkened to Keala’s
+prayer.
+
+Darkness came over the frustrate ghost, and presently from the smoke
+of his own hearth Ahi’s spirit went out unbidden and stood in the
+halls of the underworld, the abode of Milu. A great paradise stretched
+out before the portals of the gloomy prison-house. There were waters
+fresher and palms greener than those of Waipio, and down the mossy
+rocks trickled the sparkling drops which made the stream, as though the
+tears of lovers shed on earth were here distilling into the river of
+the water of life. Delicious perfumes and the song of innumerable birds
+filled the air.
+
+But all this gave no pleasure to the soul of Ahi, who made fruitless
+efforts not to see, when before him glided the happy shades of Kakaua
+and Keala in joyous converse, and he cursed Uli and Kiiaka and all his
+gods when they looked upon him and said:
+
+“Thanks, Ahi, through thee we are alive, for we love, and thou, alas!
+art dead!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ahi awoke and the ashes upon his hearth were dead and cold.
+
+As for Ahi himself, his hair was white and his limbs palsied. He knew
+that the words of Kakaua and Keala were true, and that the gods had
+written down his name as dead. His heart within his breast was like
+stone, and his life was gone from him like smoke. He lived thus many
+years, but he gave no more offerings to Pele, for he said: “Verily, the
+fires of Pele turn to sunshine, and the spells of the _kahuna_ are vain
+before such love as that of Kakaua and Keala.”
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+PELE DECLARES FOR KAMEHAMEHA
+
+
+The ancient kings of Hawaii showed their wisdom and their appreciation
+of the beautiful when they chose Waipio for a royal residence. There
+was no other spot in the Eight Islands so blessed by nature, prodigal
+as she was of her gifts from Niihau to Hawaii. A romantic valley
+nearly a mile wide at the seaward entrance, enclosed on the other
+sides by nearly perpendicular hills, clothed with grass, creepers and
+shrubs--such was Waipio. Winding paths led upwards amid the jutting
+rocks and threadlike cascades descending almost at one leap, forming
+the stream below which flowed deviously among the sand-hills to the sea.
+
+At one time, says an old legend, the stream was more sluggish than now,
+but a great fish which lived off the Hamakua coast found the supply of
+fresh water too scanty for his need and appealed to Kane for more. In
+consequence, fresh springs were created, the bed of the river tilted up
+and the requisite increase of water obligingly supplied. The great fish
+is there no longer; but, if so disposed, you may still see the finger
+marks of Kane on the huge stones which he hurled into the river to
+raise its bed.
+
+A hundred and eighteen years ago Waipio was still the loveliest spot
+in the Paradise of the Pacific. Here the palms were tallest, the
+foliage greenest, the blossoms brightest, the water coolest. And in
+recognition of this fact many were the folk who here made their abode.
+Along the foot of the mountains and extending up the valley as far as
+the eye could reach were little groups of grass huts looking almost
+as natural as the trees and mountains. Nearer the sea was part of the
+patrimony of Kamehameha, and many were the evidences of the labors
+in which the great chief, like a modern Cincinnatus, had indulged in
+the intervals of fighting his many foes. Here were the fish ponds,
+here the taro-patches, here even attempts at the construction of an
+aqueduct--attempts rendered, however, futile by the lack of adequate
+tools.
+
+At the time of which we speak Kamehameha was at home, but nevertheless
+not bent upon peaceful pursuits. This was at once evident from a glance
+at the coral beach. Gigantic war canoes painted and pennoned lay along
+the sand mile after mile. A great double pirogue, containing mounted
+cannon and chests of firearms, was evidently the king’s own special
+craft. There were, however, several more or less seaworthy schooners of
+American build in the royal fleet.
+
+In these Kamehameha and his army had come hurriedly back from Molokai,
+whither he had gone after his great victory in Maui. The battle in the
+Iao valley, known as the “damming of the waters,” had rendered him, for
+the time being, master of Maui, and, after sending one ambassador to
+Kauai to look out a powerful wizard and another to Oahu to interview
+Kahekili, he had gone himself to Molokai to secure influence over
+the high chiefess Kalola, her daughter Liliha and her granddaughter
+Keopuolani. With these on his side, or under his protection, Kamehameha
+knew he could appeal with every hope of success to the aristocratic
+instincts of the people.
+
+But suddenly, almost from the blue sky, a thunderbolt had fallen into
+the midst of his plans. A messenger landed one morning with the news
+that Keoua in Hawaii had attacked and slain Keawemauhili in a battle
+near Hilo, had overrun and annexed his dominions in Puna and Kau, and
+had forthwith invaded the territories of Kamehameha in Hamakua, Waipio,
+and Waimea, destroying fish ponds and potato fields, and committing all
+kinds of barbarities.
+
+Such news was an imperative summons to Kamehameha to return at once to
+Hawaii, and this he had done with his usual celerity. Keoua, taken by
+surprise, retreated to Paauhau in Hamakua and there awaited attack. Two
+bloody battles were fought, but neither side gained much advantage,
+and, while Keoua fell back on Hilo, Kamehameha withdrew to Waipio,
+where we now behold him, in November, 1790, getting ready for the final
+struggle.
+
+Little groups of chiefs and warriors are sitting on the beach,
+polishing their weapons and talking of the prospects of the campaign.
+
+“Kamehameha has been playing with Keoua so far,” said an old grizzled
+warrior, scarred with the wounds of twenty battles. “When he begins to
+fight real battles, he will win.”
+
+“He has the favor of the gods,” said another; “he should soon make an
+end of rebellion.”
+
+“Ay,” added a third, “what chief in Hawaii aforetime has been at once
+the guardian of Kaili, the war god, and the possessor of Kalaipahoa,
+the poison goddess?”
+
+“And,” said Kamanawa, “the owner of the magic conch, Kiha-pu!”
+
+“And has had the help of the white men,” interposed Kaiana, proud of
+his friendship with the _haole_ captains, with whom he made a visit to
+China. “See what havoc the red-mouthed guns made in Kepaniwai!”
+
+“Yea,” resumed Keeaumoku, “the ‘Lonely One’ must succeed. Years ago,
+when I withdrew from the battlefield because I knew no leader whose
+battle-shout stirred my blood, the old prophet Keaulumoku came across
+the hills from Lahaina to my dwelling and chanted me the events which
+were to come. That was years ago, but I wait in patience.”
+
+“One thing Kamehameha lacks,” said a chief who had hitherto remained
+silent--and as he spake the others lifted their faces in expectant
+surprise--“one thing the lord of Kohala lacks. Marked you not the other
+night how, while we slept, there came a tremor of the earth which waked
+us all and brought cold blood to our hearts? If that same goddess who
+thus changed sleep into fear would come to the help of our chief, Keoua
+would not long remain in the upper air. Pele is stronger than the white
+man’s fire-breathing guns! But, behold! yonder comes the _lunapai_,
+and with him a goodly number of recruits for the war. Let us go and
+hear his news.”
+
+As though the speaker’s thought were the thought of the whole camp,
+there was a simultaneous movement towards the _lanai_, whither the
+messenger had directed his steps. The excitement grew when it was seen
+that the _lunapai_ had news. He had gone well nigh round the island,
+three hundred miles in nine days, and had met with signal success.
+There had been no need of the _uluku_ to slit the ears of the recruits
+and drag them reluctant to the war. Goodly young men had joined him
+at every village, and Kamehameha’s ranks were swelled by a daily
+increasing army of those who had heard of his exploits in Maui and how
+he had at last avenged the slaughter on the sand-hills fifteen years
+before.
+
+But the man had evidently something else to relate besides his success
+as a _lunapai_ and, refusing to eat or drink until he told his tale, he
+only waited until Kamehameha, who had just come in from fishing, had
+taken his place on a couch of _pulu_ and then began:
+
+“O king, verily a mightier _lunapai_ than Pakahala has gone through
+the island. Hearken, chiefs, and fear the gods! Hearken, warriors, and
+follow your lord, the beloved of heaven, to sure and happy victory!”
+
+The chiefs and spearmen gathered round at once and a great silence was
+made. Then the orator resumed:
+
+“Keoua assembled his warriors and set out for Kau. They marched, a
+great host lusting for the noise of battle, along the road which leads
+by the abode of Pele, the death-dealing Kilauea. Heedless of the power
+of the goddess, they rolled stones into the crater, unmindful of the
+sacrilege.
+
+“But Pele was not pleased with their amusement, neither liked she to
+receive rocks instead of _ohelo_-berries. And when the men slept, she
+awakened in her anger and threw out the stones they had thrown in,
+with flame and cinders, to a great distance. Then were Keoua’s men
+afraid and in vain tried to soothe the goddess. But she refused to be
+appeased, and all through that day and the second and the third the
+earth shook and the fire leaped from the mountain, and the ashes rained
+down upon the host.
+
+“Then on the third night Keoua spake and said: ‘Why stay we here to be
+consumed of Pele? Let us advance.’ So they advanced in three companies.
+The first company moved on over the mountain, and, verily, as they went
+they died a thousand deaths.
+
+“For the earth rocked beneath their feet and darkness came forth from
+the crater which entered into their souls, and the thunder made their
+hearts quake, and the lightnings burned up many among them. From the
+pit beside them the fire glared red and blue and yellow, as though all
+the sisters and cousins of Pele were holding revel and mocking their
+victims. Scarce could they breathe, but they hastened on and gained at
+last the free air.
+
+“After these marched the second company and, a little later, the third.
+These felt the earthquake and the showers of sand, but lost no men in
+the darkness and storm. As they pressed on, hoping soon to overtake
+their fellows, they rejoiced and each bade the other be of good cheer,
+since they had escaped the fury of the goddess.
+
+“But, ere they had gone a hundred paces further, they saw a sight which
+moved their hearts with such a fear as comes to man but once in life.
+What was that crowd of warriors doing yonder, sitting silent on the
+earth? Were they asleep or turned to stone? There was the whole central
+band of the army, silent and still; some sat upright, some were lying
+down, some even yet embracing their wives and children, some joining
+noses, as taking leave one of another. And all was ghastly and still.
+Every heart was chilled with the cold shadow of death.
+
+“Nevertheless, scarce could they believe the truth until they
+approached and touched and shook them. Then they knew that suddenly, as
+in a moment, the third part of Keoua’s army had been breathed upon by
+Pele, and the life had fled from them like vapor before the fire. But
+one living thing was there. It was a hog rooting among the trees, and
+the men were afraid, believing it to be Kamapuaa, the man-pig, spouse
+of the goddess. So they did not dare to stay to raise the wail of
+mourners. They hurried on and, after much time, reached the band which
+first crossed the mountain. From these, O king, I heard the story, and
+thither I am come to proclaim that the queen of Halemaumau has declared
+herself on our part. Verily, Pele has accepted thee for a son and will
+bring thee to the lordship of Hawaii!”
+
+The concourse scarce awaited the orator’s peroration. A mighty shout
+arose from the host, and with one voice they cried: “_E Kamehameha!_
+Praise we the goddess of fire, gracious to us and to our lord.”
+
+Kamehameha arose. He had thrown his cloak over his shoulders, donned
+his feather-helmet and grasped his terrible spear. Head and shoulders
+he appeared above every man in the assembly, and as he spake his form
+seemed to swell and his voice increase in power, as though the afflatus
+of the gods possessed him. Then he cried, and men in the canoes far out
+to sea heard his voice:
+
+“Great is the favor of Pele! Now, chiefs and warriors of Hawaii, the
+time is come. On with the building of the great _heiau_! On with
+Puukohola! Make the altar ready for the body of the victim, even for
+Keoua. A few more days and Keliimaikai shall present Kaili the blood
+for which he thirsts. Keoua’s death-day draws nigh and the day of
+victory. Praise to Pele, dwelling in the vaults of eternal fire, the
+friend and guardian of Kamehameha, your king.”
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE CITY OF REFUGE
+
+_A Tale of Oahu_
+
+
+“All day long the noise of battle roll’d.”
+
+But it was night now, and there was silence on the battlefield. As
+the moon rose, its long shafts of light quivered across the lagoons
+which stretched between Moanalua and Waianae, and silvered the coral
+beach of Ewa, so that the dark heaps of corpses stood out with weird
+distinctness.
+
+The treachery of Kalanikapule had been crowned with success--a
+success which in the aftertimes proved ruinous enough, since the
+folly of Kahekili’s heirs was preparing the way for the supremacy
+of Kamehameha--and Kaeo was dead. The brave invader from Maui had
+accepted war with a light heart, since it brought him immunity from the
+plottings of his chiefs, and might even have repelled the wanton attack
+of his brother, had it not been for the guns and ships of the white man.
+
+But, as it was, he found himself in a trap. “Better to die in battle,”
+he said, “many will be the companions in death,” and so fought to the
+last, and died.
+
+Yes, indeed! many _had_ been the “companions in death”--not only among
+the yellow-cloaked _aliis_ who had hurled their spears in vain against
+the “red-mouthed” guns, but even among the women, who, following at
+first to supply the warriors with food and drink from their calabashes,
+stood at last, side by side, with their husbands to aid them, and fell
+across their corpses.
+
+It was thus that Liliha had stood by and fallen with her husband
+Kahulu; but, in the moonlight, who was to distinguish hero from hero?
+Their souls had gone down into the dark halls of Milu, their bodies
+were objects of attention to the foul night-birds which flapped their
+dusky wings with joy and scarce had leisure to break the silence with a
+scream as they gorged themselves on the red fruit of fraternal discord.
+
+There was apparently no one to disturb the horrid feast, but suddenly
+a little cry came from one of the hills of slain which sent the whole
+black brood whirring across to another part of the battlefield. A bird
+had been pecking at the eyes of the slain and had aroused, by the
+smart, some unconscious one back to life.
+
+The cry was faint enough, but presently from the gory hillock whence
+it came, there might have been seen a form of a woman painfully
+disengaging herself from the surrounding dead. One corpse she sought,
+but could not find, or she had been content to clasp it and send forth
+her soul to seek its soul in the nether world. So with a little cry,
+which might have been the expression of disappointment or of hope,
+Liliha, daughter of the high-priest of Kauai and wife of Kaulu (for so
+you might have recognized her as the traveling lamp of night sent its
+cold rays across her beautiful face), slipped, with a shudder, from her
+gruesome bedfellows, and laboriously sought the shore. The little waves
+were sleepily plashing on the coral beach, toying with the dripping
+branches and blossoms of the overhanging _hau_. Here was an invitation
+if not to life, at least to death, which latter Liliha felt was almost,
+if not quite, as good.
+
+But when the water flowed around her limbs she felt suddenly strong and
+instinctively swam out into the silver waters of the lagoon. The waves
+bathed her wounds and cooled her fevered brow, and there seemed above
+her the spirit-wings of Hope whom even Hawaiian mythology recognized
+and worshipped. She struck out for the Aiea shore, where she hoped to
+find refuge among her kin until the wrath of Kalanikapule should be
+overpast.
+
+But, as she went on, the wounds bled again, some hungry shark was
+surely behind her scenting the blood, and, when at length she cast her
+body, bruised and bleeding, upon the beach, she no longer hoped for
+life, but for a cave in which to die.
+
+At the entrance of the Halawa valley was a thicket almost concealing
+the mouth of the pass. A tangle of _ieie_ had overgrown the shrubs and
+trees, so that to right or left of the white boulders, over which in
+freshet-times the torrents passed from the mountains to the sea, there
+was just the place where a hunted fugitive might hide or a wounded
+animal might die.
+
+Here Liliha lay on the _pulu_, never so luxuriously soft as now. (We
+may appreciate the instinct which leads the Hawaiians to-day to pad
+their coffins with it.) But the valley of Halawa was not to be Liliha’s
+coffin. Her swoon of the battlefield was but repeated, and when she
+awoke there was near her the sound of many men all talking together
+around a fire whose glow penetrated her hiding-place. They were mixing
+_awa_; the bowl was in their midst, and they were busy chewing the
+narcotic root and steeping the masticated morsels in the bowl. They had
+evidently shared in the recent fight, for they had their weapons with
+them, and, as the firelight shone upon their breasts, Liliha saw that
+the ivory _palaoa_ of several had been stained with blood.
+
+But presently a groan startled the awakened woman. It came from an
+inert bundle just beyond the fireglow. The warriors turned their heads.
+They were in a merry mood. Victory had crowned their arms, and an _awa_
+orgy was in sight. Hence they only chuckled and said:
+
+“_E Kahulu!_ but you shall soon drink _awa_ with Milu! Kaeo will have
+some boon companions down there in the dark. There is twitching of
+the eyes in the house of Kahulu to-day, or verily the _akua_ are all
+asleep.”
+
+The object of their mockery answered not, but turned over to nurse his
+thoughts in silence. As his face for one instant caught the light, the
+woman in the thicket knew him and--decided to live.
+
+Meanwhile the _awa_-brewing went on, and presently came the
+_awa_-drinking. For an hour the merriment grew and then for an hour it
+declined, till one form after another, with a sidelong glance at the
+helpless prisoner, yielded to the seductive narcotic and slept--a sleep
+not pleasant to look on, for the bodies of the men turned uneasily and
+writhed as in pain.
+
+But one slept not. He had had no _awa_, and bitter thoughts keep him
+wakeful. Death was certain. All the omens proved it. Was not even
+now that low cooing sound the voice of the _alae_, the waterfowl,
+whose call was always the harbinger of death? He raised his head to
+listen, and then he doubted. Had he been in his native woods in Kauai
+that low cry would have brought him to Liliha’s arms. How often had
+she thus greeted him as she came back from beating the _kapa_ in the
+pools. Alas! nevermore should he see her on this beautiful earth, but,
+perchance, when the ordeal of the sacrificial oven was passed----
+
+Ah! that _coo-ee_, softly repeated and so near him! He had never
+thought of Milu--the Hawaiian Pluto--as a benign deity, but now he
+breathed a thanksgiving to the grim _akua_ that he had permitted the
+shade of Liliha to come back from the dead. They would keep together,
+and soon enter the underworld together, and then--who shall separate?
+
+But was it a ghost who cut the thongs which bound him? Was it a ghost
+who, finger on lip, led him stealthily over the prostrate bodies of the
+guards, and placed his feet on the downward path? He dared not stop
+to reflect. His brain whirled. But no sooner were they side by side
+and hand in hand on the dark plain together than they sped fleetly as
+though they knew no wound nor fatigue. One thought buoyed them up, one
+word passed between them, as they gazed half-frightened at each other
+for one moment. It was the word “_Puuhonua_”--the city of refuge--a
+word which called up to view an open gate, and white-robed priests with
+branches of _maile_ who would bid them enter into peace in the name of
+the gods.
+
+Oh! how long the way was! How dark the road! Never had the sun been so
+slow rising from its watery bed to look forth once more upon the world
+from behind the barred cage made by the trunks of the cocoanut palms
+along the shore!
+
+Light at last--and lo! in the distance before them the long line of
+stockaded wall, with the guarded gates, and the white flags floating at
+either end from the lofty spear points. The grim idols along the wall
+seemed to smile and mock alternately. To smile, as the distance to the
+gate grew less, to mock, as behind them rose the ferocious yell which
+proclaimed that the _awa_-drinkers had not long overslept their watch.
+The same sun which made shine so fair the walls of the city of refuge
+glinted upon the spears and feather helmets of the pursuers.
+
+Liliha and Kahulu ran like hunted hares, but Nature has her limits.
+They had done miracles, but even miracles have their laws, and stern
+Nature would yield no more. They stood between the priests and the
+pursuers; they saw life before them and death behind them--alas!
+ineluctable. Then they looked into one another’s faces and saw
+something stronger than death and better than life itself. So they
+fell vanquished upon the sand. But as Kahulu fell, he knew a dear,
+pale face--no ghost--a face scarred with wounds, looking at him with
+radiant, starlike eyes and--was content.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A company stood before the victorious Kalanikapule. The chief was
+reclining upon a heap of ferns, with a crowd of runners, diviners,
+priests, _hula_-dancers, and _kahili_-bearers around him. The eyes of
+all, however, were fixed upon two bruised and bleeding forms which
+made the center of the company before the king. The chiefs, with their
+spears and gorgeous feather capes, the priests with their red cloaks
+and white wands were vigorously declaiming before the king. They seemed
+unanimous as they clamored for the death of Kahulu.
+
+“O Kalanikapule,” cried the chiefs, “we have brought hither the rebel
+to die. His head is forfeit to the king, and the gods desire to drink
+his blood. We took him--the slayer of our brethren--the right hand
+of Kaeo--we took him in the battle. We bound him fast, foot to foot,
+hand to hand, his neck between his knees, and we were bearing him to
+your feet. But while we rested, for it was night, and we were in the
+mountains, came this woman, who assuredly fought by his side in the
+battle and died before our eyes--came this woman, we say, even as
+from the dead, and loosed his bands and helped him to escape from our
+hands. Verily, had not thy servants been keen-sighted as the hawk,
+and very wakeful, they--the guilty ones--had reached the _puuhonua_,
+and had now been in peace. But, O king, be this remembered to our
+good: thy servants were swifter than the fleet dogs of the _haole_
+and outstripped the rebels, that Kaili and all the gods may become
+pleasant towards thee, when they see the flesh of men smoking on their
+altars in the _heiau_.”
+
+And the priests added to the voice of the chiefs: “_Ai!_ we have
+sharpened the _pahoa_ and heated the oven for Kahulu. He did not reach
+the _puuhonua_, but fell before the very threshold--such was the will
+of the gods! Therefore he must die! Is it not death for the defeated
+one who reaches not the city of refuge?”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then the king--with a light playing across his features such as no man
+had seen before--answered and said:
+
+“Set Kahulu free! Verily, he reached the _puuhonua_, for there is no
+city of refuge like that of a woman’s love.”
+
+And the priests and the chiefs stood silent, but the people shouted
+greatly at the decree of Kalanikapule.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+SWEET LEILEHUA
+
+
+What the rose is to England and the lily to France is the _Lehua_ to
+Hawaii _nei_. When the maidens lying on the beach of coral sand or
+beneath the _lauhala_ palms touch their guitars and sing the _meles_ of
+times gone by, it is of “Sweet Leilehua” that they sing. And when they
+would inspire departing visitors with happy memories of the mid-ocean
+Paradise they twine around their necks the fragrant wreaths of _maile_
+and _lehua_.
+
+And the beautiful flower well deserves its place as the emblem of
+Hawaii. Almost all over the country, anywhere between fifteen hundred
+and six thousand feet above sea-level, you may see its scarlet blossoms
+flashing in the sun. Here it is slender and graceful, like the island
+maidens, a shrub some fifteen feet high; there a tree of a hundred
+feet, strong and tall, like the island men. Men say that the higher
+up the trees grow the finer are the blossoms, and certainly where the
+white man’s foot has trodden least the _lehua_ seems most at home.
+
+“Sweet Leilehua” has a lover who is as the nightingale to the rose--the
+_olokele_, a bright little scarlet bird, whose life’s happiness it is
+to drink honey from the scarlet flower. You can scarcely distinguish
+bird from blossom. The tree seems alive with flashing wings.
+
+But, alas! civilization has doomed the _olokele_, and perhaps the
+_lehua_. Is it true, also, that their human counterparts in the youth
+and maidenhood of Hawaii are going, too?
+
+The following tale of Leilehua and Hakuole is a tale of over a hundred
+years ago. Still the maidens sing it, still men remember it; but where
+now is there an _olokele_ so bold in his love for the _lehua_ as was
+Hakuole, the chief of Oahu?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hakuole stood on Leahi gazing earnestly seawards or turning his eyes
+occasionally to the left, in the direction of Koko Head and Makapuu.
+The sun never shone upon a fairer scene than that upon which he looked.
+Down below lay the glistening white beach of Waikiki, fringed a few
+yards from the water with dense thickets of _hau_ trees, whose short,
+crooked trunks, glossy leaves and showy yellow flowers were a welcome
+relief to the eye from the coral sand. In the blue-green waters which
+stretched out to the horizon there was only the break of the white
+reef on which the Pacific waves rolled with thunderous noise, and here
+and there a fishing boat in which the fishers sat silent with uplifted
+spear. Leahi, on which the chieftain stood, rose like a crouching lion
+from the seashore, its lava slopes almost bare of vegetation save for
+a few straggling indigo bushes, while in the crater behind Hakuole was
+a large swamp surrounded by rushes and patched here and there with the
+white wings of flocking sea-birds.
+
+The chief was in the very prime of youth, and his figure showed to
+advantage on the rocky promontory against the sky. He had upon his
+head the usual helmet of yellow feathers, on his shoulders a small
+feather cloak, and the rest of his dress was of dark brown _kapa_.
+He had a necklace of shells and shark’s teeth round his neck and a
+heavy spear of _Kauila_ wood in his hand. It was easy to see by his
+erect and martial bearing that he was an _alii_, whose pedigree was
+uncontaminated by mixture with the common people, and his training had
+been the training of a warrior.
+
+And warriors were needed now, for the great Kamehameha was on his
+way from Apani to attempt the conquest of Oahu, and so complete the
+subjugation of the Eight Islands. Hawaii was his from Kalae to Upolo.
+Maui had in vain gathered its warriors to meet him. And now the news
+had come that Kamehameha was on his way to Oahu. He had embarked with
+the veterans of his army and the fleet of war canoes was fast lessening
+the distance between him and his last great rival, Kalanikapule.
+
+Meanwhile Kalanikapule was not to be caught napping. The flower of
+his army was assembled on the south side of the island: watchmen were
+stationed on Makapuu, Koko Head and Leahi, and for the last two nights
+the waves had been illumined by a constant burning of _papala_ sticks.
+But so far no sign of the war prows of the great _alii_ had been
+discovered.
+
+Hakuole at his lonely post wished they would appear, to terminate the
+awful suspense. With eyes still turned seaward he flung himself down
+wearily on the ground in the shade of a dark-foliaged _milo_, whose
+quivering aspen-like leaves seemed, like his own heart, apprehensive of
+the trouble to come. He was in love; he longed to declare his passion,
+to lead his bride to the house he had prepared for her. But what could
+he do? This horrible conflict was impending, and who could say what
+would be the result? Kamehameha, the unconquered Kamehameha, was at
+hand: a bloody battle would be fought. Who would win? Who was even sure
+of surviving?
+
+In this dismal strain ran his thoughts, when suddenly the bushes behind
+him parted and a face peered through, timidly advancing and then
+retreating amid the leaves. It was a beautiful face--with great, soft
+brown eyes gleaming like evening stars from the dusky olive skin, a
+face surrounded by thick masses of wavy hair of raven blackness, a face
+full of warm blood and passionate life. It belonged to no other than
+Leilehua.
+
+Sweet Leilehua!--who among the maidens of Oahu was more loved than she,
+the daughter of the great _kahuna_, the priest of Lono?
+
+When the maidens sat by the streams and beat out the _kapa_ with their
+mallets on the broad, flat boulders, whose song was merrier than hers?
+Or who was obeyed so devotedly by all? If Hakuole’s love was returned,
+happy was he among men; but if Leilehua thought not of him, there was
+no other maiden in the land who could solace him for her loss.
+
+Hakuole turned, and his face changed when he saw her. As the sun, when
+it shines opposite the mists of Pauoa, spans the valleys with double
+rainbows, so the face of Leilehua brought brightness to the darkness
+of Hakuole’s brow. He was again the chieftain in the pride of his
+manhood, the bravest, the strongest of the young _aliis_. Raising
+himself and stretching out his eager arms towards the maiden, he cried:
+“Leilehua, my Leilehua, my beautiful scarlet flower!” But even as he
+spoke the graceful form vanished, dropping at his feet a wreath of
+brilliant _lehua_.
+
+Had he been too impetuous and frightened her away? Had she dropped the
+_lei_ in her haste? Or had she designedly left it for him? He would
+follow her and see; but his face was no longer troubled, for he had
+felt the light of Leilehua’s eyes, and he knew she loved him. He had
+her sweet floral namesake on his neck; he was strong as Kamehameha
+himself; he would conquer now and live for love.
+
+But for the present he would follow her, or would she escape him?
+
+“_E ala, e ala, e ala-a-a-a----_”
+
+Loud and shrill came the voice of the lonely watcher far to his left,
+and then shriller still, like the harsh shriek of sea-birds, followed
+blasts from the conch-shell trumpets which woke all the echoes of the
+dead old crater, and sent the gulls clangorous and protesting from
+their marshy resting-place to fill the air, hitherto so still, with
+noise and motion. And as the upper element was thus suddenly awakened
+into life, so the waves below became, almost in another moment, ridged
+with foam in a hundred places. Where the sunbeams had slept placidly
+on an unbroken surface of azure, they were now reflected hither and
+thither by the black sides of canoes, the flashing of outriggers, the
+sheen of polished metal, the scarlet and yellow of innumerable feather
+cloaks, the glittering of oars amid the spray-rain, the gleaming of
+dusky bodies, and the forward leap of the high prows, whose painted
+eyes seemed to glow with the fire of life. And in advance was the
+famous double war canoe Peleleu, the rowers straining at the oars, and
+the _kahili_-bearers and warriors standing around the mighty chief who
+was destined to make Hawaii a nation.
+
+On they came, nearing the flat beach of Waikiki, where unless
+Kalanikapule opposed, they could enter the coral reef and land without
+impediment. But Kalanikapule chose to meet his rival in the heart of
+the country among the _palis_, rather than on the level ground; so,
+though from Leahi you could have seen the moving of dark masses of men
+among the forests of the southern side of the island, there was no sign
+on the beach of opposition to the landing of the Hawaiian troops.
+
+Hakuole hastened to his post in the army, but he did not forget
+Leilehua, for her gift was around his neck.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of the strife that followed, with all its thrilling episodes, we must
+forbear to speak. How Kalanikapule collected his forces in the Nuuanu
+Pali; how Kamehameha followed him with his veterans, driving him to
+the ridge of the island; how the traitor Kaiana met his doom; how
+Kamehameha’s white men brought into battle the red-mouthed guns which
+made the thunder roll among the mountains; how the fight raged on till
+the awful precipice was reached, from which men poured down in a living
+avalanche to the rocks below; how at last Kamehameha drew back his
+victorious troops into the lower country, where the loud “_Auwe_” of
+the women rent the air in wailing for their husbands and fathers--all
+these are stories by themselves.
+
+Kamehameha knew himself at last lord of the Eight Islands from Niihau
+to Hawaii.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a day of great mourning in Oahu. In every house there was
+wailing and rending of hair for the warriors transfixed by the sharp
+spears or battered to death on the rocks of the Nuuanu Pali. But they
+had fought well, they were gone to Paliuli, the blue mountain, to
+the land of the divine water of Kane, and as the sun set men saw the
+great procession of the dead in the western sky leaving the earth
+forever by the road of the gods. But when the sun rose again in the
+east they turned their thoughts to the living and the day. What now
+would be their fate? Kamehameha would hold his court; he would receive
+the homage of the conquered people; he would expect his _hookana_ or
+tribute. “Let us hasten,” they said, “to propitiate the new king.”
+So all prepared to go with their gifts. Prominent among these was
+Kamakahou, the father of Leilehua. He had known of Hakuole’s love and
+had been himself disposed to accept him for a son-in-law, but he was a
+sycophant and a schemer. As a _kahuna_ he had been among the advisers
+of the fallen chiefs, and his reputation for learning was great. He
+knew the five planets and suspected the existence of a sixth; he knew
+all the _kapu_ days, the holy seasons and the prescribed ordinances;
+he could prepare lustral waters to drive away diseases and demons. He
+was proficient in all the ten branches of priestly lore, and could
+even cause the spirits of the dead to enter the body of a person and
+possess it. He was skilled, moreover, in the preparation of medicines,
+and could cure toothache and bruises and broken bones.
+
+But with all his learning he was avaricious and preferred the favor of
+the king to the approval of his conscience. So he prepared his gift and
+went.
+
+The court of Kamehameha was held in the open air, the royal pavilion
+consisting of a raised couch of ferns over which a slight _lanai_ had
+been built of _lauhala_ palms. The king reclined at his ease. Beside
+him stood the royal _kahili_-bearers waving their huge feather brushes.
+Close by stood the _pukanas_, or trumpeters, with gorgeous headgear and
+capes. Near these stood the _kukini_, or runners, the _kahunas_, with
+tabu-sticks, while the _hula_-girls with instruments of music squatted
+a little to the left. In the midst of the _kahunas_, on a carpet of
+red cloth was the famous war god of Kamehameha, Kaili, whose shriek
+could be heard above the din of battle. It was of wickerwork decorated
+with small feathers, its eyes made of large oyster shells and mouth
+ornamented by a double row of dog’s fangs.
+
+Before the king the gifts lay in piles--calabashes of rare wood, logs
+of _iliahi_, or sandalwood, rolls of curiously wrought _kapa_, pigs,
+dogs, cocoanuts, sweet potatoes, seaweeds, shrimps, _papai_, _opelo_,
+_awa_, and many another costly article of dress, or dainty morsel of
+food.
+
+Finally, when Kamehameha seemed a little sated with his _hookana_, came
+a gift which drew all eyes. They saw Kamakahou leading his daughter
+Leilehua forward to the presence of the king. “O king,” he cried,
+“behold the _kaikamahine_; take her, the light of my eyes, and let
+there be peace between us.”
+
+The maiden, who had advanced reluctantly, stood timidly before the
+couch, her face hid in her hands. The black tresses fell down her back
+in great coils, rippling over her dusky shoulders and falling to the
+skirt of yellow _kapa_ which was fastened around her waist. On her head
+was a wreath of the scarlet flowers from which she took her name; on
+her wrists and ankles bracelets of sea-shells, and on her breast the
+ivory emblem suspended by the mystic three hundred braids of human hair.
+
+Only a moment she stood, and then, weeping, sank on her knees, let her
+hands fall from her face, and with pleading eyes gazed into the king’s
+face. Kamehameha, startled at so beauteous a vision, raised himself
+from the couch and, as he stood erect, clad in the brilliant feather
+cloak which was the work of ten generations of kings, he seemed a god
+come down in human form. As he stepped forward to take the hand of the
+tribute girl, a great shout began--
+
+“_Nani loa! Maikai loa! e----_”
+
+_Began_, I say, but did not finish; for, lo! the circle of spectators
+parted, and there strode to the side of the weeping maid a young
+man who lacked but little of the height of Kamehameha himself. He
+was covered with blood and dust, having almost crawled from the
+battlefield, but he stood erect now, and he had a torn wreath of
+flowers around his neck. He did not flinch before the gaze of the king,
+but caught the hand of Leilehua, lifted her up, and bore her in among
+the people. It took only a few seconds, but the stillness of death had
+fallen upon the people. Was Hakuole mad? Had he seen a _lapu_ and been
+bewitched? Rash man! See the thunder-cloud in the face of the chief who
+was never crossed with impunity! What fate did the conqueror of Oahu
+meditate for the man who braved him? Would he be offered as a sacrifice
+at the _heiau_, or would he be clubbed to death, burned, or buried
+alive?
+
+Hark! the king raises his voice, and his guards seize the overbold
+youth and the maiden, hurry them before the dais, and stand ready to
+carry out whatever sentence of death is imposed.
+
+Leilehua and Hakuole stand before Kamehameha, and they can hear their
+hearts beat, the people are so quiet.
+
+Then Kamehameha speaks in strong, firm tones, which show the man born
+for command, but with no touch of immoderate anger. The cloud has gone
+from his face, but he begins sharply enough:
+
+“_E Hakuole_, so you are tired of life, tired of fighting. You dream
+already of maiden’s eyes and a life among the _nala_. You would let
+the prows rot on the beach, seeking no more for the glory a man ought
+to love. Well, as you mean to stay among the _wahine_, and love a
+maiden here more than you fear me, I suspend you from a soldier’s duty
+till the moon Ikiiki returns. Away! and for the girl, Leilehua, the
+faithful in love, all the lands which were her father’s are hers from
+henceforth. Take the _kaikamahine_--beautiful is she as the morning
+breaking the shadows--and may the loves of Leilehua and Hakuole be as
+glorious to Hawaii as the wars of Kamehameha.”
+
+Kamehameha had indeed won a greater victory than that of Nuuanu
+Pali, for the hearts of the people, and not their bodies only, were
+henceforth his forever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus the first of the Seven Kings of Hawaii established his sovereignty
+and founded a dynasty, and the statue of this “Napoleon of the
+Pacific” in front of Aliiolani Hale, in Honolulu, will ever attract
+the reverence of men. Had all the island kings been like the first
+Kamehameha, Hawaii had never more known the strife of factions.
+
+Hakuole and Leilehua had a long honeymoon, in which they learned
+depths of love as yet unfathomed. Then they came back to be among the
+staunchest supporters of the new king. Love grew with the years, and
+the sweet singers of Hawaii to-day can choose no better theme to bring
+back the romance of the old barbaric times than the story of sweet
+Leilehua and her bold lover Hakuole, who for her sake braved the wrath
+of a king.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE SPOUTING CAVE OF LANAI
+
+  “Over the mountains and under the waves.
+   Over the fountains and under the graves.
+   Over floods that are deepest,
+       Which Neptune obey,
+   Over rocks that are steepest,
+       Love will find out the way.”
+
+                               --_Old Song._
+
+
+Readers of Byron will remember, in his poem entitled, “The Island,” the
+description of a wonderful cavern at Toobanai, the only entrance to
+which was under the sea. The way by which Neuha guided Torquil to its
+safe retreat is described as follows:
+
+  “Young Neuha plunged into the deep, and he
+   Follow’d; her track beneath the native sea.
+   Was as a native’s of the element,
+   So smoothly, bravely, brilliantly she went,
+   Leaving a streak of light behind her heel,
+   Which struck and flash’d like an amphibious steel.
+   Closely, and scarcely less expert to trace
+   The depths where divers hold the pearl in chase,
+   Torquil, the nursling of the northern seas,
+   Pursued her liquid steps with art and ease.
+   Deep--deeper for an instant Neuha led
+   The way--then upward soar’d--and as she spread
+   Her arms and flung the foam from off her locks
+   Laugh’d and the sound was answered by the rocks.
+   They had gain’d a central realm of earth again,
+   But look’d for tree, and field, and sky in vain.
+   Around she pointed to a spacious cave,
+   Whose only portal was the keyless wave.”
+
+The poet admits having found the original of his submarine cave in
+Mariner’s “Account of the Tonga Islands,” taking advantage of the
+license allowed to poets to transplant it to the scene of his poem.
+
+Probably he did not know that there existed in the Hawaiian group a
+cavern similar to that which he describes, to which attaches a story
+far more romantic than that of the loves of Torquil and Neuha.
+
+The Puhio-kaala, or Spouting Cave of Kaala, is on the rocky coast
+of the little island of Lanai, near Kaumalapau Bay. Down below the
+rocky bluff is that “refuge submarine” where “Nature played with the
+stalactites, and built herself a chapel of the seas.”
+
+The entrance is marked by the vortex of a whirlpool, from which a
+column of foam rises up when the tide runs out. He who dared to venture
+the perils of the entrance would, on gaining his footing below, find
+himself beneath a “self-born Gothic canopy,”
+
+  “A hollow archway by the sun unseen,
+   Save through the billows’ glassy veil of green.”
+
+The pleasure of the diver, however, would be rudely disturbed when he
+found the cave already occupied by millions of cold-blooded, slimy,
+shelly, stinging, dank and noisome creatures of the deep. Once, legend
+says, it was inhabited by the great lizard god, Moalii, but Ukanipo,
+the shark god, threatened to block up the entrance with rocks if he did
+not move. Thereupon the cave was left to its present smaller, but no
+less uncanny tenants.
+
+These were quite sufficient to prevent frequent visits to the cave,
+though in truth there were few bold and skillful enough to shoot
+through the whirlpool into its sunless depths, even if inclined.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the present time Lanai has but a few hundred inhabitants at most,
+although one of the loveliest islands of the group. But when, over a
+hundred years ago, Kamehameha, with his court, paid it a brief visit to
+enjoy an interval of rest and refreshment, he found no fewer than five
+or six thousand people on the beach to welcome him. Rich and numerous
+were the presents brought, and among those who offered their gifts was
+Kaala, “the flower of Lanai,” who strewed flowers no lovelier than
+herself in the conqueror’s path.
+
+She was a beautiful girl of fifteen, the daughter of a chief named
+Opunui, and one who had no lack of admirers. Even Kamehameha could not
+help following her graceful movements with pleasure. But in the heart
+of one who followed in the king’s train, the warrior Kaaialii, the girl
+made such instant havoc that it needed only a glance for her to detect
+the passion she had kindled. And, strange to say, she who had repulsed
+so many adorers in her native isle, felt herself won in a moment by
+this tall, sinewy chief from Oahu.
+
+Kaaialii, seeing and reading her smile, apprehended no difficulty in
+winning her for his wife, but he was overestimating the smoothness of
+true love’s course.
+
+When he begged Kamehameha to grant him Kaala for a wife, the king made
+no objection, but ventured to suggest, in justice, a reference to the
+father, too.
+
+Even this, difficult as it may appear in prospect to most lovers,
+did not seem a hopeless task to Kaaialii, for he was well known as a
+warrior and better born than Opunui.
+
+Opunui, however, thought otherwise. He had a grudge against Kaaialii
+which went back as far as the battle of Maunalei, when they had been
+opposed in the conflict, and, moreover, there was another suitor, who,
+although detested by the girl, was more than eligible in the eyes of
+her father.
+
+This favored one was Mailou, “the bone breaker”--one whose prowess as a
+wrestler had won the unstinted admiration and regard of the father, but
+inspired no tender feeling in the breast of the daughter.
+
+Now Opunui was too wise to meet Kamehameha’s request for his daughter
+with a blunt refusal, and he respected the “bone breaker’s” powers
+of body too much to cast him aside for another without an effort, so
+he assumed an air of great deference, told the king how pleased he
+would be to comply, and how great an honor he would esteem it to have
+Kaaialii for a son-in-law, but that unfortunately he had pledged his
+word to his estimable friend Mailou. The only way out of the dilemma,
+the wily old man suggested, was for Mailou and Kaaialii to wrestle the
+matter out between them. He would be content to leave the girl in the
+victor’s hands.
+
+Of course he had such faith in the cruel embrace of the “bone breaker”
+that he believed it vain for his daughter to aspire to the embrace of
+Kaaialii.
+
+Everywhere the news of the contest spread, and was received with
+pleasure, for the Hawaiian needed nothing more than _panem et
+circenses_ to make up the joy of life. There was only one exception and
+this was the maiden who was to be chief gainer or loser by the struggle.
+
+She was driven almost to despair by the news, for she knew the deadly
+strength of Mailou, and could not forget the reports of the many wives
+he had slain and cast into the sea. She clung to Kaaialii as to one
+whom she was sending to his death, and yet one in whom was her only
+hope of life.
+
+Meanwhile the arena was prepared. The two combatants stood face to
+face--Mailou with his long arms, broad shoulders and mighty limbs, his
+fingers opening and closing, as if impatient to tear his adversary to
+pieces--Kaaialii in comparison almost frail and slender, yet with no
+lack of cheerful confidence expressed in his handsome features.
+
+Kaala knew no more of Shakespeare than Shakespeare knew of her; but, as
+she gazed trembling at her lover, she felt, with Rosalind:
+
+  “The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.”
+
+Then the battle began, a struggle to the death, in which every injury
+it was possible to inflict was permissible. To the taunts of Mailou,
+Kaaialii made no reply, but when the “bone breaker” sprang like a wild
+beast at his throat, his shark-like teeth grinning with anticipated
+triumph, he was on the alert and, dexterously swinging aside his body,
+he allowed Mailou to fall headlong to the earth. In another instant he
+had seized his right arm, and with a skillful kick snapped the bone
+below the elbow. With a howl of rage Mailou rushed again to the attack,
+but was felled to the ground and his left arm broken as the right had
+been. With both arms broken, the furious giant rushed once again at the
+warrior, charging with lowered head, like a bull. But this was his last
+charge, for Kaaialii had him by the hair as he fell, and, placing his
+knee against his back, with a mighty effort broke his spine.
+
+There was general rejoicing at Kaaialii’s victory, for the wrestler,
+though feared on account of his strength, was too much of a bully to be
+popular, and only in the heart of Opunui was there any regret at the
+issue. Opunui, so far from being reconciled to Kaala becoming the wife
+of Kaaialii, was more than ever determined that the latter should never
+carry away his prize.
+
+So, although he opposed no word when Kamehameha placed the lovers hand
+in hand before him and pronounced them married, he formed his plan.
+With soft, plausible words he approached his daughter, expressing his
+delight at her happiness, but requesting that she would come with him
+for the last time to visit her mother, Kalani, and speak the sad words
+of farewell. The maiden tearfully acquiesced and, assuring Kaaialii of
+her speedy return, followed her father down the valley of Palawai,
+towards the Bay of Kaumalapau.
+
+“Why go to the bay, my father, since you say that my mother is ill at
+Malana?” inquired the girl.
+
+The old hypocrite answered that her mother was at the seashore, where
+she had prepared a banquet in celebration of her child’s marriage.
+There were crabs, shrimps, limpets, and all kinds of dainties. Kalani
+only awaited her husband and daughter.
+
+Arrived at the shore, however, Kaala saw that her mother’s fire was not
+there, and knew that her father was deceiving her. Glancing up she saw
+his face lighted with a cruel smile, which no longer concealed his real
+feelings.
+
+“Listen,” he said, “rather than be the bride of Kaaialii you shall have
+a shark for your mate, and in his palace beneath the sea I will keep
+you safe till the king has left Lanai with his warriors.”
+
+The poor girl screamed, for she guessed his purpose, but it was too
+late to resist. Just below the bench of rock on which they stood, the
+Spouting Cave roared and foamed. Opunui knew its entrance well, and
+seizing his daughter in his arms waited for the moment when the column
+of water settled down into the vortex. Then he sprang and, sinking
+beneath the surface, the two found themselves drawn swiftly by the
+current down and down, and then suddenly swept through the entrance
+into a dark and gloomy cavern.
+
+The greenish light showed even to the fainting girl the horror of
+her surroundings, and it was as in a dream that she heard her father
+declare that there she should remain till the hated Kaaialii had given
+her up and gone. She had barely time to renew her vow of fidelity to
+her lover before Opunui seized the proper moment, plunged once more
+into the water and was sucked up with the spouting column into the
+upper air.
+
+The girl, brought back to consciousness by the very terror of her
+situation, was left alone to waste her strength in unavailing efforts
+to return through the water. Alas! this was a feat requiring a strength
+and a skill far beyond such as hers.
+
+We return to Kaaialii, who was anything but pleased with the bride’s so
+sudden departure. He followed her with his eyes as long as he could,
+then he transferred his thoughts to the meeting again on the morrow.
+But when the morrow came and no Kaala, and, still more, when he learned
+that Kaala had never been near the hut of Kalani, his heart misgave him.
+
+He started to seek his lost one, and wherever he went signs of evil
+multiplied. The path of his beloved led to the sea and stopped; Opunui
+kept out of his way and took refuge in a _puuhonua_; the diviners, whom
+he consulted, could only tell him:
+
+“The sweet-smelling flower of Lanai is neither in the hills nor in the
+valleys. Search the sea. There are cliffs that are hollow, and caves
+beneath the waves.”
+
+With this vague oracle in his mind he wandered along the rocky shore,
+crying out in his despair:
+
+“O Kaala, Kaala! if living, where sleepest thou? If dead, where rest
+thy bones?”
+
+Suddenly from the waters below him there seemed to come a voice
+mounting upward from a wraith of water. He looked below, and the
+vortex at his feet seemed to call him by name and invite him. She was
+dead, he thought, her spirit had called! What could he do better than
+die too?
+
+So with the cry “Kaala” upon his lips, he leaped and was engulfed in
+the waves which dragged him below as with invisible hands.
+
+A friend following him and knowing that here was the entrance to the
+Spouting Cave, fled along the rocks and told what he had seen, and in
+an hour or two Kamehameha himself, rowed by his sturdiest oarsmen, was
+near the spot in his canoe.
+
+Kaaialii found himself drawn downwards till he no longer believed
+himself alive. At last his feet gained the sloping beach and he found
+his head once more above water, but, in the dark, he believed he had
+arrived in the hall of the dead. The thundering of the breakers sounded
+above him, life seemed left far behind, but both hope and memory came
+back with the touch of cold and slimy things crawling over and stinging
+his flesh. He knew he was alive, and just at that moment a low moan
+reached his ears which made his heart stand still.
+
+Looking around he saw a dark form upon the strand, and from this
+direction came the moaning.
+
+He crawled towards it, and had barely reached it ere he heard his name
+pronounced. It was the body of Kaala he saw before him and the creeping
+things of the sea were sucking her blood.
+
+Kaaialii flung himself upon her with a passionate kiss.
+
+“O Kaala! Kaaialii is here!” He pushed back her wet hair, took her in
+his arms, and began to carry her towards the opening of the cave. But
+with a voice which grew gradually fainter, Kaala told him that she was
+dying.
+
+“I am so happy that you are here! Lay me down and let me die!”
+
+The smile that played upon her lips testified to her joy, but it also
+made Kaaialii hope for her life. When, however, he laid his hand upon
+her heart, it was cold and still. Death had come and found her happy.
+
+But Kaaialii still clasped his precious burden as though waiting for
+Kaala to awake. He sat in silence, all unconscious of the flight of
+time, until he was roused from his stupor by a splash.
+
+In another instant came another, and then there rose up from the water
+two forms: first the figure of Ua, a friend of Kaala, and immediately
+behind Kamehameha, who had been shown the mouth of the cave and had
+dauntlessly leaped to wrest from it its secret and his friend.
+
+A swift glance revealed to the king all that had happened. The warrior
+laid his dead bride beside him, rose to his feet, and with bent head
+stood before his chief.
+
+The stern monarch was touched with Kaaialii’s unspoken grief. “I see,”
+he said; “she is dead. Let her rest; she can have no better sepulchre.
+Come, Kaaialii, let us go.”
+
+Then Kaaialii came to himself. He had never gone further in his
+thoughts as yet than the discovery of his loved one. Now he knew and
+faced the consequences.
+
+“Go?” he cried. “Nay, I stay. Oh, my king, never have I disobeyed you
+before, and never will I disobey you again. But here I must stay. My
+life ends here.”
+
+With a swift movement he seized a stone, dashed it against his head,
+crushing into the very brain, then sank lifeless beside the body of
+Kaala.
+
+Kamehameha left them together, and by-and-by had them wrapped in folds
+of _kapa_. There their bones lie to-day. Few, however, to-day know the
+secret of the entrance to Puhio-Kaala.
+
+The minstrels made a dirge about it and in after years, when Kamehameha
+rested at Kealia or Waipio, there was no _mele_ he loved so well to
+hear as that which told of the faith of Kaala and Kaaialii:
+
+  “Oh! dead is Kaaialii, the young chief of Hawaii,
+   The chief of few years and many battles.
+   His limbs were strong and his heart was gentle.
+   His face was like the sun, and he was without fear.
+   For his love he plunged into the deep waters;
+   For his love he gave his life.”
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+LONO’S LAST MARTYR
+
+
+The heroes of victory are rarely without their monuments: the heroes
+of lost causes are too often forgotten. The old order changes, giving
+place to new, and in course of time we praise the bold innovators who
+let in the light, but we forget that even the defeated darkness may
+have its martyrdoms, its faith and its courage worthy of the poet’s
+song.
+
+It is a story of such heroism as this which gathers round a neglected
+tumulus, now well nigh hidden in clustering ferns and creeping vines
+on the island of Hawaii. Not far from Kilau, on the western coast of
+the island, almost under the shadow of Mauna Hualalai, which rises
+nearly 9,000 feet above the sea, there is a plain of rough lava, whose
+barrenness is only in places veiled by tufts of waving grass and by
+spreading creepers and richly hued flowers. In many places there rise
+the ruins of former temples and fortifications belonging to the old
+warlike time. The massive, squarely shapen stones contrast strangely
+with the spherical volcanic boulders which attest that here Nature has
+warred as well as man. After traveling over two miles of such country
+as this you will begin to stumble over frequent heaps of stones well
+nigh concealed in the grass and ferns. Your imagination suggests
+graves, rightly so, and you pick your way among them till you come
+to Kuamoo, where there is an oblong cairn, some ten feet long by six
+wide, built in the form of a tomb, and almost hidden from sight in the
+greenery of innumerable ferns and the blossoms of morning glory and
+passion flower. Well does Nature keep the spot beautiful and fragrant,
+for here lie side by side the mortal remains of two heroes and two
+lovers, whom, heathen though they were, the new time will not willingly
+permit to be forgotten.
+
+It was in the autumn of 1819 that the great change came which has been
+hailed by many as the day of new birth for the Eight Islands--the
+abolition of the tabu and the destruction of the idols. We shall not
+attempt to defend the anterior condition of the island kingdom, but it
+will be seen in the course of this story that the transition was by no
+means without its element of danger and mischief.
+
+No darkness could well have been deeper than that of olden Hawaii,
+with its bloody worship, its human sacrifices, its oppression of
+the _makaainana_, or common people, and, above all, its tabu. How
+this pressed with leaden weight upon the people would be almost
+incredible if described in detail. Suffice it to say that for every
+act and condition of life there was a tabu, extending to food, dress,
+etiquette, time, place, labor, and privilege. And for every breach of
+the tabu there was but one penalty--death.
+
+It might, therefore, be thought that its abolition would be received
+with universal applause, that only from the hearts of the cruel bigots
+of heathenism, monsters thirsting for human gore, tyrants ruling
+by oppression and fraud, would there be a sigh of regret when the
+death-knell of the old heathenism sounded forth.
+
+This, however, was not the case. Viewing the matter from close quarters
+we can easily see that the priests and worshippers of Lono, who
+protested against the act of Liholiho had some justice on their side.
+
+The mighty Kamehameha had breathed his last, and his dust had been
+hidden away somewhere, where, no one but Hoapili knew, among the
+mountains of Hawaii. Liholiho, his successor, was under the influence
+of the queen mother, Kaahumanu, who had long been chafing under the
+restraints of the tabu upon her sex. He himself, a youth of twenty-two,
+no stranger, unfortunately, to the fire-water of the whalers, deemed
+the law of tabu overmuch of a clog on his own princely liberty, and as
+entailing, moreover, a heavy expenditure for the support of the state
+idolatry and the maintenance of the priesthood.
+
+Arrived at Kawaihae, he heard of Kaahumanu’s intention to attempt
+the sacrilege, and, not indisposed to have his own share in the
+contemplated work, immediately sailed to the south. Landing at Puako,
+there followed a series of debauches to which the court of Kamehameha
+had been a stranger. For twenty-four hours the tumultuous merriment
+went on. The royal party joined the _hula_-dancers in their obscene
+revelry. They tossed bottles of liquor to the sea gods, inviting them
+to drink themselves drunk with them, and at last the moment arrived
+when a public violation of the tabu was to take place, in order to
+show that the old order had passed forever. This breach with the past
+was made by the king’s deliberate act of sending prohibited food from
+his own table to that of the women, and by his taking his own place
+among them. In a moment the royal example was followed, men and women
+were eating and drinking promiscuously together, and the feast was no
+longer “_ai kapu_,” or sacred eating, but “_ai noa_,” or common eating.
+A few chiefs turned pale in their drunkenness at the outrages offered
+to their religion and their law, some strode forth indignant and held
+counsel together, while Liholiho and the high-priest, Hewahewa, with
+their drunken crew, rode forth to destroy the images of the insulted
+gods, and the shrines where no sacrifice should be offered more.
+
+We shall not be ashamed to stay among the few still faithful to the
+old order and its traditions. It is true the tabu was tyrannous and
+cruel beyond belief, but a cruel code is far better than anarchy, and
+Liholiho had nothing to put in the place of the tabu but the lawless
+wantonness of the whalers. Was the liquor of the white men a better
+inspiration than the will of the chiefs? Had not Kamehameha, to whom
+the land owed prosperity and peace, deliberately given up drinking
+the _haole_ gin and expressly warned his people against falling into
+its pernicious snare? And now had they not lived to see his son, a
+shameful sight to the people, reeling on horseback, arms and legs
+extended, raging against the gods of their fathers? If Vancouver had
+sent the white teacher he had promised they might have heard tidings
+worth giving ear to, as, rumor had it, had been the case in Tahiti,
+but surely it was better to keep the old law, by which the chiefs and
+people alike guided their steps, until they had considered the new!
+
+The chief speaker in the conference was the young and handsome
+Kekuaokalani, upon whom had fallen the defense of the traditions of
+church and state. No nobler Hawaiian had ever been listened to by the
+_alii_. Well nigh seven feet in height, with masses of raven black hair
+hanging upon his shoulders, perfect in features and form, wise, brave
+and magnetic, a chief of even bluer blood than his uncle Kamehameha, by
+his own choice also a priest, equal in learning to Hewahewa, he was a
+man well fitted to be the leader of a cause however desperate it might
+appear. Moreover, his marriage with the beautiful Manono, who lived in
+the light of his love, had touched the sympathy and imaginations of the
+people, and when he strode forth from the wild revelry of the crowd,
+bearing in his arms the insulted image of Lono, he may well have seemed
+a hero, or even a demi-god, to the amazed and troubled people.
+
+Whether ambitious or not, Kekuaokalani conceived that to him had
+come a charge from the gods to avenge their cause upon a drunken and
+degenerate king and to take the place before the shrines vacated by
+the renegade Hewahewa. As for Kaahumanu, he knew her to be a light
+woman, whose escapades had sorely troubled the heart and patience of
+Kamehameha. Certainly Lady Pele, goddess of the fire-world, slumbering
+within the mountain, would protect her honor against law-breakers such
+as she.
+
+So Kekuaokalani withdrew to Kaaweloa, where the conservative leaders
+and the priests offered him the crown, with the oracular saying: “A
+religious chief shall possess the kingdom, but irreligious chiefs
+shall always be poor.” It was a dangerous honor thus thrust upon him,
+but he accepted it gladly and prepared for the trial of strength with
+Liholiho. Many of the people who shared his spirit gathered around him
+and, when the winter solstice brought with it the annual feast of Lono,
+the festival was kept with a sincerity and enthusiasm all the more
+impressive from the presentiment entertained by not a few that it was
+the last festival which Lono would ever have in Hawaii. It is not a
+little pathetic to contemplate the people “about to die” face to face
+with the gods “about to die” for these five strange, sad, festive days.
+
+Meanwhile the work of the royal “reformers” went on throughout the
+land and a month passed by, during which the news came daily of the
+pulling down of _heiaus_ and the burning of idols. The king was happy
+in his iconoclasm, but no word came to him of the preparations of
+Kekuaokalani. Then suddenly the tidings reached Liholiho that Hamakua
+was being invaded by the rebels, and that one of the chiefs, Kainapau
+by name, was slain. Some of the king’s favorites endeavored to belittle
+the affair and strove to allay the royal alarm by offering, with forty
+warriors, to suppress the insurrection. Hewahewa, the renegade priest,
+knew Kekuaokalani better, and declared:
+
+“Not forty times forty will be enough! Kekuaokalani is in the field to
+conquer or to die!”
+
+Then the alarm was genuine and general, and while the resourceful
+Kaahumanu bethought herself of the purchase of muskets from the white
+traders, Liholiho endeavored to quench the fire of rebellion by the
+sending of an embassy.
+
+Some of the most notable men in the crowd were selected, men close
+of kin to Kekuaokalani, as well as high in the counsels of Liholiho.
+There was prominent among them, Naihe, the uncle of the rebel chief,
+and Kalaimoku, the commander of the king’s forces. And with these was
+Keopuolani, the bluest blooded queen of Kamehameha.
+
+“We come,” they said, “to make peace between you and the king. Liholiho
+offers you freedom to follow your own religion if you will consent to
+lay aside your arms.”
+
+“Alas!” replied the chief, “to what avail is liberty to worship when
+the gods and the temples are consumed with fire? How can we serve the
+gods acceptably when the tabu exists no more and men know not what is
+sacred and what is common?”
+
+“You will have war, then?” asked the ambassadors.
+
+“Nay, I choose not,” cried Kekuaokalani. “Here stand I where Liholiho
+and Hewahewa, king and high-priest, should stand to defend the
+traditions to which I am pledged by my oath as _alii_. Lono will not
+forget the faithful, and if we die we die true to our ancestors and to
+the gods who made them kings.”
+
+Kalaimoku withdrew with his company sadly and respectfully, and
+Kekuakoalani went within his house and, falling upon the breast of his
+wife, burst into tears.
+
+O! beautiful was life surrounded with the love of Manono! Hard it were
+to die and go beneath the ground with such sunshine flooding the earth.
+But Kekuaokalani was right: “He could not choose.”
+
+“Is there a choice for strong souls to be weak?” Though he die, he must
+be loyal to his faith in Lono. The night before, the _alae_ had uttered
+its shrill note of presaging ill outside the house. Manono was all
+disconsolate with so many auguries of ill about her, but her husband
+bravely used every endeavor to turn aside her fears, saying that
+forebodings of ill were only for those who did ill. Yet he felt in his
+heart that the gods perhaps intended to take their cause into their own
+hands, and that he might be only a sacrifice where he had hoped to be a
+deliverer.
+
+Nevertheless, the next morning, when the army made itself ready for
+the march, Kekuaokalani had a countenance wherein was no trace of fear
+or foreboding. With cheerful shouts of encouragement to his eager
+followers, he trod the lava plains with as much alacrity as if starting
+to a feast, and close behind him, rather than with the other women
+in the rear, marched Manono, happier to stand on the field of blood
+beside her lover than to tarry behind in ignoble safety. There were
+priests of Lono, too, carrying the gods newly arrayed for the carnage.
+Perchance, yet once again, might the war god Kaili be seen flying above
+the contending hosts, a luminous streak of vapor, uttering aloud the
+war cries which had cleared the way to victory for Kamehameha. How the
+drunkard Liholiho would feel his blood freezing in his veins at such an
+apparition!
+
+As they marched along they came to the spot where, twelve generations
+before, the mighty giant Maukaleoleo had appeared to the hero Umi and
+had given him strength above the lot of man to overcome his foes. Would
+that now that terrific figure might appear, plucking the cocoanuts from
+the tallest trees as he walked, or wading out to sea among the canoes!
+
+But, alas! no marvels came to aid their faith. They must fight the
+battle of the gods alone to-day.
+
+So at last they came to Kuamoo on the morning of December 19, 1819,
+a day forever memorable in the history of Hawaii as the day in which
+the forces of the old era were defeated by those of the new, both
+struggling in the dark and ignorant of the light which was so soon to
+come.
+
+Kalaimoku was even yet anxious to avoid a battle with Kekuaokalani, who
+was his own sister’s son, and he sent a messenger with an affectionate
+entreaty for another interview. But, even though his own mother
+pleaded, together with his uncle, the dauntless heathen refused to
+listen to the messenger and compelled him to leap into the sea and swim
+with all his might to save his life.
+
+The forces then took up their respective positions, Kalaimoku knowing
+that now only the grim arbitrament of battle could decide. Liholiho’s
+forces were strong in musketry and in the aid of foreigners, and their
+retreat was protected by the formidable squadron of double canoes which
+had been the pride of Kamehameha’s declining years. Kekuaokalani placed
+the priests of Lono with the images in the front of his line for a
+while, and then loud were the imprecations denounced upon the royal
+army. But, to be of more avail to-day, behind these was a splendid
+force of spearmen eager for the _lehua_, or first-slain victim. Behind
+all were the women, who followed the soldiers with calabashes of water
+and dried fish, to recruit the strength of the combatants when these
+were weary or athirst. But every woman was ready to fight and die with
+Kekuaokalani.
+
+The attack was made by the rebel forces, who bore down upon the army
+of Liholiho with an impetus such as must have swept all before it,
+had it not been for the foreigners with their guns vomiting streams
+of fire upon their assailants. The company of musketeers kept up
+such a murderous fire upon the rebel center that, after a terrific
+and protracted struggle, this was driven back to the rising ground.
+Kekuaokalani, whose tall form was seen everywhere in the fray as he
+shouted orders to his spearmen, was wounded early in the battle, but
+fought on without knowing it, rallying his forces behind a stone
+wall about breast high, where there took place a struggle which
+for obstinacy and valour had no parallel in the annals of Hawaiian
+warfare. The double canoes commanded by the queen mother, Kaahumanu,
+raked the insurgent position with their guns, but two heroic figures
+seemed to stand out among the falling after every discharge, as if
+bearing charmed lives amid the rain of death. These were Kekuaokalani
+and his wife, Manono, who fought side by side, heedless of the heaped
+corpses around them. Weak with loss of blood from his previous wounds,
+Kekuaokalani more than once leaned fainting upon the arm of his wife,
+but he revived again and again to fight with a still more desperate
+valor. The temptation was sore when he beheld, through the battle
+smoke, his uncle Kalaimoku and his mother signalling him to ask for
+quarter; he set his teeth hard and fired again. Had it been Manono
+herself, he had most like done the same, though her breast had faced
+the bullets! No longer able to stand, he sat upon a fragment of
+lava and continued to load and fire his musket. No Kaili flew above
+the host as of old, no Lono came to lend supernatural aid to his
+faithful martyrs. Instead, the forces of Kalaimoku were advancing,
+and Kekuaokalani knew himself left to die, with life still sweet on
+his lips. The fated ball came at last, pierced his left breast, and,
+folding his face in his feather cloak, Kekuaokalani fell forward at
+the feet of Manono, and expired without a groan. Manono wept not, but
+awaited hopefully the messenger of death which should make them fellows
+again in the halls of Milu. On came the conquerors; in vain Kalaimoku
+and his sister cried to save her. Another bullet, unerring in its aim,
+pierced her temple and she fell upon the warm but lifeless body of her
+husband.
+
+The insurgents made but little more resistance now that their leader
+had fallen. It was sunset and under the cover of the darkness any that
+could, escaped. Some surrendered or were captured by the royal troops,
+a few crept into caves and holes of the mountains, and, covering the
+entrance with pieces of lava, lay concealed till Liholiho had returned
+to Kailua.
+
+Kalaimoku and his sister stood over the corpses of Kekuaokalani and
+Manono, and, gazing long upon the noble dead, exclaimed with tears:
+
+“Truly, since the days of Keawe, no nobler Hawaiians have lost the
+light of the sun!”
+
+Thus perished Lono’s last champions, faithful unto death.
+
+Three months later the first Christian missionaries reached the group
+with the tidings so long desired. The first news which reached them
+from the shore was in the almost incredible words: “The idols of Hawaii
+are no more!”
+
+May we not, while rejoicing in the new day which was thus brought to
+the land left by Liholiho bereft of law and religion, retain a tender
+heart for the youthful pair whose bodies sleep beneath the morning
+glory and the heaped-up stones on the shore of Kuamoo?
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+KEOUA
+
+_A Story of Kalawao_
+
+
+The laws of men are merciful in intent, but they sometimes grind
+hard upon the innocent and the poor, at times through the necessary
+imperfection of all human efforts after the ideal, at times through the
+harsh administration of enactments good enough in themselves.
+
+No laws have ever seemed so necessary in Hawaii as the laws enforcing
+the segregation of lepers; no laws just in themselves have ever been
+the cause of so much grief and pain. There have been times, moreover,
+when they were carried out neither wisely nor mercifully.
+
+At such a time only could the following story have been possible--the
+story of a love which laws could not abrogate nor death itself annul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pauoa is a valley of almost perpetual rainbow, where the mists dance in
+the sunshine on the mountainside and the waters trickle down through
+thickets of ferns and scarlet creepers to the long lines of cocoanut
+palms which stand like sentinels along the beach from Diamond Head to
+Honolulu.
+
+But its chief beauty to Keoua, returning with his net from fishing
+outside the coral reef, lay in the fact that he was homeward bent.
+There, a hundred yards further, was the grass hut, secluded behind a
+screen of banana trees, and rising apparently out of a glistening swamp
+of taro-patch made on a terrace of the mountainside. What joy to feel
+the embrace of his good _wahine_, Luka, and to have the crowing brown
+baby thrust into his arms to fondle! Was it not always worth while to
+be the long day away to know such a homecoming as this?
+
+But to-night there was no welcome, and Keoua’s heart sank. In his haste
+he waded through the taro-patch, instead of skirting the enclosure as
+usual. The child was there, he heard its cry before he entered, but
+of wife there was no sign. The baby lay on the matted floor, feebly
+whining; the mother was gone, apparently not without struggle, for the
+matting at the door had been torn violently away, making the hut look
+like a desolate cave.
+
+Keoua did not search the enclosure: he knew what had happened. The
+officers of the Board of Health had found his hut at last, and had
+taken away his wife, for--_she was a leper_. They had taken her away in
+the husband’s absence, for they knew that, had he been there, he would
+have fought to the death. His loaded gun still lay where he had left it
+in the corner of the hut. They had taken her by violence as it seemed,
+and callously left the helpless babe behind, for Hawaiian officials,
+even those with bowels of compassion, were not much given to thinking
+about babies. Some Chinese coolies working in the neighborhood
+corroborated the suggestions of his fear. Luka had been carried away
+to the _haole_ (white) doctors, and she would be taken to Molokai, and
+there be dead--dead to husband, child and friends.
+
+Keoua was a crushed man when he took his helpless babe in his arms. It
+did not occur to him to give it away, as many of his friends would have
+done, or even to find a nurse for it. Somehow it reminded him that he
+once had a home. He did not go fishing now. For three or four days he
+tried to make the babe eat some _poi_, or even, so stupid or ignorant
+was the man, some hard taro, or a piece of banana, but, although it
+did not cry, it refused to eat, and one day towards evening its cries
+ceased forever. Then Keoua, more miserable and lonely than ever,
+wrapped the tiny corpse in fold upon fold of _kapa_ and took it to the
+Kawaiahao cemetery. Here, among the graves of so many of his fast-dying
+race, he found a little wooden hut and knocked at the door. An old
+white-haired Hawaiian, no other indeed than Keoua’s father, opened. He
+was living here on the very soil which was in time to be his grave, and
+to him Keoua handed the bundle without a word of explanation, even as
+to the absence of Luka. The two men uttered their “_auwe_” together,
+the young man in his youth and the old man in his age, over the body
+of the babe. Then, as the moon rose, silvering the cocoanut groves of
+Waikiki, Keoua stole back to his deserted hut, with the instinct of a
+beast wishing to hide its head in the earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days later the “_Likelike_” is on her way from Honolulu to Mani.
+What a dream that voyage is! For a while the empty craters of Leahi and
+Koko Head, fringed with breakers along the coral reef, stand out in
+glorious sunlight. Then suddenly--
+
+  “The sun’s rim dips,
+   The stars rush out,
+   At one stride comes the dark.”
+
+Mattresses are spread on deck, the passengers stretch themselves for
+sleep, the air is heavy with the scent of the wreaths of flowers with
+which almost every voyager is bedecked; overhead the stars swing
+like lamps, or as though the whole vault of heaven, with its million
+eyes, were one lamp swaying in infinite space. Then, with a faint
+consciousness of something breaking in upon your dream, you feel an
+anchor drop and hear the splash of oars. You have not, however, reached
+your destination yet. This is some boat coming off from the shores of
+Molokai for stores for a lonely ranch in the mountains. If you rise,
+you may lean over the bulwarks and look through the mists upon a black
+mass of mountain wall which conceals the most loathsome scene the
+world affords--the great lazar house of Hawaii in Nature’s fairest
+garden, the saddest witness our earth possesses to the existence of the
+serpent’s trail.
+
+Yes, it is not the chill night-mist which makes you shiver; for,
+although you know the leper settlement is not on this side of the
+island, at Kaunakakai, but on the other side over the _pali_ at
+Kalaupapa, you feel that no wall of mountain can shut out the thought
+of thirteen hundred fellow creatures suffering a living death in the
+land which God made so fair.
+
+If you had been onboard the “_Likelike_” on the day of which I speak,
+you would have heard, almost coincident with the lifting of the anchor,
+a splash so indistinct that when some one shouted “Man overboard!”
+few believed the cry. Men lazily looked over the bulwarks, but saw
+nothing, for the moon was behind the mountain, and presently, with the
+comforting assurance that, if anybody had gone overboard, he was by
+this time food for sharks, lay back on their mattresses to continue
+their dreams and their voyage.
+
+But a man _had_ gone overboard, a man whose heart was bent on crossing
+seas and mountains to his leper bride. Keoua swam ashore silently,
+fearing every second to see the white fin of a shark start up beside
+him in the water. Once he felt the cold, slimy sucker of a squid
+against his ankle, but he tore himself free, and, shooting on a high
+roller through a narrow break in the reef, lay at last, spent and
+breathless, but safe upon the beach.
+
+Yet the worst was still before him. Kalaupapa could only be approached
+by crossing the mountain range, and the only path on the other side was
+down a _pali_ so steep that it made the head of the bravest climber
+dizzy to look upon it. However, there was no help for it, and in a
+few minutes, Keoua, recovering from the exhaustion consequent upon
+his swim, set off on the upward journey. This was comparatively easy,
+though it was still easier in the darkness to miss the path and get
+into those haunted gorges where of old the poison goddess had her
+grove. Long ropes of _ieie_, tough as wire cables, formed a ladder
+up the face of the mountain. By these, scarcely touching the ground,
+he toiled upwards through tangled growths which would otherwise have
+been impassable. When he reached the top, the sun was just rising from
+the clouds, and revealing one after another the majestic ridges of
+Haleakala and the rock-bound coasts of Maui and Lanai. Then the wind
+came sweeping up and threatened to dash the intruder backwards down the
+rocks. The trees swayed and bent, the foliage of the _kukui_ shivered
+with its ghostly sheen, the clouds swept away from the bay of Kalawao,
+and there, several thousand feet below, lay the white roofs and
+_lanais_ of as peaceful a settlement, to all appearances, as any upon
+which the sun has ever shone.
+
+But if ever a place could be called a whited sepulchre it was this;
+not that Christian love and self-sacrifice had not cast an aureole
+of beauty about it which made it sacred, but because here was the
+realization of Milton’s terrible vision:
+
+  “A lazar house it seemed, wherein were laid
+   Numbers of all diseased; all maladies
+   Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms
+   Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,
+   Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,
+   Intestine stone and ulcer, cholic pangs,
+   Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,
+   And moonstruck madness, pining atrophy,
+   Marasmus and wide-wasting pestilence,
+   Dropsies and asthmas and joint-racking rheums.
+   Dire was the tossing, deep the groans: Despair
+   Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch;
+   And over them triumphant Death his dart
+   Shook, but delayed to strike, though oft invoked,
+   With vows, as their chief good and final hope.”
+
+How could Nature sing so sweetly and smile so fair when the eyes rested
+upon a cancer so foul!
+
+Keoua looked down as though he expected to see there the grass hut
+of Pauoa Valley with Luka and her baby at the door to greet him, but
+the place seemed deserted till, when half-way down, the sweet tinkle
+of a chapel bell roused him from a dream, and he supported himself
+by a clump of guava bushes to watch the dark-cassocked priests and
+white-hooded sisters passing from the House of Misery to the solace of
+the House of God. Such was the mood of Keoua that he could not feel any
+thrill in the thought of these brave men and sweet women thus living
+in grim company with death. He thought only of the curse the white man
+had brought to his race from the days of Cook, the discoverer, to the
+day when the fruits of ancient vice had burst forth in the heart of his
+own home. So it was with hard and bitter thoughts he hastened on his
+way, scarce knowing what he intended to do, perhaps carry Luka bodily
+away from the pest-house to the fastnesses of the mountains, where they
+might live like the free wild beasts and die in peace.
+
+As he came near the hospital, however, there met him, sauntering forth,
+a man dressed in a cool suit of white linen, whose keen eye and earnest
+serious face proclaimed him the doctor.
+
+He glanced at the wayfarer with something of surprise, seeing that he
+was endeavoring to avoid an encounter.
+
+“_Aloha!_” he exclaimed, using the familiar Hawaiian greeting. The man
+made no response, but looked savagely on the ground.
+
+“Hello, my man; what’s the matter?” For Keoua looked ghastly through
+his olive skin, and his steps tottered. But strength came to answer,
+fiercely:
+
+“_Hele aku_--go away--curse you. Before time, _kanaka_ live here, no
+_pake mai_--(leprosy)--all _maikai loa_--very good. Then _haole_ man
+come, bring _pake mai_. Poor _kanaka_ die; make die all time. _Haole_
+man thief steal kanaka’s _wahine_; _haole_ man kill _kanaka’s keiki_
+(child). _Hele!_”
+
+The doctor thought of all he might say, for it was eminently
+reasonable, all this segregation, and the kanaka had much cause to
+be grateful for what the government was doing for the lepers. But he
+knew logic was not what the poor wretch wanted, and while he hesitated
+the need of answering vanished, for there rose up from the hospital a
+strange sound, strange at least from such a place. It was the strain
+of a band of music, plaintive yet joyful--no dirge, but the voice of
+rejoicing. For in this lazar-house joy is not unknown, albeit it comes
+at an hour when others weep. A soul freed from pain, from pollution,
+and from the body of death, born into the light of Paradise--in such a
+case was it not fitting that cymbals should clash and trumpets sound?
+
+“_Heaha kela?_” exclaimed Keoua; “what is that?”
+
+“The good God has taken to rest the soul of a poor woman who was glad
+to go.”
+
+“What was her name?” cried the Hawaiian, excitedly.
+
+“Luka,” replied the doctor.
+
+An ashy pallor spread over the man’s already bloodless face. It was
+plain to the doctor that Death had come even quicker than Love. Then
+there came a bitter cry, mingled with bitter laughter.
+
+“_Akua maikai!_ Good God!... Ha, ha, ha, ha.... He bad God! He all same
+_haole_! Steal poor kanaka’s _wahine_.... _Auwe_ ... _auwe_.... Me
+curse Him!”
+
+But the curse came not. A change as though an angel had whispered
+to him came swift as thought. He pressed his hands on his heart and
+murmured:
+
+“Me no curse Him! Good God! He good God! Sweet wife, sweet _keiki_ ...
+I come. _E Christo e aloha mai._” Then he fell heavily to the ground.
+
+An angel had indeed spoken to him--the kindest angel whom God had sent
+to Kalaupapa--the angel of Death.
+
+The music played on, and celestial harmonies seemed to mingle with its
+strains. It was as though glad spirits met and welcomed one another in
+a land fairer even than Hawaii, a land, moreover, where the serpent’s
+blight may never come.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A double funeral took place in the leper cemetery that very afternoon,
+and those who were there said the priest must have been absent-minded,
+for at the close of the service he spread his hands over the grave and
+said:
+
+“Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
+
+
+  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
+
+  Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
+
+  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76499 ***
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+      Hawaiian idylls of love and death | Project Gutenberg
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76499 ***</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowe28_125" id="frontispiece">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p class="caption">Statue of Kamehameha I, Honolulu.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/titlepage.jpg" alt="title page"></div>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+<h1>Hawaiian Idylls of<br>
+Love and Death</h1>
+
+<p>BY THE<br>
+<span class="xlarge">REV. HERBERT H. GOWEN</span><br>
+F.R.G.S., M.R.S.A. (<span class="smcap">Lond.</span>)<br>
+<i>Author of “The Paradise of the Pacific,” etc.</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/titlepagedeco.jpg" alt=""></div>
+
+<p>NEW YORK<br>
+<span class="large">COCHRANE PUBLISHING CO.</span><br>
+1908</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1908, by<br>
+COCHRANE PUBLISHING CO.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">INTRODUCTION</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> following stories are concerned mainly with incidents
+bearing on the career of the first sovereign of
+the Hawaiian archipelago, Kamehameha I, worthily distinguished
+from his successors as “Kamehameha the
+Great,” who, born about the year 1736, achieved the
+unification of the group in 1795, and died in 1819,
+leaving behind him no one capable of following in his
+footsteps.</p>
+
+<p>A few words about this notable ruler of a kingdom
+now no more may not be amiss as introductory to the
+stories to follow.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Every visitor to Honolulu finds his way in course
+of time to the splendid square between the Iolani
+Palace and the Aliiolani Hale. At least, such were
+the names borne till recent years by the dwelling-place
+of the sovereign and the meeting-place of the legislators
+of Hawaii. But times are changed, and names
+have changed with them. Now more prosaic names
+have been adopted by more prosaic times.</p>
+
+<p>Changing times, however, can never take away the
+interest attaching to one prominent object in this
+square, just in front of the Legislative Buildings. For
+monarch and legislature, ay, and people, too, may pass<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span>
+away and only bring into greater relief the true greatness
+of the man whose statue here keeps sentry guard.</p>
+
+<p>It is the statue of the chief who made Hawaii a
+kingdom, and gave it such cohesion and such stability
+that as a kingdom it endured for just a century. Here
+stands Kamehameha I, “the lonely one,” as his name
+implies, represented by the artist as he might have appeared
+in life at the head of his army in those heroic
+days when the chiefs of Hawaii fought “like gods of
+war dispensing fate.”</p>
+
+<p>We see him here a man of gigantic mould, with furrowed
+and smileless countenance, as of one who seldom
+spoke save to command, and who commanded to be
+obeyed. Spear in hand, feather-helmet on head, and on
+his shoulders the famous feather cloak which took nine
+generations of kings to construct—we seem to see
+before us that “Mars armipotent,” of whom it might
+be said, as it was said of the Homeric hero:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first">“On him the war is bent, the darts are shed,</div>
+<div class="verse">And all their falchions wave about his head:</div>
+<div class="verse">Repulsed, he stands, nor from his stand retires,</div>
+<div class="verse">But with repeated shouts his army fires.”</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The statue was modelled after a fine specimen of the
+Hawaiian race, named Kaopuiki, with whom the writer
+has several times crossed the channel from Maui to
+Lanai, but we have authority for the features in the
+portrait painted by M. Choris, the artist attached to
+Kotzebue’s expedition in 1816. This is the only authentic
+picture of Kamehameha in existence, and was
+painted when he was nearly eighty years old.</p>
+
+<p>Over a hundred and ten years ago, in the year of our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>
+era 1795, this man effected what, under the circumstances,
+seemed a task of insuperable difficulty—the
+union of the eight islands of the Hawaiian group under
+one government. What those difficulties were only
+those who have studied the matter will be able to appreciate.
+Here it will suffice to say that of his race
+there was none like him before, there has been none
+like him since. In all that shadowy time from the
+dawn of Hawaiian history to the establishment of
+intercourse with the western world, the time of heroes
+eight or nine feet high, who wielded spears ten
+yards long; heroes who fought with gods and received
+aid from gods, as the Greek warriors at Troy
+from Minerva and Apollo—heroes like Kiha of the
+magic conch, like Liloa and Umi and Lono, there
+was none who accomplished what Kamehameha did
+by the patient toil and dauntless courage of forty
+years.</p>
+
+<p>And in all the time since, in spite of that unexampled
+advance in civilization, which has made of Hawaii
+a land of telephones, electric light, public schools,
+universal suffrage and the rest, there has arisen no
+Hawaiian with one-tenth part of the manhood possessed
+and used, mainly for good, by this heroic savage.</p>
+
+<p>If the conquests of Kamehameha were inferior in
+extent to those of Alexander, it was because he had
+not Alexander’s scope. At any rate, he fought till
+he had no more worlds to conquer, and what he conquered
+he kept for himself and his family until the
+dynasty expired. Like Napoleon (and Kamehameha
+is often spoken of as the “Napoleon of the Pacific”),<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>
+he had an unswerving faith in his destiny. Otherwise,
+he never could have overcome so completely the
+obstacles in his way.</p>
+
+<p>For, although the uniting of eight small islands into
+one kingdom may appear to us a slight achievement,
+as a matter of fact, the task was anything but easy.
+Each of the islands had its traditions of pre-eminence,
+and the relations of island with island were marked
+by furious jealousy and hostility. Intercourse, for
+many generations, was almost suspended, except for
+purposes of war. Even a few years ago the natives
+of the windward and the leeward islands could be
+distinguished by their language—the Kauai and Oahu
+people using <i>t</i> and <i>r</i> in the Tahitian dialect, where
+the natives of Hawaii and Maui used <i>k</i> and <i>l</i>. But
+the fusion commenced by Kamehameha has progressed
+so well that the ancient differences of language are
+nearly as much obliterated as the desire for separate
+and independent governments.</p>
+
+<p>The consolidation of the kingdoms had been attempted
+before by able soldiers and statesmen, but had
+failed. Even the wise and philanthropic Vancouver
+tried to dissuade Kamehameha from what he believed
+a Utopian scheme which must result disastrously.
+Nevertheless, the savage followed his stars and prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>The late king—Kalakaua—an unbiased witness,
+since he succeeded to the throne as the first of a new
+line, unconnected with and in a measure hostile to
+the dynasty of the Kamehamehas—thus passes judgment
+on his illustrious predecessor:</p>
+
+<p>“Kamehameha was a man of tremendous physical<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>
+and intellectual strength. In any land, and in any
+age, he would have been a leader. The impress of
+his mind remains with his crude and vigorous laws,
+and wherever he stepped is seen an imperishable track.
+He was so strong of limb that ordinary men were but
+children in his grasp, and in council the wisest yielded
+to his judgment. He seems to have been born a man
+and to have had no boyhood. He was always sedate
+and thoughtful, and, from his earliest years, cared for
+no sport or pastime that was not manly. He had a
+harsh and rugged face, less given to smiles than
+frowns, but strongly marked with lines indicative of
+self-reliance and changeless purpose. He was barbarous,
+unforgiving and merciless to his enemies, but
+just, sagacious and considerate in dealing with his
+subjects. He was more feared than loved or respected;
+but his strength of arm and force of character well
+fitted him for the supreme chieftaincy of the group,
+and he accomplished what no one else could have done
+in his day.”</p>
+
+<p>This extract does no more than justice to Kamehameha’s
+powers of body and mind. Indeed it was
+his intellectual greatness which distinguished him so
+much from his contemporaries, and which forms his
+chief claim to the recognition of thoughtful men of
+all times and races.</p>
+
+<p>He is, in the first place, worthy to be put beside
+Fabius Maximus for his invincible pertinacity and patience.
+“<i>Unus homo cunctando restituit rem</i>,” was
+said of Hannibal’s great conqueror, and of the conqueror
+of Kalanikapule and <i>la haute noblesse</i> of all
+Hawaii it might be said with truth that not less by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>
+waiting than by fighting did he make for himself a
+kingdom. There may have been something of the Hawaiian
+indifference to the flight of time in the patience
+which enabled Kamehameha to take defeat so easily
+and to retire so contentedly, like another Cincinnatus,
+to cultivate his patrimonial fields at Waipio, but there
+was also without doubt abundant faith in waiting for
+the fullness of time—a faith the very reverse of common
+in barbarous or semi-civilized communities.</p>
+
+<p>None knew, like Kamehameha, how to endure defeat
+so as to make it but a step to a deferred but more
+complete victory. Had he been a student of history
+he might well have adopted the words of Admiral
+Coligni, who said of himself: “In one respect I may
+claim superiority over Alexander, over Scipio, over
+Cæsar. They won great battles, it is true. I have lost
+four great battles; and yet I shew to the enemy a
+more formidable front than ever.”</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Kamehameha knew when to strike and
+did strike hard. Like Napoleon, he could hurl all his
+force at a given point with marvellous celerity and precision,
+and, once having developed his plan, he suffered
+no obstacle to prevent its being carried into effect.</p>
+
+<p>In the third place, he had a singular power of knowing
+the right instruments to employ in his undertakings.
+Very many great men ruin the work they take
+in hand, either by undertaking too much personally,
+or else by employing inefficient and unsuitable instruments.
+In either case, the work fails to outlive the
+worker, even if he be not destined to see the ruin himself.
+It is sometimes said that such and such a successful
+ruler had the good fortune to be surrounded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>
+by such and such a brilliant galaxy of statesmen. The
+good fortune is in reality the good sense and insight
+which lead a ruler to select the fit instruments for his
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Kamehameha’s throne had for its pillars of support
+men who might very well have been his rivals, and
+among all the notable chiefs of the time none was discarded
+or neglected, save such men as Kaiana, whose
+fickleness made him more of a menace than a mainstay.
+As it was, few kings ever had an abler council—more
+conspicuous for courage in battle or for wisdom
+in the arts of government—than that which included
+men like Kalanimoku, <i>alias</i> William Pitt, Kameeiamoku
+and Keeaumoku, and the Englishmen—Young
+and Davis.</p>
+
+<p>Kamehameha, too, lived long enough after he had
+crushed out all opposition to his rule to show that
+he understood the art of consolidating as well as that
+of establishing a monarchy. For twenty-five years he
+governed Hawaii with steadily increasing skill and enlightenment,
+piloting the new kingdom through every
+kind of embroilment with the nations represented in
+the realm.</p>
+
+<p>Like William the Conqueror, he purposed to govern
+with good laws what he had won with a cruel sword,
+and, if he was overstern to repress, he undoubtedly
+spared the country much misery which a weaker or
+more lenient policy might have entailed.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, looking at Kamehameha as a man, rather
+than as a ruler, we need not deny him the title of
+“Great.” He could be loved as well as feared. He
+was scrupulously just, even when it came to the condemnation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>
+of his own past actions, and perhaps greater
+than any victory over the rival chiefs was the victory
+he won over himself when he broke free from the
+trammels the “fire-water” of the foreigner were fast
+making for him, and bade his countrymen imitate him
+and be free.</p>
+
+<p>Enough has been suggested in these introductory remarks
+to make clear that not only to the antiquary,
+searching amid the ruins of a perishing people for
+some faded remnants of romance; not only to the historian,
+seeking here and there in the archives of nations
+to glean illustrations of some great historical
+generalization; not only to the lover of the story of
+war and adventure; but, above all, to the student of
+men as men the memory of the first monarch of Hawaii
+ought to be of sufficient interest not to pass into
+oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>For heroism is of no one age, and of no one race.
+It commands the sympathy and respect of all, and it
+is the writer’s hope that these simple sketches may
+show, in the story of the first Kamehameha, that touch
+of Nature which makes the whole world kin, that
+quality of manhood which obliterates the distinction
+between white and black, between East and West, between
+the man of yesterday and the man of to-day.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first">“For East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,</div>
+<div class="verse">Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;</div>
+<div class="verse">But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,</div>
+<div class="verse">When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth.”</div>
+</div></div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<table>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr" colspan="3"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr">I—</td><td><span class="smcap">The Poison Goddess of Molokai</span> &#160;</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">  11</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr">II—</td><td><span class="smcap">The Story of the Kiha-Pu</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_19">  19</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr">III—</td><td><span class="smcap">The Splintered Paddle</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">  27</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr">IV—</td><td><span class="smcap">The Slandered Priest of Oahu</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_34">  34</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr">V—</td><td><span class="smcap">Keala</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_43">  43</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr">VI—</td><td><span class="smcap">Pele Declares for Kamehameha</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_51">  51</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr">VII—</td><td><span class="smcap">The City of Refuge</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_59"> 59</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr">VIII—</td><td><span class="smcap">Sweet Leilehua</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_67">      67</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr">IX—</td><td><span class="smcap">The Spouting Cave of Lanai</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_78">  78</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr">X—</td><td><span class="smcap">Lono’s Last Martyr</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_89">  89</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdr">XI—</td><td><span class="smcap">Keoua, a Story of Kalawao</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101"> 101</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>
+
+<p class="ph2">Hawaiian Idylls of Love and Death</p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">I<br>
+
+<small>THE POISON GODDESS OF MOLOKAI</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kaneakama</span> was as handsome a young fellow as
+you could have found on the eight islands; neither
+unknown to war nor unskilled in divination and the
+learning of the priests. But he had one vice—he was
+an inveterate gambler.</p>
+
+<p>And here he sat in his grass hut on the slopes of
+the Olukui, feeling as miserable as any wretch of
+to-day who had squandered his patrimony at Monte
+Carlo, for he had been playing <i>maika</i> the whole day
+long and luck had been against him at every throw.
+The devil, he thought, must have been in the smooth
+black stones; throw as he might, they would not go
+straight. Yes, they were certainly bewitched. And
+now he had nothing to call his own but one little pig—everything
+was lost.</p>
+
+<p>Why did he not stake the pig? you ask. Ah!
+Kaneakama had asked himself that question many a
+time that evening, but had each time repelled the very
+thought as a temptation. For he had dedicated this
+pig to his Aumakua, or tutelary divinity, and with all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>
+his faults he was too pious to break his vows to the
+gods.</p>
+
+<p>So, although happy thus far in the possession of a
+good conscience, he nursed his grief until the kind
+divinities sent their messenger, sleep—welcome to all
+men everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>And, as Kaneakama slept, he had a wonderful vision.
+The song of a bird broke upon his ear, then the sweet
+sounds transformed themselves into an aura of radial
+light and in the light he beheld the loveliest form he
+had ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>It was that of a young girl, but Kaneakama’s first
+impression was that it was some glorious bird, for he
+wanted to get up and throw a mat across the door lest
+she should fly away. Her black hair fell in a great
+shadow behind her like a pair of wings; no chief arrayed
+for battle had feather cloak so rich in orange
+and scarlet as that which clung to her perfect form
+from throat to shapely knee. Her eyes, too, even in
+the bright aura which encircled her, shone like stars
+in the night.</p>
+
+<p>Kaneakama gazed he knew not how long, and when
+he came to himself he was only conscious of having
+received a command from the goddess (for such indeed
+was his adorable visitant) to take his dedicated pig and
+stake it as he had done the rest. You see, the gods and
+goddesses of ancient Hawaii had rather backward
+ideas regarding the morality of gambling.</p>
+
+<p>However, Kaneakama is not to be blamed for this.
+He did as his divinity had told him, and now if the
+ill-luck of his former experience had been surprising,
+still more so was the turn of fortune which seemed to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>
+pour riches into his lap. He went home from that
+day’s <i>maika</i>-playing a rich man, but, remembering the
+source of his wealth, he determined to dedicate one-half
+of it to the service of the goddess, and to build a
+temple where she might dwell and receive his worship.</p>
+
+<p>This he did, and no sooner was the temple so far
+completed that it only lacked its central idol, than once
+more the vision of the Aumakua broke in upon his
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>This time there was no doubt about the voice. It
+was as sweet to hear as the vision was to see.</p>
+
+<p>“Go to the king, O Kaneakama,” it said; “tell him
+that the <i>akua</i> wish to dwell in the temple made by
+man in the shadow of his court. Power shall be his if
+he will shelter them. Let him send warriors with
+their axes and knives to the top of Maunaloa. Out
+of the wood let them hew me an image, and this shall
+be my shrine in the <i>heiau</i> you have built, and you, O
+Kaneakama, shall be my high-priest, worshipper and
+lover of Kalaipahoa, terrible to mortals.”</p>
+
+<p>When Kaneakama awoke he hastened to obey the
+command, and the king was pleased to hear of the
+honours in store. Three hundred men were chosen;
+and these, carrying, besides their weapons, great folds
+of <i>kapa</i> (for the venom of the poison goddess was a
+thing to be dreaded), set out on their march. Kaneakama,
+commissioned by the king, went before them as
+a guide to the spot designated in his sleep.</p>
+
+<p>As they marched they recalled all they had heard
+of the poison goddess—how she had come from an
+unknown land to Molokai and had made her home on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>
+Maunaloa. There, so it was said, the earth was burnt
+and blackened, and the birds fell dead as they flew
+over it. It was, moreover, the dwelling-place of
+Laamaomao, the god of the winds, and at any moment
+a strong spirit of the air might break loose from the
+calabash of the god and hurl the intruders afar into
+the Paiolo Channel.</p>
+
+<p>So they journeyed on with teeth chattering and
+hearts cold within them. They climbed upwards along
+the torrent-bed over boulders for two hours or more;
+then they came to the forest belt where the silver
+leaves of the <i>kukui</i> seemed to shiver with sympathetic
+fear; then they came to the black lava slopes, where
+they had to look carefully to their steps.</p>
+
+<p>At last they heard a rumbling like that of the winds
+of Laamaomao wrestling in his calabash, and suddenly
+before them lay the vast extinct crater, half hidden in
+the mist.</p>
+
+<p>Their way lay downwards, the mist parting to receive
+them, until they saw in front of them a great
+black blot, such as a fire would make in some weird
+forest which shrivels and blackens but will not burn.
+The only whiteness was the whiteness of the bones
+strewn around, and the only greenness came from one
+tree in the centre, which rose erect and plumy in this
+wilderness of death. Some said they beheld a scarlet
+and yellow bird perched in its branches, but many
+doubted, as they saw strong-winged birds fly right up
+to the rim of the circle and fall dead as though pierced
+by an arrow.</p>
+
+<p>It was true, then, this story of the poison goddess;
+it was true that her touch was death. One hundred<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>
+men went straightway back to the king, afraid. But
+Kaneakama stayed the fear of the others and commanded
+them to do their work.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty men took their axes and went forward to
+hew down the tree, but, alas! they fell dead before
+they had advanced twenty yards. Five times did Kaneakama
+send fresh detachments forward, moving
+slowly in a circle, and five times did they perish as
+beneath a blast of death. So five circles of dead men
+lay round about the tree.</p>
+
+<p>Then Kaneakama commanded half the remaining
+hundred to take <i>kapa</i> and wrap themselves in it, making
+of it masks and shields, and they went forward till
+they reached the tree. Then they hewed at it, each
+man dying with the blow he struck, till, with a noise
+that awoke echoes in Maunaloa, the great tree fell
+crashing through the shrivelled trunks around it. Then
+the remaining band, still shielding themselves as best
+they could with the <i>kapa</i>, took their <i>pahoas</i> and cut
+away the branches, working feverishly, for men fainted
+and fell apace, till at last a rough shape was ready to
+be carried back to the <i>heiau</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It was a rough and ugly idol, with widely distended
+mouth (to be filled presently with hideous rows of
+shark’s teeth), extended arms, hands and fingers, but
+Kaneakama looked beyond the art of the craftsman,
+and, wrapping the image in fold upon fold of <i>kapa</i>, he
+with his few remaining men wended his way down the
+mountainside, through the long valley to the seashore.</p>
+
+<p>There was great rejoicing at the court when Kalaipahoa,
+for so the goddess hewn out with daggers was
+named, was placed in her shrine, and the temple dedicated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>
+with many victims; but all the rejoicing was faint
+and hollow as compared with the joy of the man who
+was at once the high-priest and lover of the goddess.</p>
+
+<p>When he ministered before the shrine he saw not
+the rough and hideous idol, but the celestial beauty of
+the birdlike maiden who had visited him in the night
+visions. If she was terrible to others, she was always
+smiling and beneficent to him.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, though he faithfully performed his duties at
+the <i>heiau</i>, carrying and presenting the offerings, interpreting
+the wishes of the goddess to the king, performing
+all the accustomed rites and observing all the
+prescribed tabus, he was not yet satisfied. It grew
+more and more hard to nourish himself on visions of
+the past. He recalled how that Pele, the volcano goddess,
+had had a mortal lover and had come down on
+earth to dwell. Why should not Kalaipahoa give him
+at least a sign? From pitying those who had died in
+the mountain, he began to envy them.</p>
+
+<p>O man of little faith! The sign came. He dreamed
+and seemed in his dreams in Paliuli, the Elysian land,
+land of the blue mountain and the water of life, and,
+as soon as his eyes could bear the light, he saw Kalaipahoa
+in all her radiance, and around her stood the
+men who had perished at the shaping of the idol. They
+bore her calabashes, waved her <i>kahilis</i>, and stood about
+her as her soldiers and her slaves. But after one swift
+glance around him, Kaneakama saw only Kalaipahoa,
+and she, so he believed, saw only him.</p>
+
+<p>“O Kalaipahoa,” he cried, “why am I worse off
+than the serfs who died in Maunaloa? They stand in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>
+thy presence and see thy face, while I toil in thy service
+and have no reward!”</p>
+
+<p>Kalaipahoa’s face lightened with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>“Foolish mortal!” she cried, “did you not see that
+my court is incomplete, wanting its greatest? The
+great chiefs have their ‘companions in death,’ but you
+have your household gone before you. However, you
+shall have your reward to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>Then she bade him bring the <i>puhenehene</i> board and
+play.</p>
+
+<p>He played; but, alas! such was his confusion that
+he lost every game, and such his preoccupation that
+he was not even sorry to find himself once again a
+pauper. At last he had nothing left to lose, and knew
+not what to do.</p>
+
+<p>“Stake yourself!” cried a sweet voice.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner said than done. Once more the stones
+were thrown. Once more Kaneakama lost. And the
+vision vanished, the goddess with a smile still upon
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, well!” said Kaneakama, “I am the lover of
+the goddess; I will die. Let me prepare an offering
+for her; I will place bananas in her hands and will
+share her feast. It may be she will bid me come sit at
+her feet.”</p>
+
+<p>He prepared his offering, and dared to take of the
+food presented to the goddess. The banana he ate must
+have received from the hands of the goddess the gift
+of death, for when the temple slaves came next morning
+to the <i>heiau</i>, there, before the shrine of wickerwork,
+lay the lover of the goddess—dead, and, by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>
+look of his eyes, he had died neither unwillingly nor
+afraid.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was this image of Kalaipahoa that Kamehameha
+long begged in vain from Kahekili. It came to him
+after the death of the savage old Maui chief and he
+kept it always near him. It was a useful idol to him,
+for a single chip placed in the food of an obnoxious
+person would send him to the shades in less than
+twenty-four hours. Kamehameha, by his will, had the
+image divided among some of his chiefs, but the good
+Queen Kaahumanu collected all the chips she could
+lay her hands on, and burned them.</p>
+
+<p>It is said, however, one or two fragments are still
+in existence. Perhaps the visitor to Honolulu may
+find them in the Kamehameha museum, but let us hope
+their virulent properties may never be put to the test.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">II<br>
+
+<small>THE STORY OF THE KIHA-PU</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="stanza">
+<div class="first">“Of this small horn one feeble blast</div>
+<div class="verse">Would fearful odds against thee cast.”</div>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<div class="verseright">—“<i>The Lady of the Lake.</i>”</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> minstrels of the olden world were wont to sing
+of the marvels of Olifant, the magic horn of Roland,
+which that glorious paladin had won in battle from
+the giant Jatmund. All nature trembled at its blast,
+the fowls of the air fell dead, the trees shivered and
+the hearts of the Saracens failed them for fear, even
+though the sound came from thirty miles away.</p>
+
+<p>The counterpart of this famous horn is, we believe,
+still to be seen among the relics of the old savage
+world of Hawaii preserved in the museum at Honolulu.
+Let the visitor not fail to ask for a sight of
+the Kiha-pu, the famous war trumpet or magic conch
+of Kiha. It is a huge nautilus-shell of a species exceedingly
+rare in the island group, adorned (one can
+scarcely say beautified) with the inlaid teeth of conquered
+chieftains whose death-cry was once drowned
+by that strident blast. Whenever the trumpet is blown,
+such at least is the popular belief, the groans and cries
+of these old warriors are heard on the wind. Far<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>
+back in the generations of old, in the twelfth century
+of our era, this wonder-working shell was brought
+from the distant isles of Samoa, but its historical career
+in Hawaii does not commence till the reign of
+the mighty warrior Kiha, who ruled the land for forty
+years midway in the fifteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Since then in what innumerable battles has it played
+its part! Kamehameha prized it as he prized Kalaipahoa,
+the poison goddess; Kaili, the war god, or even
+as he prized the fire-vomiting guns of the white men.
+The unique qualities of the Kiha-pu caused its possession
+to be eagerly coveted by the rival chiefs. When
+blown with skill, it had power over the gods and over
+the legions of genii. Were the canoes at sea and the
+rowers lacking food, one blast of the Kiha-pu would
+summon Ukanipu, the shark god, to drive the flying
+fish so that they might fall into the open boats. Were
+it necessary to replenish the water calabashes, then
+the trumpet could call upon Kuluiau, the goddess of
+rain, and the oarsmen would have scarce time to arrange
+the vessels ere the rain came down from the
+clouds in torrents. Was it wind that was wanted, lo!
+in answer to the prayer of the Kiha-pu, Laamaomao,
+the god of wind, would open his swelling calabashes
+towards the sea, and the breezes would rush forth.
+Thus useful in peace, it was a hundredfold useful in
+war. The king could send forth at will strident voices
+such as startled the ears of the enemy with challenge
+to battle and premonition of defeat. He could make
+the magic conch utter clarion notes such as would
+summon the forces of the spirit world to his aid and
+rally his people from the most hopeless fight. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>
+sound was like the sound of breakers against the
+rocky shores of Hawaii.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, alas! though the horn may still be blown,
+no deity responds to its despairing wail. When, during
+the native insurrection of 1889, the shell conches
+sounded out shrilly upon the air, many of those present
+thought of the Kiha-pu and its traditional magic.
+But Lono came not from his age-long sleep, and all
+things conspired to show that the potency of the trumpet
+of Kiha was no more.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a tale founded on the old meles, of the times
+when the famous conch was in the hands of the king
+who gave it its name.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Kiha was desirous of a new feather cloak to mark
+his dignity among the <i>alii</i>. He would summon to his
+presence the feather hunters to go forth into the forest
+to snare the <i>mame</i> and the <i>oo</i>, that from their
+brilliant feathers of scarlet and yellow he might weave
+his royal mantle. To bring them to the royal enclosure
+he bethought himself of the Kiha-pu and dispatched
+its trusted guardian, whose name was Hoilo,
+to bring it forthwith from the <i>heiau</i> or temple. In a
+little while Hoilo came back with rueful countenance
+and announced that the treasure had disappeared. In
+its place was an ugly, carved black stone.</p>
+
+<p>The king, as may be imagined, was terribly wroth,
+but waxing wise with cunning he concealed from everybody
+his loss, even announcing to Hoilo that the
+shell was in a place known to himself. But, as soon
+as he dared, he hastened to the <i>heiau</i> and there made<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>
+a confidant of the high-priest, with whom he consulted
+as to the fate of the Kiha-pu. After the due sacrifices,
+there came a response from the oracle. A voice
+from the wicker shrine announced that the conch had
+been stolen by a band of marauders, half human and
+half demon, who had for some time been prowling about
+the neighborhood. The king was in despair, but presently
+a gleam of hope was vouchsafed by the tidings
+that the lost treasure should be recovered by the king
+on the day when Kiha ate of the first fruit of the
+cocoanut tree to be planted by himself at the next fullness
+of the moon. In answer to the question as to
+who should be the instrument of the restoration, only
+the mysterious reply was given that it would be a
+being without hands and wearing neither a <i>malo</i> nor
+mantle.</p>
+
+<p>It was with a very heavy heart that Kiha returned
+to his palace, knowing that his trumpet was in the
+hands of the demi-demon band, but nevertheless he
+dissembled his grief, kept his secret manfully, planted
+his cocoanut and watered the soil daily with his own
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile the demons departed with their
+spoil northwards to Kauai, where after many adventures
+they arrived and settled themselves down in the
+mountains at the back of Waimea.</p>
+
+<p>Here Ika, the leader of the band, who took care to
+retain the personal control of the Kiha-pu, had the
+misfortune to provoke, by some unusual piece of
+tyranny, a quarrel with one of his comrades, and this
+latter, bent upon revenge, determined to repeat the
+theft, for his own personal ends, of the magic trumpet.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>
+Not willing to run the risk of being its possessor,
+however, he contented himself with robbing it
+of its miraculous powers. He found out that this
+could be effected by placing a cross mark upon its
+rim, accompanying the operation with incantations
+and prayers to Lono. So, while Ika lay, made drunk
+with <i>awa</i>, the Kiha-pu was stolen, marked with the
+tabu sign by the priest at Waiolani and returned again
+to its place. The next day Ika arose, hung the horn
+by its cord of human hair around his neck and sallied
+proudly forth, as he had been wont, to exhibit its
+wonderful powers, and extort the admiration of his
+followers. But, alas! when he raised the conch to his
+mouth and blew, even though he blew with the full
+force of his lungs, there came back nothing but a
+comparatively feeble, natural hollow sound.</p>
+
+<p>Ika was sadly mortified at his humiliation in the
+sight of men, and still more so when, after further
+and fruitless experiments, he had to confess that the
+virtue of the ill-gotten trophy had departed.</p>
+
+<p>He came to the conclusion that supernatural powers
+had been invoked against him, and in search of
+further light paid a visit to an aged seer at Waialua
+to enquire whether the voice of the Kiha-pu would
+be ever restored. To his great joy the answer was
+returned: “Yes, once more among the hills of Hawaii
+the Kiha-pu shall speak to the ears of gods and men.”
+More than this, the prophet, after the manner of
+oracles, refused to tell.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon Ika decided to return at once with his
+companions to Hawaii, and in a few days they had
+crossed the channels, beheld once more the snows of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>
+the very district from which they had so suddenly
+decamped eight years before.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened that on this very day King Kiha,
+who, to the amazement of his people, had been apparently
+spending eight years in the cultivation of a
+single palm, went out to his tree and was delighted
+to find that three cocoanuts had attained their maturity
+and were ready for his eating. In accordance
+with the ritual prescribed by the priests, these were
+now solemnly eaten, and at the very moment the feast
+was consummated came the news that the band of
+demoniac marauders had reoccupied the marshy wood
+behind the mountains of Waipio.</p>
+
+<p>The tidings had scarcely reached the expectant chief
+when, lo! there was a tumult at the palace gate and,
+advancing a few steps, Kiha beheld the royal guard
+bringing into his presence the strangest looking old
+man he had ever seen. His hands were tied behind
+his back for more security, but at his heels followed
+an object still stranger to the eye. It was a dog, a
+big, ill-shapen beast of no earthly breed. It had blue
+bristles, its ears were human and the eyes were small
+and fiery, like those of a demon, one burning with a
+greenish light, and the other white.</p>
+
+<p>The charge against the man was that of stealing
+<i>awa</i>, and it was represented that the dog, in this business,
+was his accomplice and a marvellously cunning
+brute. Across the mind of the king, however, there
+flashed the prediction of the oracle, which he had kept
+hoarded up in his mind. Surely, here, in this dog,
+was a being without hands and wearing neither <i>malo</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>
+nor mantle. Was not this the instrument of the gods,
+sent to his aid?</p>
+
+<p>Without a moment’s delay he had the two, the man
+and the dog, sent to the <i>heiau</i> at Pakaalani, and thence
+he sent forth the dog to hunt through the mountains
+the wonder-working conch, and recover it from the
+hands of the thief.</p>
+
+<p>There could be no doubt that the strange hound understood
+his mission, for he leaped through the open
+door, hurried to the mountains, and, after a long hunt,
+at length seized and bore away in his teeth the object
+of Kiha’s eight years’ quest. As, however, he was returning
+down the mountains, for one moment he
+dropped his spoil, and then there rang out upon the
+air a sound terrible to hear. For in the fall a tiny
+piece of the Kiha-pu, the very piece upon which was
+scratched the tabu cross of Lono, was broken off, and,
+liberated from silence, the old voice sounded forth as
+in the years gone by, startling the unaccustomed
+echoes of the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>The robbers heard and, discovering their loss,
+started in pursuit. The king heard, too, and found
+it hard to possess his soul in patience till the dog’s
+return. Presently the door of the temple burst open
+and in rushed the green-eyed dog with the Kiha-pu
+in his mouth. The weird brute dropped it at the
+king’s feet, and then immediately fell dead. His companion,
+the <i>awa</i>-stealer, was inconsolable for his loss,
+but Kiha awarded to him a royally generous compensation,
+and then placing the horn to his lips blew such
+a blast as the mountains of Hawaii had not heard for
+many a year. The troops rushed together at the potent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>
+summons, and, led at once into the mountains, fell
+upon the demon band.</p>
+
+<p>In a few hours the whole gang was exterminated,
+with the exception of Ika and two or three of his
+comrades, who were reserved for the sacrifices at the
+<i>heiau</i>, to be offered on the rededication of the Kiha-pu.</p>
+
+<p>After this, Kiha took more care of his famous trumpet
+and regarded it as one of the chief talismans by
+which the authority of the throne was supported, but
+the <i>awa</i>-stealer, though having no further need of
+recourse to his old trade, deemed his new fortune no
+true compensation for the loss of his old friend, the
+green-eyed dog.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">III<br>
+
+<small>THE SPLINTERED PADDLE</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the year 1784 there was raging on the island of
+Hawaii the conflict known as “<i>Kaua awa</i>,” or “the
+bitter war,” a name very accurately descriptive of its
+exasperating and unmerciful character. There were
+in those days two kinds of wars in Hawaii, viz., wars
+of courtesy, when the arrangements for the contest
+were made with the most punctilious regard for the
+etiquette of Hawaiian chivalry, when the object of the
+invasion was considerately notified, and the place of
+landing and of battle carefully chosen, and, in the second
+place, wars of devastation, when everything was
+done to harass a foeman without respect to his feelings.</p>
+
+<p>The “bitter war,” however, outran even this latter
+in the envenomed nature of the hostility aroused between
+the contending chiefs. These were, on the one
+side, Keoua and Keawemauhili, high chiefs who had
+lately shared the defeat of the ill-fated Kiwaloa in the
+battle of Mokuohai, and, on the other side, Kamehameha,
+whose future destiny had already been revealed
+to men like Keeaumoku, “the king-maker” of Hawaii.</p>
+
+<p>These three waged a kind of triangular contest for
+the sovereignty of the island and brought to the struggle
+animosities which had been intensified by the events
+following the death of Kalaniopuu and his son.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>For the moment, however, there was a lull in the
+campaign. Kamehameha had retired foiled, with his
+fleet, upon Laupahoehoe. Keawemauhili had just lost
+the help of the mercenaries from Maui, and Keoua was
+busy collecting his forces. In fact some parts of the
+country were enjoying the unwonted feeling of peace,
+and remained undisturbed by the arrival of the fleet-footed
+<i>lunapais</i> to gather together the tribesmen for
+the war.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the case along the Puna coast, near the
+extreme southeastern point of the island, not far from
+the ever-burning abode of Pele in Kilauea. A traveler,
+dropping down near the village of Kapoho one
+morning in the early summer, would have thought the
+scene an ideal picture of peace. The purple mountains
+in the background seemed still asleep under the morning
+shadows which hung among the groves of <i>kukui</i>
+and <i>kou</i>; the surf on the white reef was lazily playing
+with the branching coral; and the blue-green water
+of the Pacific slumbered under the long, level rays
+of the awaking sun. Yet, early as it was, a hundred
+dusky fisher folk of the Puna coast were plying their
+business, not with the fierce energy of western workers
+who rise early to wage war with the hours, but
+with the happy languor of those who have no quarrel
+with Time, and know that the whole day is before
+them, one long free leisure, in which they can lazily
+catch and prepare and enjoy the bounty of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>They have taken out in the canoes an immense rope
+of banana leaves, fully half a mile in length, and are
+spreading it in a circle upon the shining waters. When
+spread out it is a veritable magic ring. Glancing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>
+down into the waters beneath, you may perceive hundreds
+of strange creatures of the deep, blue, green,
+scarlet and yellow, with queer beaks and fins, darting
+hither and thither, but never daring—poor, silly fishes,
+like some inhabitants of the upper air—to cross the
+black shadow which hangs so threateningly over them.
+And, after a while, the fishermen enter with the canoes
+and, poising their spears, strike where and when
+they choose, till the boats begin to sink deeper in the
+sea with the weight of their finny spoil.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the aspect of things on the Puna coast a
+moment before it was suddenly changed by a very unwelcome
+apparition. Sweeping around the headland
+of Kumukahi, there bore down upon the peaceful fishermen,
+from the direction of Laupahoehoe, the war
+canoe of a chief, one inspired, doubtless, with no amicable
+intentions. It was painted red from stem to
+stern and bore a pennon at the masthead. The sturdy
+rowers wore short cloaks of yellow feathers which
+gleamed in the sunlight. Now, a visit of a chief was
+at no time a very welcome event to the fishermen, as
+it meant the confiscation of their spoil to supply the
+necessity of a by no means scanty following. Sometimes
+they felt inclined to follow the example of the
+men of Kau and respond to the demands of the chief
+for fish by hurling enough into the canoes to sink
+them and their occupants to the bottom of the sea. In
+this case, however, there was evidently more to be
+feared than confiscation. And as, when some hungry
+shark enters the lagoon where all the children are
+bathing and surf-swimming, there rises the dread cry
+of “<i>Mao!</i>” and instantly there follows a “<i>pilipili</i>”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>
+scramble to the shore, so when this great red and yellow
+monster of the deep, with its swift paddles and its
+human voices, swept over the waves, there was such
+a movement shoreward as showed that the indolent
+Hawaiian could be agile enough when he chose.</p>
+
+<p>But the pursuit did not end with the shore. Leaping
+from the war canoe, the attendants of the ravaging
+<i>alii</i> hurled their spears with effect. Some of the fishermen
+resisted and more than one with his paddle
+made things lively for his assailant. Presently, however,
+in the manner of Hawaiian warfare, the combat
+resolved itself into a duel. The combatants on either
+side grounded their spears and paddles to watch a
+single combat which promised to decide the fortunes
+of the day. The champion of the fishermen was Napopo,
+who, with a child slung upon his back, seemed
+unequally matched with his opponent, a chief of tremendous
+size and unspeakable ferocity of countenance.
+Once seen, this chief was not to be forgotten,
+and, as he rushed towards the unlucky fisherman in
+his path, he appeared to both sides alike irresistible.
+But Napopo was no coward, and he knew the ground
+better than his foe. Craftily he drew his antagonist
+over the coral beach and watched with lightning eye
+the moment when the spear should rush forth upon
+the air. Thus it happened that in launching his spear
+the chief tripped in a crevice of the rocks and fell
+face downward, while the missile whizzed harmlessly
+through the air. Then, leaping forward, Napopo used
+his paddle to such effect that he had surely left the
+chief dead upon the ground had not his followers
+rushed forward to the assistance of their lord. Encumbered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>
+with the child and fearing to risk its life
+by continuing as the aggressor, Napopo allowed the
+retainers to take away the battered and crestfallen
+raider. With his child and his splintered paddle he
+retired to his house a little distance from the shore,
+and was in time when he reached it to see the gaily
+painted canoe put back around the headland, the rowers
+somewhat sobered, doubtless, by their adventure
+and without a single fish.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Years have passed away and the wars of Hawaii
+are well nigh over. Kamehameha has won the reward
+of his patience and of his many defeats, and is now
+overlord of all the Eight Islands.</p>
+
+<p>He has been making his triumphal progress round
+the coast of Hawaii, consecrating new <i>heiaus</i>, superintending
+the construction of fish ponds and collecting
+his tributes in labor, sandalwood, yellow feathers and
+fish. He has come, in due course, to Kapoho, and
+many are assembled at the royal enclosure to meet
+him and present their <i>hookana</i>. Among these comes
+Napopo with an enormous calabash of fish. He has
+no reason to fear, but as he approaches the <i>lanai</i> and
+sees the concourse of runners, heralds, soldiers, and
+executioners, priests and hula-dancers, it seems impossible
+for him to raise his eyes. What is there in
+the eyes which face him which seems to freeze his
+blood? Glaring at him with the recognition of an ancient
+enemy are the eyes of the man whom he had once
+encountered on the coral beach and whose head he had
+broken with his paddle. The recognition is, at any
+rate, mutual. Kamehameha, the quondam raider, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>
+Napopo, the bold fisherman of Puna, have met face
+to face. It is in vain to attempt escape. Napopo feels
+that, even did not the soldiers crowd the entrance,
+there was no strength in his limbs to move. He can
+only await death with what composure he may. Kamanawa
+and Kalaimoku, and the two white chiefs,
+Young and Davis, glance at the king for orders, conscious
+of his emotion, though ignorant of its cause.
+But the king waved them aside and, rising amid the
+assembly, spoke in tones which reached the outer
+fringe of the spectators.</p>
+
+<p>“Chiefs and people of Hawaii, and ye men of Puna
+in particular, I thank you for your welcome and your
+gifts to-day. Not for the first time, however, have I
+come among you, and I venture to confess that when
+I came before, you treated me even better than you
+have to-day. For you gave me wisdom, which is better
+for kings than valor. I came among you in the
+bitterness of my heart, thinking to revenge the rebellion
+of Keawemauhili upon his subjects. I swooped
+down upon you as the shark upon the flying fishes, and
+had well nigh plundered you of your fish and burned
+your houses and slain your men. But this man here
+before me came against me, not with battle-axe or
+javelin, but with his fisher’s paddle, and therewith
+stayed the course of the blood-drinking spear and well
+nigh ended the battles of Kamehameha. Surely even
+then were the gods my friends, or I had gone down
+shamed into the halls of the dead. And now what
+shall be done with the fellow who lifted up his hand
+against me?”</p>
+
+<p>The chiefs looked upon one another, and no one ventured<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>
+to speak. They knew the grim, sardonic humor
+of the man and, in spite of his words, would not have
+been surprised at some fearful sentence. As for Napopo,
+the bitterness of death was almost past. Hope
+had not yet begun to torture him.</p>
+
+<p>Then amid the silence of the multitude the king
+spoke again, almost a smile in his furrowed face.</p>
+
+<p>“My sentence is that the men of Puna be not required
+to pay the fish tax, except as a gift of love.
+Well do I deserve to lose the fish. That day, I remember,
+I felt lucky not to have lost my life. Go,
+Napopo, and defend the shores of Puna against every
+doer of a lawless deed. And the child thou didst bear
+upon thy back, what has become of it?”</p>
+
+<p>“He is here, my lord,” said Napopo, scarcely knowing
+whether or not he was dreaming, as he brought
+forward a young man, tall and erect and handsome as
+any warrior in Kamehameha’s suite.</p>
+
+<p>“It is well,” said the monarch, “he shall be my care
+and shall be numbered among my bodyguard. May
+the gods give him a heart as fearless as his sire’s!”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The next day Kamehameha promulgated the law
+known as “Mamalahoe”—“the law of the splintered
+paddle”—by which it was decreed that any chief who
+should henceforth engage in a raid upon unarmed
+and helpless people should be surely put to death.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the king proved himself worthy to rule, because
+strong enough to condemn publicly the errors
+of his past.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">IV<br>
+
+<small>THE SLANDERED PRIEST OF OAHU</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> chiefs left the council chamber of Kahahana
+moody and displeased. Such a proposition as they had
+heard had never before been suggested by a king of
+Oahu. The wiles of Kahekili, the <i>moi</i> of Maui, they
+knew. Like a greedy octopus, he was ever stretching
+out his tentacles to lay hold on everything within
+reach, and his eyes had for many a long year been
+on the coastland of Kualoa. But that Kahahana, their
+own feudal lord, the king who had but recently been
+installed with extraordinary solemnities and the sacrifice
+of an unwonted number of victims, the king
+whom they were expecting to bring back the glorious
+days of Peleioholani, should propose such a cession
+was far more than weakness; it was imbecility and
+treason. They gazed in imagination upon the beautiful
+amphitheatre of Koolau Bay, stretching in a perfect
+semi-circle from Kualoa Point to Kaneohe,
+counted up the revenue in whalebone and whale’s teeth
+it was wont to produce and at once, in a fierce kind
+of unanimity, overrode the proposal of the king. They
+then despatched, in the name of the whole college of
+the <i>alii</i>, a rejoinder to the king of Maui, such as
+would stir up that terrible old warrior even from his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>
+<i>awa</i>-drinking to order forth the <i>lunapais</i> with the
+chant of war. However, better war than disgrace,
+they felt—better even defeat, better to prostrate themselves
+before Kahekili with the ignominious appeal of
+the vanquished, “<i>E make paha, e ola paha—iluna ke
+alo? ilalo ke alo?</i>” than tamely to give away the choicest
+of their lands. Let the country be parcelled out
+after defeat, and not before!</p>
+
+<p>Such had been the patriotic advice of the priest
+Kaopulupulu, who had long stood near the throne of
+Oahu, a support to its kings, learned in the traditions
+of kingship and in the lore of the gods, skilled not
+only to read the clouds and the auguries, but also to
+understand the hearts of mortals and of spirits. The
+white hair which descended over his dusky shoulders
+covered a brain whose like for experience and sagacity
+Oahu did not contain from Maena to Makapuu.</p>
+
+<p>So the chiefs departed to send their message, leaving
+Kahahana in no enviable mood, reclining on the
+<i>lanai</i>. Truth to say, he was ashamed of himself and
+had made his proposal not over willingly. He had
+been brought up with Kahekili on the island of Maui,
+had adventured with him in the wars against Hawaii,
+their spears had drunk blood together, nay, they had
+become almost one in family ties, for he had taken the
+half-sister of Kahekili for his bride. Thus, in making
+himself the tool of Kahekili, the weak and credulous
+chief had acted without considering the aspects
+his proposal would present to the rest of the <i>alii</i>.
+Now, ill at ease, bitter and angry, as well as ashamed,
+he could only anticipate what would be the wrath of
+Kahekili and what degree of revenge he would plan.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>Kahahana was right in one particular at least. Kahekili,
+when he received the news, went almost stark
+mad with anger. His followers whispered one to another
+that he had become “<i>hehena</i>,” and quailed before
+him, or, if possible, kept themselves afar from
+the royal enclosure. At length, however, the paroxysm
+passed and counsel took the place of passion.
+There sits Kahekili, a mighty man yet, in spite of his
+years, emaciated somewhat through the drinking of
+awa, but terrible to look on. One side of his body
+was tattooed almost black, the other retained its natural
+hue, his eyes were somewhat heavy, yet now and
+again lustrous with his thoughts. Long had he
+dreamed of being the possessor of Kualoa. It was
+his “Naboth’s Vineyard.” Here were ivory and whalebone
+enough to make him rich and envied. He had
+deemed the fool Kahahana sufficiently his creature and
+vassal not to gainsay him in such a matter as this.
+Now, wherefore should he not pronounce the word
+and send out the black <i>maika</i>-stone to the chiefs for
+war?</p>
+
+<p>But other and craftier counsels prevailed. Why go
+to the trouble of war if he could break the power of
+Oahu some easier way? Oahu was strong and formidable
+in battle array, thanks to the counsel of the
+priest Kaopulupulu. The issue of conflict on the field
+was by no means assured while he remained by Kahahana’s
+side. Kaopulupulu removed, the fruit of Oahu
+would fall from the tree into his hands. Were it not
+better to proceed craftily? Fortunately, he had in his
+court the younger brother of Kaopulupulu, whose jealousy
+of the high-priest of Oahu was notorious, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>
+with him ere the day was done, had Kahekili speech
+and agreement.</p>
+
+<p>The days went by and Kahahana began to lose his
+uneasy mind. Kahekili had taken his rebuff much
+more readily than of wont, and there was no sign of
+hostile preparation or intent. Only Kaopulupulu persisted
+in urging the king to beware and remain ready
+for a visit from Kahekili’s flotilla of canoes at any
+hour of the day or night.</p>
+
+<p>One day, nearly two weeks from the time the cession
+of Kualoa had been rejected, he was on his way
+to the royal <i>lanai</i> to urge a doubling of the coast
+watch, when, greatly to his surprise, as he went in
+to stand before the king, there went out Nanoa, his
+brother, who had come with messages from Kahekili.
+Kaopulupulu liked not the look which Nanoa cast upon
+him as he passed, but shame withheld him from mistrusting
+so close a kinsman, and he replied heartily to
+the other’s formal salutation. But when he stood before
+the king, Kahahana looked blackly on him and
+gave him no such greeting as had been customary.
+Kaopulupulu misdoubted in his heart that some evil
+was afoot, and presently learned from the king that
+he was adjudged a traitor to Oahu. Had he not, so
+the charge ran, conspired to aid Kahekili to the overlordship
+of Oahu? But for the desire of the Maui
+king to be true to his old roofmate and kinsman by
+marriage, the treachery had remained unrevealed.</p>
+
+<p>Kaopulupulu remained awhile silent, sorrowful, and
+in bitter anger before the king. “I scorn,” he said,
+“to defend myself with words—I whose deeds ought
+to speak louder than the calumnies of Kahekili. Yet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>
+is he laboring to overcome with guile those whom he
+fears to meet with the war-spear. Beware of Kahekili,
+but if ye will heed me not, suffer me to depart
+with my only son to Waianae to till my fields. Time
+shall be the judge between us.”</p>
+
+<p>The king, who was scarce prepared as yet to take
+upon himself the risk of an arrest, did not withhold
+his permission, and presently Kaopulupulu might have
+been seen with bowed head, led by the hand of his
+only son, and followed at a little distance by his amazed
+retainers, wending his way slowly to Waianae. Hither
+he arrived just as the rising moon had kindled its
+beacon on the mountain-tops.</p>
+
+<p>That very night, in spite of his dejection, he tattooed
+himself and all his followers upon the knee, in
+token of loyalty to Kahahana.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>He eha nui no, he nui loa lakuu aloha!</i>”<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> said the
+faithful slaves as the sharp instrument of fish-bones
+pierced their skin.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[A]</a> “Great is the pain, but greater still is our love.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>“Soon, I foresee,” answered Kaopulupulu, “you will
+tattoo yourselves not for the living, but for the dead.”
+And all the household uttered their loud “<i>auwe</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>And now followed lamentable days for Oahu. The
+king, distrusted and distrustful, held few parleys with
+his chiefs: more and more careless grew the guards
+along the coast; fewer and fewer the appeals to the
+gods. In the <i>heiaus</i> the shrines stood neglected. A
+few tattered shreds of clothing washed by the rain
+and bleached by the sun were all that was left of their
+once gaudy array of idols, while piles of broken calabashes
+and cocoanut shells, with rotten wreaths of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>
+flowers and putrid masses of meat, formed unsightly
+heaps in the sacred enclosures. Men’s hearts seemed
+to have gone to sleep and even the old warriors allowed
+their spears to rust, and to dream only of the
+past.</p>
+
+<p>Into the midst of this doleful time came the news
+that Kahekili was preparing to muster his canoes on
+the beach of Lahaina, but Kahahana, so far from allowing
+the tidings to reveal to his heart the craft of
+the Maui chief and his emissary, kept still within his
+bosom the poisoned shaft and muttered:</p>
+
+<p>“Kaopulupulu predicted this. Surely the priest is
+skillful to ensure the fulfillment of his own predictions.”</p>
+
+<p>So his anger waxed against the aged priest and he
+sent canoes with his <i>ilamoku</i>, or executioner, to Waianae.
+In his frenzy it seemed better to slay one who
+had been his friend than to sit still and await the
+oncoming of Kahekili.</p>
+
+<p>Kaopulupulu and his son were fishing along the
+shore when the boat hove in sight, and, as it were, by
+the afflatus of the gods, the priest knew that it was an
+errand of blood.</p>
+
+<p>“Farewell,” he said, “my son, blood of my blood. A
+little while we shall wander apart, but Lono will see
+and hear, and will not allow death to sever us long,
+since we are true kin!”</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, he went courteously to the landing-place
+to meet the men and asked them whence they
+had come. But they answered roughly and straightway
+seized the boy, who cried piteously for his life.
+Out into the canoe they bore him, and then hurled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>
+him headlong into the water between the boat and the
+reef. When he tried to swim they smote him on the
+head with the paddles and with clubs, till the waves
+were reddened with blood and the sharks scented their
+prey afar. Then upon the shore stood Kaopulupulu,
+his white hair streaming in the breeze, and cried aloud
+under the inspiration of the gods:</p>
+
+<p>“It is better to sleep in the sea, for from the sea
+comes the means of life.”</p>
+
+<p>Men mused much upon this saying in the aftertime,
+but understood it not till many years had flown. The
+enemies of Kaopulupulu said: “It is a proof of his
+conspiracy with Kahekili,” but all men afterwards interpreted
+it of the coming of Kamehameha, the overlord
+of the Eight Islands, from the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Kahahana was, however, not content with the death
+of the son, and when he had allowed Kaopulupulu some
+space for the torment of grief, he sent again the death-boat
+for the priest.</p>
+
+<p>So Kaopulupulu was brought, not all unwillingly,
+to Puulio, and there in the presence of the king for
+whom he would willingly have died to preserve him
+from the impending storm, he was slain by the club
+of the <i>ilamoku</i>. All men wept to see such sacrilege
+committed, as the old man stood up for his death-blow
+before the king. Once more the prophetic fire
+glowed in his eye-sockets, and once more he cried aloud
+so that all the assembly might hear:</p>
+
+<p>“Farewell, my lord, O king! Alas! that I should
+in my death foreshadow thine own. When the fatal
+club whirls behind thee, then shalt thou know the
+faith of Kaopulupulu to Oahu and to thee!” A moment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>
+after he fell face foremost and was dragged
+away with a hook to the temple.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Great is the commotion on the beach of Waikiki.
+The echoes of Diamond Head are rudely awakened
+with the shouts of warriors. The forces of Maui have
+swept over from Lahaina and have effected their landing
+almost without opposition from Kahahana. The
+Oahu forces, undisciplined and demoralized, are driven
+helter-skelter to the valleys, and Kahekili may solace
+himself ere long with Kualoa, and all Koolau to boot.</p>
+
+<p>Kahahana fled to the mountains around Ewa and
+here for nearly two years was hidden, fed and clothed
+by his compassionate subjects. Then, having learned
+how lovely it is to rely upon fidelity, such fidelity as
+he now knew to have been that of his slandered priest,
+Kaopulupulu, he learned in his turn also how bitter
+it is to be betrayed.</p>
+
+<p>His wife’s brother, Kehuamanoha, yielded up the
+secret of his hiding-place to Kahekili, and he was
+dragged by the order of the conqueror from Ewa to
+Waikiki, to stand in the presence of his crafty antagonist.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in all points Nemesis overtook him, and when
+he died a sacrifice to the gods at Waikiki, he cried out
+for the vengeful deities to wash out in his blood the
+wretchedness of his unfaithfulness and allow him to
+meet the manes of Kaopulupulu in peace.</p>
+
+<p>But a man’s folly, so far as its consequences are
+concerned, does not end with repentance, and heavily
+did Kahekili lay his yoke upon Oahu. Men, women<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>
+and children were butchered, the streams were piled
+high with the dead, and ran scarlet to the sea, and
+one of the Maui chiefs built a house at Lapakea with
+the bones of the slain.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">V<br>
+
+<small>KEALA</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> man-eating <i>mu</i> was in the street.</p>
+
+<p>This accounted for the silence in the village. No
+one was in sight when the two chiefs, Kakaua and
+Kapahala, met.</p>
+
+<p>“Ha, Kakaua, hearest thou the news? Kahekili is
+dead!”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Auwe!</i> dark the day of Maui! There will be pickings
+for crows, now the eagle is gone! Methinks the
+‘Lonely One’ in Kohala will soon be looking this way
+again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ay, said not Kahekili to him: ‘When the black
+<i>kapa</i> covers me, then shalt thou be the <i>maika</i>-stone
+sweeping from Hawaii to Niihau’?”</p>
+
+<p>“What say Kaeo and Kalanikapule?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nay, I know not. When I left the royal enclosure
+they were wailing and knocking out their teeth, and
+between whiles they discussed the disposal of Kahekili’s
+bones.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, Kalani had best grind them to powder and
+mix them with <i>poi</i> for the eating of the chiefs. They
+will need all the strength of Kahekili’s heart to stand
+up against the lord of Halawa.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yea,” said a newcomer, “and methinks, Kakaua,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>
+you need to eat his liver, for I hear the man-eating <i>mu</i>
+is in the street, seeking some victim to please the
+gods and the dead chief therewith. The <i>mu</i>, who is,
+you may know, none other than Ahi, the priest, has
+a special love for you, Kakaua! Is it not so? <i>Aloha!</i>
+I go a-fishing.”</p>
+
+<p>Kakaua turned white under his dusky skin, and apparently
+concluded to go fishing, too, for when an
+hour later the priest Ahi came to make a call of honor—having
+destined Kakaua for the sacrifice which
+was to appease the manes of the dead king—the intended
+victim was not to be found, nor was his canoe.</p>
+
+<p>This looked bad, for the surf was thundering upon
+the reef as though the shark god himself had come
+to attend the obsequies of Kahekili, and Laamaomao
+in his train—a big leak in his calabash, from whence
+poured forth angry gusts of wind along the shore.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Ahi, acting the part of that unpopular
+functionary, the <i>mu-ai-kanaka</i>, was parading the
+empty streets with horrible yells and contortions of
+the body. In one hand he held a club with which to
+fell his victim from behind, in the other a hook with
+which to drag the body to the <i>heiau</i>. He was very
+angry, for he had calculated by this time to have had
+the hook in the flesh of Kakaua, against whom he bore
+a special grudge.</p>
+
+<p>The history, as is so often the case, concerned a
+maiden.</p>
+
+<p>Sweet Keala! ill was it for thy peace that thou
+wast beautiful as the <i>lehua</i> which is wooed by the
+<i>olokele</i> in the morning sun, and ill was it for Ahi and
+Kakaua that they, the one or the other, agreed not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>
+to give thee up and seek another maiden, whereof
+there were many in the Eight Islands!</p>
+
+<p>Ahi was a priest and cruel, and Keala loved him
+not, loved neither himself nor his vocation; but Kakaua
+she loved because he was a warrior, straight as
+a palm-tree and smiling as the dawn. This was not
+pleasant knowledge to Ahi, and he had loved the idea
+of personating the man-eating <i>mu</i>, because he might
+thereby rid himself of his rival, and, Kakaua away—why,
+surely Keala would love him.</p>
+
+<p>And now Kakaua was away—if not consumed upon
+the altar of the gods, assuredly eaten by the sharks
+outside the reef, for the surf which boomed upon the
+coral rocks had cruel white teeth which must have
+devoured any canoe out that night. Ahi protested to
+Keala that, beyond all doubt, Kakaua had gone down
+to the realm of Milu to eat lizards and butterflies and
+recline under ghostly trees—nevermore to revisit the
+upper air. But, somehow, such is the obstinacy of
+womankind, Keala loved Ahi none the more, and Kakaua
+none the less. Moreover, she told the priest to
+his face she would rather be the bride of the sharks
+than share his loathsome couch.</p>
+
+<p>In his heart, however, Ahi was by no means so sure
+of the death of Kakaua, and oftentimes at night he
+would build a fireplace on the hearth of his hut, plant
+<i>kapa</i>-sticks at the corners and make a fire by rubbing
+the firestick, <i>aulima</i>, on a twig of <i>akia</i> and endeavor
+to send out his soul through the smoke, to discover
+the whereabouts of the man whom he feared absent
+even more than present.</p>
+
+<p>But his visions for many nights were vague—rolling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>
+seas, surf-beaten shores, groves of palms, slopes
+of lava, concourses of men, troops preparing for battle,
+but no Kakaua. Each night his soul came back
+to his body fruitlessly wearied.</p>
+
+<p>His disappointment he revenged upon the girl whom
+he hoped to win. Day by day he persecuted her with
+his advances, and day by day she repelled him with
+the bitterest scorn. All the power of the gods he denounced
+against her faithful obstinacy, but Keala refused
+to believe that the <i>akua</i> were hostile to human
+constancy, and bore the revilings of the priest in patience.</p>
+
+<p>But it was hard to live in the Hawaii of olden time
+the enemy of the priests. The high chief Hua had
+ventured to oppose them, and of him it was said in
+proverbs: “Rattling are the bones of Hua in the sun.”
+Is it, then, to be wondered at that, week by week, the
+situation of Keala became more perilous? Till one
+day, after Ahi had been most violent in his protestations
+of love, and Keala most bitter in her repulse, the
+struggle ceased with the slaughter of the maiden—on
+a charge, supported by false witnesses, of having
+broken the <i>kapu</i> and eaten of the forbidden food. Like
+a meek lamb, and amid the tears of the people, Keala
+was slain before the altar of the <i>heiau</i>, but with her
+dying voice she appealed to the only goddess whose
+power she knew—Pele, the mistress of the great volcano
+whose lava-floods ravaged the coasts of Hawaii.
+Pele was a fickle deity, she knew, but surely she would
+avenge the wrongs of her sex. So Keala died, faithful
+to Kakaua. Yet Ahi was not happy. The people
+hated him, and his own heart was not at peace.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>More zealous than ever in his priestly duties, he
+made daily offerings to propitiate the volcano goddess,
+for he feared the prayer of the dying maiden, and as
+the rumor of his subornation grew he feared even
+more the living arm of Kakaua, to be assured of whose
+death he would have given half his wealth. Again
+and again he projected his spirit into space, to search
+for his former rival, and each time he grew certain
+that Kakaua was alive and not dead.</p>
+
+<p>But one night, no sooner had he made his fire, prepared
+and drunk his <i>awa</i>, chanted his fire-prayer and
+called upon the terrible name of Uli, than he felt his
+soul go out through the smoke, like an invisible bird,
+over the sand plains and over the sea, till he came to
+a dark mountain mass rising far above the clouds.
+Here he once more felt himself touch the ground and
+able to look about him. Down below through the
+driving mists he could see the gray shore-line and the
+white reef. The locality seemed familiar to him, though
+he recalled not its name. Up above was the mountain
+sparsely covered with <i>ohelo</i> and with clouds of sulphurous
+smoke rolling from its summit. Now he suspected
+his whereabouts, and when he glanced a second
+time along the road he was certain. The green
+water below was the bay of Hilo, the mountain was
+the terrible Kilauea, where in Halemaumau, the house
+of everlasting fire, the goddess Pele was wont to ride
+the red surges with her sisters and tilt with lances
+of flaming lava. The road was the mountain-path
+from Waiakea to Kapapala, and up the road, as the
+spirit of Ahi gazed at the well-known landmarks, a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>
+strangely familiar figure was making its way. A foretaste
+of malicious joy thrilled the disembodied spirit
+and he hurriedly gained the path which the toiling
+wayfarer must take. Right in the middle of the road
+he made the magic sign known only to the <i>kahunas</i>,
+uttered the imprecation of Uli, and then, although
+conscious that he was only a ghost, and invisible, withdrew
+to a cave near by to watch the working of his
+wizardry.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had he reached his place of concealment
+when he felt a strange trembling of the earth, and a
+moment later, gazing out, he beheld a sight which
+made him, spirit though he was, shiver like a leaf. The
+traveler had almost reached the spellbound square
+when from the top of the mountain there appeared
+the head of a tide of lava like a river of molten lead,
+and on the lurid crest, as though riding upon the
+surf-board, was the dreaded goddess of the crater.
+The tide of flame was making its way straight along
+the channel of the road, and Ahi saw with relief it
+would sweep by him and leave him untouched. And
+when the traveler lifted his face in terror toward the
+oncoming death, Ahi was happy at last, for the face
+was indeed the face of Kakaua. The spell was working.
+His old enemy was doomed, and by the very
+power to whom Keala had made her supplication.</p>
+
+<p>But Ahi’s joy was short-lived and gave way to convulsive
+rage when he looked again. For the terror
+had fled from Kakaua’s face and in its stead was joy,
+and the priest following the eyes of the doomed man
+looked upon the countenance of Pele, and lo! it was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>
+Pele no longer, but Keala. And the man stretched
+out his arms in ecstasy for the embrace of the goddess.
+Yes, Pele had, after all, hearkened to Keala’s
+prayer.</p>
+
+<p>Darkness came over the frustrate ghost, and presently
+from the smoke of his own hearth Ahi’s spirit
+went out unbidden and stood in the halls of the underworld,
+the abode of Milu. A great paradise
+stretched out before the portals of the gloomy prison-house.
+There were waters fresher and palms greener
+than those of Waipio, and down the mossy rocks
+trickled the sparkling drops which made the stream,
+as though the tears of lovers shed on earth were here
+distilling into the river of the water of life. Delicious
+perfumes and the song of innumerable birds filled the
+air.</p>
+
+<p>But all this gave no pleasure to the soul of Ahi,
+who made fruitless efforts not to see, when before
+him glided the happy shades of Kakaua and Keala in
+joyous converse, and he cursed Uli and Kiiaka and
+all his gods when they looked upon him and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Thanks, Ahi, through thee we are alive, for we
+love, and thou, alas! art dead!”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ahi awoke and the ashes upon his hearth were dead
+and cold.</p>
+
+<p>As for Ahi himself, his hair was white and his limbs
+palsied. He knew that the words of Kakaua and Keala
+were true, and that the gods had written down his
+name as dead. His heart within his breast was like
+stone, and his life was gone from him like smoke. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>
+lived thus many years, but he gave no more offerings
+to Pele, for he said: “Verily, the fires of Pele turn to
+sunshine, and the spells of the <i>kahuna</i> are vain before
+such love as that of Kakaua and Keala.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">VI<br>
+
+<small>PELE DECLARES FOR KAMEHAMEHA</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> ancient kings of Hawaii showed their wisdom
+and their appreciation of the beautiful when they
+chose Waipio for a royal residence. There was no
+other spot in the Eight Islands so blessed by nature,
+prodigal as she was of her gifts from Niihau to Hawaii.
+A romantic valley nearly a mile wide at the
+seaward entrance, enclosed on the other sides by nearly
+perpendicular hills, clothed with grass, creepers and
+shrubs—such was Waipio. Winding paths led upwards
+amid the jutting rocks and threadlike cascades
+descending almost at one leap, forming the stream below
+which flowed deviously among the sand-hills to
+the sea.</p>
+
+<p>At one time, says an old legend, the stream was
+more sluggish than now, but a great fish which lived
+off the Hamakua coast found the supply of fresh water
+too scanty for his need and appealed to Kane for
+more. In consequence, fresh springs were created,
+the bed of the river tilted up and the requisite increase
+of water obligingly supplied. The great fish
+is there no longer; but, if so disposed, you may still
+see the finger marks of Kane on the huge stones
+which he hurled into the river to raise its bed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>A hundred and eighteen years ago Waipio was
+still the loveliest spot in the Paradise of the Pacific.
+Here the palms were tallest, the foliage greenest, the
+blossoms brightest, the water coolest. And in recognition
+of this fact many were the folk who here made
+their abode. Along the foot of the mountains and extending
+up the valley as far as the eye could reach
+were little groups of grass huts looking almost as
+natural as the trees and mountains. Nearer the sea
+was part of the patrimony of Kamehameha, and many
+were the evidences of the labors in which the great
+chief, like a modern Cincinnatus, had indulged in the
+intervals of fighting his many foes. Here were the
+fish ponds, here the taro-patches, here even attempts
+at the construction of an aqueduct—attempts rendered,
+however, futile by the lack of adequate tools.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of which we speak Kamehameha was
+at home, but nevertheless not bent upon peaceful pursuits.
+This was at once evident from a glance at the
+coral beach. Gigantic war canoes painted and pennoned
+lay along the sand mile after mile. A great
+double pirogue, containing mounted cannon and
+chests of firearms, was evidently the king’s own special
+craft. There were, however, several more or less
+seaworthy schooners of American build in the royal
+fleet.</p>
+
+<p>In these Kamehameha and his army had come hurriedly
+back from Molokai, whither he had gone after
+his great victory in Maui. The battle in the Iao valley,
+known as the “damming of the waters,” had rendered
+him, for the time being, master of Maui, and,
+after sending one ambassador to Kauai to look out a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>
+powerful wizard and another to Oahu to interview
+Kahekili, he had gone himself to Molokai to secure
+influence over the high chiefess Kalola, her daughter
+Liliha and her granddaughter Keopuolani. With these
+on his side, or under his protection, Kamehameha knew
+he could appeal with every hope of success to the aristocratic
+instincts of the people.</p>
+
+<p>But suddenly, almost from the blue sky, a thunderbolt
+had fallen into the midst of his plans. A messenger
+landed one morning with the news that Keoua in
+Hawaii had attacked and slain Keawemauhili in a battle
+near Hilo, had overrun and annexed his dominions
+in Puna and Kau, and had forthwith invaded the territories
+of Kamehameha in Hamakua, Waipio, and
+Waimea, destroying fish ponds and potato fields, and
+committing all kinds of barbarities.</p>
+
+<p>Such news was an imperative summons to Kamehameha
+to return at once to Hawaii, and this he had
+done with his usual celerity. Keoua, taken by surprise,
+retreated to Paauhau in Hamakua and there awaited
+attack. Two bloody battles were fought, but neither
+side gained much advantage, and, while Keoua fell back
+on Hilo, Kamehameha withdrew to Waipio, where we
+now behold him, in November, 1790, getting ready
+for the final struggle.</p>
+
+<p>Little groups of chiefs and warriors are sitting on
+the beach, polishing their weapons and talking of the
+prospects of the campaign.</p>
+
+<p>“Kamehameha has been playing with Keoua so far,”
+said an old grizzled warrior, scarred with the wounds
+of twenty battles. “When he begins to fight real battles,
+he will win.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>“He has the favor of the gods,” said another; “he
+should soon make an end of rebellion.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ay,” added a third, “what chief in Hawaii aforetime
+has been at once the guardian of Kaili, the war
+god, and the possessor of Kalaipahoa, the poison goddess?”</p>
+
+<p>“And,” said Kamanawa, “the owner of the magic
+conch, Kiha-pu!”</p>
+
+<p>“And has had the help of the white men,” interposed
+Kaiana, proud of his friendship with the <i>haole</i>
+captains, with whom he made a visit to China. “See
+what havoc the red-mouthed guns made in Kepaniwai!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yea,” resumed Keeaumoku, “the ‘Lonely One’ must
+succeed. Years ago, when I withdrew from the battlefield
+because I knew no leader whose battle-shout
+stirred my blood, the old prophet Keaulumoku came
+across the hills from Lahaina to my dwelling and
+chanted me the events which were to come. That was
+years ago, but I wait in patience.”</p>
+
+<p>“One thing Kamehameha lacks,” said a chief who
+had hitherto remained silent—and as he spake the
+others lifted their faces in expectant surprise—“one
+thing the lord of Kohala lacks. Marked you not the
+other night how, while we slept, there came a tremor
+of the earth which waked us all and brought cold
+blood to our hearts? If that same goddess who thus
+changed sleep into fear would come to the help of our
+chief, Keoua would not long remain in the upper air.
+Pele is stronger than the white man’s fire-breathing
+guns! But, behold! yonder comes the <i>lunapai</i>, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>
+with him a goodly number of recruits for the war.
+Let us go and hear his news.”</p>
+
+<p>As though the speaker’s thought were the thought
+of the whole camp, there was a simultaneous movement
+towards the <i>lanai</i>, whither the messenger had
+directed his steps. The excitement grew when it was
+seen that the <i>lunapai</i> had news. He had gone well
+nigh round the island, three hundred miles in nine
+days, and had met with signal success. There had
+been no need of the <i>uluku</i> to slit the ears of the recruits
+and drag them reluctant to the war. Goodly
+young men had joined him at every village, and Kamehameha’s
+ranks were swelled by a daily increasing
+army of those who had heard of his exploits in Maui
+and how he had at last avenged the slaughter on the
+sand-hills fifteen years before.</p>
+
+<p>But the man had evidently something else to relate
+besides his success as a <i>lunapai</i> and, refusing to eat or
+drink until he told his tale, he only waited until Kamehameha,
+who had just come in from fishing, had taken
+his place on a couch of <i>pulu</i> and then began:</p>
+
+<p>“O king, verily a mightier <i>lunapai</i> than Pakahala
+has gone through the island. Hearken, chiefs, and
+fear the gods! Hearken, warriors, and follow your
+lord, the beloved of heaven, to sure and happy victory!”</p>
+
+<p>The chiefs and spearmen gathered round at once
+and a great silence was made. Then the orator resumed:</p>
+
+<p>“Keoua assembled his warriors and set out for Kau.
+They marched, a great host lusting for the noise of
+battle, along the road which leads by the abode of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>
+Pele, the death-dealing Kilauea. Heedless of the
+power of the goddess, they rolled stones into the crater,
+unmindful of the sacrilege.</p>
+
+<p>“But Pele was not pleased with their amusement,
+neither liked she to receive rocks instead of <i>ohelo</i>-berries.
+And when the men slept, she awakened in
+her anger and threw out the stones they had thrown
+in, with flame and cinders, to a great distance. Then
+were Keoua’s men afraid and in vain tried to soothe
+the goddess. But she refused to be appeased, and all
+through that day and the second and the third the
+earth shook and the fire leaped from the mountain,
+and the ashes rained down upon the host.</p>
+
+<p>“Then on the third night Keoua spake and said:
+‘Why stay we here to be consumed of Pele? Let us
+advance.’ So they advanced in three companies. The
+first company moved on over the mountain, and, verily,
+as they went they died a thousand deaths.</p>
+
+<p>“For the earth rocked beneath their feet and darkness
+came forth from the crater which entered into
+their souls, and the thunder made their hearts quake,
+and the lightnings burned up many among them. From
+the pit beside them the fire glared red and blue and
+yellow, as though all the sisters and cousins of Pele
+were holding revel and mocking their victims. Scarce
+could they breathe, but they hastened on and gained
+at last the free air.</p>
+
+<p>“After these marched the second company and, a
+little later, the third. These felt the earthquake and
+the showers of sand, but lost no men in the darkness
+and storm. As they pressed on, hoping soon to overtake
+their fellows, they rejoiced and each bade the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>
+other be of good cheer, since they had escaped the
+fury of the goddess.</p>
+
+<p>“But, ere they had gone a hundred paces further,
+they saw a sight which moved their hearts with such
+a fear as comes to man but once in life. What was
+that crowd of warriors doing yonder, sitting silent on
+the earth? Were they asleep or turned to stone? There
+was the whole central band of the army, silent and
+still; some sat upright, some were lying down, some
+even yet embracing their wives and children, some
+joining noses, as taking leave one of another. And all
+was ghastly and still. Every heart was chilled with
+the cold shadow of death.</p>
+
+<p>“Nevertheless, scarce could they believe the truth
+until they approached and touched and shook them.
+Then they knew that suddenly, as in a moment, the
+third part of Keoua’s army had been breathed upon
+by Pele, and the life had fled from them like vapor
+before the fire. But one living thing was there. It
+was a hog rooting among the trees, and the men were
+afraid, believing it to be Kamapuaa, the man-pig,
+spouse of the goddess. So they did not dare to stay
+to raise the wail of mourners. They hurried on and,
+after much time, reached the band which first crossed
+the mountain. From these, O king, I heard the story,
+and thither I am come to proclaim that the queen of
+Halemaumau has declared herself on our part. Verily,
+Pele has accepted thee for a son and will bring
+thee to the lordship of Hawaii!”</p>
+
+<p>The concourse scarce awaited the orator’s peroration.
+A mighty shout arose from the host, and with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>
+one voice they cried: “<i>E Kamehameha!</i> Praise we the
+goddess of fire, gracious to us and to our lord.”</p>
+
+<p>Kamehameha arose. He had thrown his cloak over
+his shoulders, donned his feather-helmet and grasped
+his terrible spear. Head and shoulders he appeared
+above every man in the assembly, and as he spake his
+form seemed to swell and his voice increase in power,
+as though the afflatus of the gods possessed him. Then
+he cried, and men in the canoes far out to sea heard
+his voice:</p>
+
+<p>“Great is the favor of Pele! Now, chiefs and warriors
+of Hawaii, the time is come. On with the building
+of the great <i>heiau</i>! On with Puukohola! Make
+the altar ready for the body of the victim, even for
+Keoua. A few more days and Keliimaikai shall present
+Kaili the blood for which he thirsts. Keoua’s
+death-day draws nigh and the day of victory. Praise
+to Pele, dwelling in the vaults of eternal fire, the friend
+and guardian of Kamehameha, your king.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">VII<br>
+
+<small>THE CITY OF REFUGE</small></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><i>A Tale of Oahu</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“<span class="smcap">All</span> day long the noise of battle roll’d.”</p>
+
+<p>But it was night now, and there was silence on the
+battlefield. As the moon rose, its long shafts of light
+quivered across the lagoons which stretched between
+Moanalua and Waianae, and silvered the coral beach
+of Ewa, so that the dark heaps of corpses stood out
+with weird distinctness.</p>
+
+<p>The treachery of Kalanikapule had been crowned
+with success—a success which in the aftertimes
+proved ruinous enough, since the folly of Kahekili’s
+heirs was preparing the way for the supremacy of
+Kamehameha—and Kaeo was dead. The brave invader
+from Maui had accepted war with a light heart,
+since it brought him immunity from the plottings of
+his chiefs, and might even have repelled the wanton
+attack of his brother, had it not been for the guns
+and ships of the white man.</p>
+
+<p>But, as it was, he found himself in a trap. “Better
+to die in battle,” he said, “many will be the companions
+in death,” and so fought to the last, and died.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, indeed! many <i>had</i> been the “companions in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>
+death”—not only among the yellow-cloaked <i>aliis</i> who
+had hurled their spears in vain against the “red-mouthed”
+guns, but even among the women, who, following
+at first to supply the warriors with food and
+drink from their calabashes, stood at last, side by side,
+with their husbands to aid them, and fell across their
+corpses.</p>
+
+<p>It was thus that Liliha had stood by and fallen with
+her husband Kahulu; but, in the moonlight, who was
+to distinguish hero from hero? Their souls had gone
+down into the dark halls of Milu, their bodies were
+objects of attention to the foul night-birds which
+flapped their dusky wings with joy and scarce had
+leisure to break the silence with a scream as they
+gorged themselves on the red fruit of fraternal discord.</p>
+
+<p>There was apparently no one to disturb the horrid
+feast, but suddenly a little cry came from one of the
+hills of slain which sent the whole black brood whirring
+across to another part of the battlefield. A bird
+had been pecking at the eyes of the slain and had
+aroused, by the smart, some unconscious one back to
+life.</p>
+
+<p>The cry was faint enough, but presently from the
+gory hillock whence it came, there might have been
+seen a form of a woman painfully disengaging herself
+from the surrounding dead. One corpse she sought,
+but could not find, or she had been content to clasp
+it and send forth her soul to seek its soul in the nether
+world. So with a little cry, which might have been
+the expression of disappointment or of hope, Liliha,
+daughter of the high-priest of Kauai and wife of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>
+Kaulu (for so you might have recognized her as the
+traveling lamp of night sent its cold rays across her
+beautiful face), slipped, with a shudder, from her gruesome
+bedfellows, and laboriously sought the shore. The
+little waves were sleepily plashing on the coral beach,
+toying with the dripping branches and blossoms of
+the overhanging <i>hau</i>. Here was an invitation if not
+to life, at least to death, which latter Liliha felt was
+almost, if not quite, as good.</p>
+
+<p>But when the water flowed around her limbs she
+felt suddenly strong and instinctively swam out into
+the silver waters of the lagoon. The waves bathed
+her wounds and cooled her fevered brow, and there
+seemed above her the spirit-wings of Hope whom even
+Hawaiian mythology recognized and worshipped. She
+struck out for the Aiea shore, where she hoped to
+find refuge among her kin until the wrath of Kalanikapule
+should be overpast.</p>
+
+<p>But, as she went on, the wounds bled again, some
+hungry shark was surely behind her scenting the
+blood, and, when at length she cast her body, bruised
+and bleeding, upon the beach, she no longer hoped
+for life, but for a cave in which to die.</p>
+
+<p>At the entrance of the Halawa valley was a thicket
+almost concealing the mouth of the pass. A tangle of
+<i>ieie</i> had overgrown the shrubs and trees, so that to
+right or left of the white boulders, over which in
+freshet-times the torrents passed from the mountains
+to the sea, there was just the place where a hunted
+fugitive might hide or a wounded animal might die.</p>
+
+<p>Here Liliha lay on the <i>pulu</i>, never so luxuriously
+soft as now. (We may appreciate the instinct which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>
+leads the Hawaiians to-day to pad their coffins with
+it.) But the valley of Halawa was not to be Liliha’s
+coffin. Her swoon of the battlefield was but repeated,
+and when she awoke there was near her the sound of
+many men all talking together around a fire whose
+glow penetrated her hiding-place. They were mixing
+<i>awa</i>; the bowl was in their midst, and they were busy
+chewing the narcotic root and steeping the masticated
+morsels in the bowl. They had evidently shared in
+the recent fight, for they had their weapons with them,
+and, as the firelight shone upon their breasts, Liliha
+saw that the ivory <i>palaoa</i> of several had been stained
+with blood.</p>
+
+<p>But presently a groan startled the awakened woman.
+It came from an inert bundle just beyond the fireglow.
+The warriors turned their heads. They were in a
+merry mood. Victory had crowned their arms, and
+an <i>awa</i> orgy was in sight. Hence they only chuckled
+and said:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>E Kahulu!</i> but you shall soon drink <i>awa</i> with
+Milu! Kaeo will have some boon companions down
+there in the dark. There is twitching of the eyes in
+the house of Kahulu to-day, or verily the <i>akua</i> are all
+asleep.”</p>
+
+<p>The object of their mockery answered not, but
+turned over to nurse his thoughts in silence. As his
+face for one instant caught the light, the woman in
+the thicket knew him and—decided to live.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the <i>awa</i>-brewing went on, and presently
+came the <i>awa</i>-drinking. For an hour the merriment
+grew and then for an hour it declined, till one form<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>
+after another, with a sidelong glance at the helpless
+prisoner, yielded to the seductive narcotic and slept—a
+sleep not pleasant to look on, for the bodies of the
+men turned uneasily and writhed as in pain.</p>
+
+<p>But one slept not. He had had no <i>awa</i>, and bitter
+thoughts keep him wakeful. Death was certain. All
+the omens proved it. Was not even now that low cooing
+sound the voice of the <i>alae</i>, the waterfowl, whose
+call was always the harbinger of death? He raised his
+head to listen, and then he doubted. Had he been in
+his native woods in Kauai that low cry would have
+brought him to Liliha’s arms. How often had she thus
+greeted him as she came back from beating the <i>kapa</i>
+in the pools. Alas! nevermore should he see her on
+this beautiful earth, but, perchance, when the ordeal
+of the sacrificial oven was passed——</p>
+
+<p>Ah! that <i>coo-ee</i>, softly repeated and so near him!
+He had never thought of Milu—the Hawaiian Pluto—as
+a benign deity, but now he breathed a thanksgiving
+to the grim <i>akua</i> that he had permitted the
+shade of Liliha to come back from the dead. They
+would keep together, and soon enter the underworld
+together, and then—who shall separate?</p>
+
+<p>But was it a ghost who cut the thongs which bound
+him? Was it a ghost who, finger on lip, led him
+stealthily over the prostrate bodies of the guards, and
+placed his feet on the downward path? He dared not
+stop to reflect. His brain whirled. But no sooner were
+they side by side and hand in hand on the dark plain
+together than they sped fleetly as though they knew
+no wound nor fatigue. One thought buoyed them up,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>
+one word passed between them, as they gazed half-frightened
+at each other for one moment. It was the
+word “<i>Puuhonua</i>”—the city of refuge—a word which
+called up to view an open gate, and white-robed priests
+with branches of <i>maile</i> who would bid them enter into
+peace in the name of the gods.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! how long the way was! How dark the road!
+Never had the sun been so slow rising from its watery
+bed to look forth once more upon the world from behind
+the barred cage made by the trunks of the cocoanut
+palms along the shore!</p>
+
+<p>Light at last—and lo! in the distance before them
+the long line of stockaded wall, with the guarded gates,
+and the white flags floating at either end from the
+lofty spear points. The grim idols along the wall
+seemed to smile and mock alternately. To smile, as
+the distance to the gate grew less, to mock, as behind
+them rose the ferocious yell which proclaimed that
+the <i>awa</i>-drinkers had not long overslept their watch.
+The same sun which made shine so fair the walls of
+the city of refuge glinted upon the spears and feather
+helmets of the pursuers.</p>
+
+<p>Liliha and Kahulu ran like hunted hares, but Nature
+has her limits. They had done miracles, but even
+miracles have their laws, and stern Nature would yield
+no more. They stood between the priests and the pursuers;
+they saw life before them and death behind
+them—alas! ineluctable. Then they looked into one
+another’s faces and saw something stronger than death
+and better than life itself. So they fell vanquished
+upon the sand. But as Kahulu fell, he knew a dear,
+pale face—no ghost—a face scarred with wounds,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>
+looking at him with radiant, starlike eyes and—was
+content.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>A company stood before the victorious Kalanikapule.
+The chief was reclining upon a heap of ferns,
+with a crowd of runners, diviners, priests, <i>hula</i>-dancers,
+and <i>kahili</i>-bearers around him. The eyes of all,
+however, were fixed upon two bruised and bleeding
+forms which made the center of the company before
+the king. The chiefs, with their spears and gorgeous
+feather capes, the priests with their red cloaks and
+white wands were vigorously declaiming before the
+king. They seemed unanimous as they clamored for
+the death of Kahulu.</p>
+
+<p>“O Kalanikapule,” cried the chiefs, “we have
+brought hither the rebel to die. His head is forfeit to
+the king, and the gods desire to drink his blood. We
+took him—the slayer of our brethren—the right hand
+of Kaeo—we took him in the battle. We bound him
+fast, foot to foot, hand to hand, his neck between his
+knees, and we were bearing him to your feet. But
+while we rested, for it was night, and we were in the
+mountains, came this woman, who assuredly fought
+by his side in the battle and died before our eyes—came
+this woman, we say, even as from the dead, and
+loosed his bands and helped him to escape from our
+hands. Verily, had not thy servants been keen-sighted
+as the hawk, and very wakeful, they—the guilty ones—had
+reached the <i>puuhonua</i>, and had now been in
+peace. But, O king, be this remembered to our good:
+thy servants were swifter than the fleet dogs of the
+<i>haole</i> and outstripped the rebels, that Kaili and all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>
+gods may become pleasant towards thee, when they
+see the flesh of men smoking on their altars in the
+<i>heiau</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>And the priests added to the voice of the chiefs: “<i>Ai!</i>
+we have sharpened the <i>pahoa</i> and heated the oven for
+Kahulu. He did not reach the <i>puuhonua</i>, but fell before
+the very threshold—such was the will of the gods!
+Therefore he must die! Is it not death for the defeated
+one who reaches not the city of refuge?”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Then the king—with a light playing across his features
+such as no man had seen before—answered and
+said:</p>
+
+<p>“Set Kahulu free! Verily, he reached the <i>puuhonua</i>,
+for there is no city of refuge like that of a woman’s
+love.”</p>
+
+<p>And the priests and the chiefs stood silent, but the
+people shouted greatly at the decree of Kalanikapule.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">VIII<br>
+
+<small>SWEET LEILEHUA</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">What</span> the rose is to England and the lily to France
+is the <i>Lehua</i> to Hawaii <i>nei</i>. When the maidens lying
+on the beach of coral sand or beneath the <i>lauhala</i>
+palms touch their guitars and sing the <i>meles</i> of times
+gone by, it is of “Sweet Leilehua” that they sing. And
+when they would inspire departing visitors with happy
+memories of the mid-ocean Paradise they twine around
+their necks the fragrant wreaths of <i>maile</i> and <i>lehua</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And the beautiful flower well deserves its place as
+the emblem of Hawaii. Almost all over the country,
+anywhere between fifteen hundred and six thousand
+feet above sea-level, you may see its scarlet blossoms
+flashing in the sun. Here it is slender and graceful,
+like the island maidens, a shrub some fifteen feet high;
+there a tree of a hundred feet, strong and tall, like the
+island men. Men say that the higher up the trees
+grow the finer are the blossoms, and certainly where
+the white man’s foot has trodden least the <i>lehua</i> seems
+most at home.</p>
+
+<p>“Sweet Leilehua” has a lover who is as the nightingale
+to the rose—the <i>olokele</i>, a bright little scarlet
+bird, whose life’s happiness it is to drink honey from
+the scarlet flower. You can scarcely distinguish bird<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>
+from blossom. The tree seems alive with flashing
+wings.</p>
+
+<p>But, alas! civilization has doomed the <i>olokele</i>, and
+perhaps the <i>lehua</i>. Is it true, also, that their human
+counterparts in the youth and maidenhood of Hawaii
+are going, too?</p>
+
+<p>The following tale of Leilehua and Hakuole is a
+tale of over a hundred years ago. Still the maidens
+sing it, still men remember it; but where now is there
+an <i>olokele</i> so bold in his love for the <i>lehua</i> as was
+Hakuole, the chief of Oahu?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Hakuole stood on Leahi gazing earnestly seawards
+or turning his eyes occasionally to the left, in the direction
+of Koko Head and Makapuu. The sun never
+shone upon a fairer scene than that upon which he
+looked. Down below lay the glistening white beach
+of Waikiki, fringed a few yards from the water with
+dense thickets of <i>hau</i> trees, whose short, crooked
+trunks, glossy leaves and showy yellow flowers were
+a welcome relief to the eye from the coral sand. In
+the blue-green waters which stretched out to the horizon
+there was only the break of the white reef on
+which the Pacific waves rolled with thunderous noise,
+and here and there a fishing boat in which the fishers
+sat silent with uplifted spear. Leahi, on which the
+chieftain stood, rose like a crouching lion from the
+seashore, its lava slopes almost bare of vegetation save
+for a few straggling indigo bushes, while in the crater
+behind Hakuole was a large swamp surrounded by
+rushes and patched here and there with the white
+wings of flocking sea-birds.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>The chief was in the very prime of youth, and his
+figure showed to advantage on the rocky promontory
+against the sky. He had upon his head the usual helmet
+of yellow feathers, on his shoulders a small feather
+cloak, and the rest of his dress was of dark brown
+<i>kapa</i>. He had a necklace of shells and shark’s teeth
+round his neck and a heavy spear of <i>Kauila</i> wood in
+his hand. It was easy to see by his erect and martial
+bearing that he was an <i>alii</i>, whose pedigree was uncontaminated
+by mixture with the common people, and
+his training had been the training of a warrior.</p>
+
+<p>And warriors were needed now, for the great Kamehameha
+was on his way from Apani to attempt the
+conquest of Oahu, and so complete the subjugation of
+the Eight Islands. Hawaii was his from Kalae to
+Upolo. Maui had in vain gathered its warriors to
+meet him. And now the news had come that Kamehameha
+was on his way to Oahu. He had embarked
+with the veterans of his army and the fleet of war
+canoes was fast lessening the distance between him
+and his last great rival, Kalanikapule.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Kalanikapule was not to be caught napping.
+The flower of his army was assembled on the
+south side of the island: watchmen were stationed on
+Makapuu, Koko Head and Leahi, and for the last two
+nights the waves had been illumined by a constant
+burning of <i>papala</i> sticks. But so far no sign of the
+war prows of the great <i>alii</i> had been discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Hakuole at his lonely post wished they would appear,
+to terminate the awful suspense. With eyes still
+turned seaward he flung himself down wearily on the
+ground in the shade of a dark-foliaged <i>milo</i>, whose<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>
+quivering aspen-like leaves seemed, like his own heart,
+apprehensive of the trouble to come. He was in love;
+he longed to declare his passion, to lead his bride to
+the house he had prepared for her. But what could
+he do? This horrible conflict was impending, and
+who could say what would be the result? Kamehameha,
+the unconquered Kamehameha, was at hand: a
+bloody battle would be fought. Who would win? Who
+was even sure of surviving?</p>
+
+<p>In this dismal strain ran his thoughts, when suddenly
+the bushes behind him parted and a face peered
+through, timidly advancing and then retreating amid
+the leaves. It was a beautiful face—with great, soft
+brown eyes gleaming like evening stars from the dusky
+olive skin, a face surrounded by thick masses of wavy
+hair of raven blackness, a face full of warm blood and
+passionate life. It belonged to no other than Leilehua.</p>
+
+<p>Sweet Leilehua!—who among the maidens of Oahu
+was more loved than she, the daughter of the great
+<i>kahuna</i>, the priest of Lono?</p>
+
+<p>When the maidens sat by the streams and beat out
+the <i>kapa</i> with their mallets on the broad, flat boulders,
+whose song was merrier than hers? Or who was
+obeyed so devotedly by all? If Hakuole’s love was
+returned, happy was he among men; but if Leilehua
+thought not of him, there was no other maiden in the
+land who could solace him for her loss.</p>
+
+<p>Hakuole turned, and his face changed when he saw
+her. As the sun, when it shines opposite the mists of
+Pauoa, spans the valleys with double rainbows, so the
+face of Leilehua brought brightness to the darkness
+of Hakuole’s brow. He was again the chieftain in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>
+the pride of his manhood, the bravest, the strongest of
+the young <i>aliis</i>. Raising himself and stretching out his
+eager arms towards the maiden, he cried: “Leilehua,
+my Leilehua, my beautiful scarlet flower!” But even
+as he spoke the graceful form vanished, dropping at
+his feet a wreath of brilliant <i>lehua</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Had he been too impetuous and frightened her away?
+Had she dropped the <i>lei</i> in her haste? Or had she
+designedly left it for him? He would follow her and
+see; but his face was no longer troubled, for he had
+felt the light of Leilehua’s eyes, and he knew she loved
+him. He had her sweet floral namesake on his neck;
+he was strong as Kamehameha himself; he would conquer
+now and live for love.</p>
+
+<p>But for the present he would follow her, or would
+she escape him?</p>
+
+<p>“<i>E ala, e ala, e ala-a-a-a——</i>”</p>
+
+<p>Loud and shrill came the voice of the lonely watcher
+far to his left, and then shriller still, like the harsh
+shriek of sea-birds, followed blasts from the conch-shell
+trumpets which woke all the echoes of the dead
+old crater, and sent the gulls clangorous and protesting
+from their marshy resting-place to fill the air,
+hitherto so still, with noise and motion. And as the
+upper element was thus suddenly awakened into life,
+so the waves below became, almost in another moment,
+ridged with foam in a hundred places. Where the
+sunbeams had slept placidly on an unbroken surface
+of azure, they were now reflected hither and thither by
+the black sides of canoes, the flashing of outriggers,
+the sheen of polished metal, the scarlet and yellow of
+innumerable feather cloaks, the glittering of oars amid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>
+the spray-rain, the gleaming of dusky bodies, and the
+forward leap of the high prows, whose painted eyes
+seemed to glow with the fire of life. And in advance
+was the famous double war canoe Peleleu, the rowers
+straining at the oars, and the <i>kahili</i>-bearers and warriors
+standing around the mighty chief who was destined
+to make Hawaii a nation.</p>
+
+<p>On they came, nearing the flat beach of Waikiki,
+where unless Kalanikapule opposed, they could enter
+the coral reef and land without impediment. But Kalanikapule
+chose to meet his rival in the heart of the
+country among the <i>palis</i>, rather than on the level
+ground; so, though from Leahi you could have seen
+the moving of dark masses of men among the forests
+of the southern side of the island, there was no sign
+on the beach of opposition to the landing of the Hawaiian
+troops.</p>
+
+<p>Hakuole hastened to his post in the army, but he did
+not forget Leilehua, for her gift was around his neck.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Of the strife that followed, with all its thrilling episodes,
+we must forbear to speak. How Kalanikapule
+collected his forces in the Nuuanu Pali; how Kamehameha
+followed him with his veterans, driving him to
+the ridge of the island; how the traitor Kaiana met
+his doom; how Kamehameha’s white men brought into
+battle the red-mouthed guns which made the thunder
+roll among the mountains; how the fight raged on till
+the awful precipice was reached, from which men
+poured down in a living avalanche to the rocks below;
+how at last Kamehameha drew back his victorious
+troops into the lower country, where the loud “<i>Auwe</i>”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>
+of the women rent the air in wailing for their husbands
+and fathers—all these are stories by themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Kamehameha knew himself at last lord of the Eight
+Islands from Niihau to Hawaii.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was a day of great mourning in Oahu. In every
+house there was wailing and rending of hair for the
+warriors transfixed by the sharp spears or battered to
+death on the rocks of the Nuuanu Pali. But they had
+fought well, they were gone to Paliuli, the blue mountain,
+to the land of the divine water of Kane, and as
+the sun set men saw the great procession of the dead
+in the western sky leaving the earth forever by the
+road of the gods. But when the sun rose again in
+the east they turned their thoughts to the living and
+the day. What now would be their fate? Kamehameha
+would hold his court; he would receive the
+homage of the conquered people; he would expect his
+<i>hookana</i> or tribute. “Let us hasten,” they said, “to
+propitiate the new king.” So all prepared to go with
+their gifts. Prominent among these was Kamakahou,
+the father of Leilehua. He had known of Hakuole’s
+love and had been himself disposed to accept him for
+a son-in-law, but he was a sycophant and a schemer.
+As a <i>kahuna</i> he had been among the advisers of the
+fallen chiefs, and his reputation for learning was
+great. He knew the five planets and suspected the
+existence of a sixth; he knew all the <i>kapu</i> days, the
+holy seasons and the prescribed ordinances; he could
+prepare lustral waters to drive away diseases and demons.
+He was proficient in all the ten branches of
+priestly lore, and could even cause the spirits of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>
+dead to enter the body of a person and possess it. He
+was skilled, moreover, in the preparation of medicines,
+and could cure toothache and bruises and broken
+bones.</p>
+
+<p>But with all his learning he was avaricious and preferred
+the favor of the king to the approval of his
+conscience. So he prepared his gift and went.</p>
+
+<p>The court of Kamehameha was held in the open
+air, the royal pavilion consisting of a raised couch of
+ferns over which a slight <i>lanai</i> had been built of <i>lauhala</i>
+palms. The king reclined at his ease. Beside
+him stood the royal <i>kahili</i>-bearers waving their huge
+feather brushes. Close by stood the <i>pukanas</i>, or trumpeters,
+with gorgeous headgear and capes. Near these
+stood the <i>kukini</i>, or runners, the <i>kahunas</i>, with tabu-sticks,
+while the <i>hula</i>-girls with instruments of music
+squatted a little to the left. In the midst of the <i>kahunas</i>,
+on a carpet of red cloth was the famous war god
+of Kamehameha, Kaili, whose shriek could be heard
+above the din of battle. It was of wickerwork decorated
+with small feathers, its eyes made of large oyster
+shells and mouth ornamented by a double row of dog’s
+fangs.</p>
+
+<p>Before the king the gifts lay in piles—calabashes of
+rare wood, logs of <i>iliahi</i>, or sandalwood, rolls of curiously
+wrought <i>kapa</i>, pigs, dogs, cocoanuts, sweet potatoes,
+seaweeds, shrimps, <i>papai</i>, <i>opelo</i>, <i>awa</i>, and many
+another costly article of dress, or dainty morsel of
+food.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, when Kamehameha seemed a little sated
+with his <i>hookana</i>, came a gift which drew all eyes.
+They saw Kamakahou leading his daughter Leilehua<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>
+forward to the presence of the king. “O king,” he
+cried, “behold the <i>kaikamahine</i>; take her, the light of
+my eyes, and let there be peace between us.”</p>
+
+<p>The maiden, who had advanced reluctantly, stood
+timidly before the couch, her face hid in her hands.
+The black tresses fell down her back in great coils,
+rippling over her dusky shoulders and falling to the
+skirt of yellow <i>kapa</i> which was fastened around her
+waist. On her head was a wreath of the scarlet flowers
+from which she took her name; on her wrists and
+ankles bracelets of sea-shells, and on her breast the
+ivory emblem suspended by the mystic three hundred
+braids of human hair.</p>
+
+<p>Only a moment she stood, and then, weeping, sank
+on her knees, let her hands fall from her face, and
+with pleading eyes gazed into the king’s face. Kamehameha,
+startled at so beauteous a vision, raised himself
+from the couch and, as he stood erect, clad in the
+brilliant feather cloak which was the work of ten
+generations of kings, he seemed a god come down in
+human form. As he stepped forward to take the
+hand of the tribute girl, a great shout began—</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Nani loa! Maikai loa! e——</i>”</p>
+
+<p><i>Began</i>, I say, but did not finish; for, lo! the circle
+of spectators parted, and there strode to the side of
+the weeping maid a young man who lacked but little of
+the height of Kamehameha himself. He was covered
+with blood and dust, having almost crawled from the
+battlefield, but he stood erect now, and he had a torn
+wreath of flowers around his neck. He did not flinch
+before the gaze of the king, but caught the hand of
+Leilehua, lifted her up, and bore her in among the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>
+people. It took only a few seconds, but the stillness
+of death had fallen upon the people. Was Hakuole
+mad? Had he seen a <i>lapu</i> and been bewitched? Rash
+man! See the thunder-cloud in the face of the chief
+who was never crossed with impunity! What fate did
+the conqueror of Oahu meditate for the man who
+braved him? Would he be offered as a sacrifice at
+the <i>heiau</i>, or would he be clubbed to death, burned, or
+buried alive?</p>
+
+<p>Hark! the king raises his voice, and his guards seize
+the overbold youth and the maiden, hurry them before
+the dais, and stand ready to carry out whatever sentence
+of death is imposed.</p>
+
+<p>Leilehua and Hakuole stand before Kamehameha,
+and they can hear their hearts beat, the people are so
+quiet.</p>
+
+<p>Then Kamehameha speaks in strong, firm tones,
+which show the man born for command, but with no
+touch of immoderate anger. The cloud has gone from
+his face, but he begins sharply enough:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>E Hakuole</i>, so you are tired of life, tired of fighting.
+You dream already of maiden’s eyes and a life
+among the <i>nala</i>. You would let the prows rot on the
+beach, seeking no more for the glory a man ought to
+love. Well, as you mean to stay among the <i>wahine</i>,
+and love a maiden here more than you fear me, I suspend
+you from a soldier’s duty till the moon Ikiiki
+returns. Away! and for the girl, Leilehua, the faithful
+in love, all the lands which were her father’s are
+hers from henceforth. Take the <i>kaikamahine</i>—beautiful
+is she as the morning breaking the shadows—and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>
+may the loves of Leilehua and Hakuole be as glorious
+to Hawaii as the wars of Kamehameha.”</p>
+
+<p>Kamehameha had indeed won a greater victory than
+that of Nuuanu Pali, for the hearts of the people, and
+not their bodies only, were henceforth his forever.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Thus the first of the Seven Kings of Hawaii established
+his sovereignty and founded a dynasty, and the
+statue of this “Napoleon of the Pacific” in front of
+Aliiolani Hale, in Honolulu, will ever attract the reverence
+of men. Had all the island kings been like the
+first Kamehameha, Hawaii had never more known
+the strife of factions.</p>
+
+<p>Hakuole and Leilehua had a long honeymoon, in
+which they learned depths of love as yet unfathomed.
+Then they came back to be among the staunchest supporters
+of the new king. Love grew with the years,
+and the sweet singers of Hawaii to-day can choose no
+better theme to bring back the romance of the old
+barbaric times than the story of sweet Leilehua and
+her bold lover Hakuole, who for her sake braved the
+wrath of a king.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">IX<br>
+
+<small>THE SPOUTING CAVE OF LANAI</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="stanza">
+<div class="first">“Over the mountains and under the waves.</div>
+<div class="verse">Over the fountains and under the graves.</div>
+<div class="verse">Over floods that are deepest,</div>
+<div class="indent">Which Neptune obey,</div>
+<div class="verse">Over rocks that are steepest,</div>
+<div class="indent">Love will find out the way.”</div>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<div class="verseright">—<i>Old Song.</i></div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p>Readers of Byron will remember, in his poem entitled,
+“The Island,” the description of a wonderful
+cavern at Toobanai, the only entrance to which was
+under the sea. The way by which Neuha guided Torquil
+to its safe retreat is described as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first">“Young Neuha plunged into the deep, and he</div>
+<div class="verse">Follow’d; her track beneath the native sea.</div>
+<div class="verse">Was as a native’s of the element,</div>
+<div class="verse">So smoothly, bravely, brilliantly she went,</div>
+<div class="verse">Leaving a streak of light behind her heel,</div>
+<div class="verse">Which struck and flash’d like an amphibious steel.</div>
+<div class="verse">Closely, and scarcely less expert to trace</div>
+<div class="verse">The depths where divers hold the pearl in chase,</div>
+<div class="verse">Torquil, the nursling of the northern seas,</div>
+<div class="verse">Pursued her liquid steps with art and ease.</div>
+<div class="verse">Deep—deeper for an instant Neuha led</div>
+<div class="verse">The way—then upward soar’d—and as she spread</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>
+<div class="verse">Her arms and flung the foam from off her locks</div>
+<div class="verse">Laugh’d and the sound was answered by the rocks.</div>
+<div class="verse">They had gain’d a central realm of earth again,</div>
+<div class="verse">But look’d for tree, and field, and sky in vain.</div>
+<div class="verse">Around she pointed to a spacious cave,</div>
+<div class="verse">Whose only portal was the keyless wave.”</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The poet admits having found the original of his
+submarine cave in Mariner’s “Account of the Tonga
+Islands,” taking advantage of the license allowed to
+poets to transplant it to the scene of his poem.</p>
+
+<p>Probably he did not know that there existed in the
+Hawaiian group a cavern similar to that which he
+describes, to which attaches a story far more romantic
+than that of the loves of Torquil and Neuha.</p>
+
+<p>The Puhio-kaala, or Spouting Cave of Kaala, is
+on the rocky coast of the little island of Lanai, near
+Kaumalapau Bay. Down below the rocky bluff is that
+“refuge submarine” where “Nature played with the
+stalactites, and built herself a chapel of the seas.”</p>
+
+<p>The entrance is marked by the vortex of a whirlpool,
+from which a column of foam rises up when the tide
+runs out. He who dared to venture the perils of the
+entrance would, on gaining his footing below, find
+himself beneath a “self-born Gothic canopy,”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first">“A hollow archway by the sun unseen,</div>
+<div class="verse">Save through the billows’ glassy veil of green.”</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The pleasure of the diver, however, would be rudely
+disturbed when he found the cave already occupied by
+millions of cold-blooded, slimy, shelly, stinging, dank
+and noisome creatures of the deep. Once, legend says,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>
+it was inhabited by the great lizard god, Moalii, but
+Ukanipo, the shark god, threatened to block up the
+entrance with rocks if he did not move. Thereupon
+the cave was left to its present smaller, but no less
+uncanny tenants.</p>
+
+<p>These were quite sufficient to prevent frequent visits
+to the cave, though in truth there were few bold and
+skillful enough to shoot through the whirlpool into
+its sunless depths, even if inclined.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>At the present time Lanai has but a few hundred inhabitants
+at most, although one of the loveliest islands
+of the group. But when, over a hundred years ago,
+Kamehameha, with his court, paid it a brief visit to
+enjoy an interval of rest and refreshment, he found
+no fewer than five or six thousand people on the beach
+to welcome him. Rich and numerous were the presents
+brought, and among those who offered their gifts
+was Kaala, “the flower of Lanai,” who strewed flowers
+no lovelier than herself in the conqueror’s path.</p>
+
+<p>She was a beautiful girl of fifteen, the daughter of
+a chief named Opunui, and one who had no lack of
+admirers. Even Kamehameha could not help following
+her graceful movements with pleasure. But in
+the heart of one who followed in the king’s train, the
+warrior Kaaialii, the girl made such instant havoc
+that it needed only a glance for her to detect the
+passion she had kindled. And, strange to say, she
+who had repulsed so many adorers in her native isle,
+felt herself won in a moment by this tall, sinewy chief
+from Oahu.</p>
+
+<p>Kaaialii, seeing and reading her smile, apprehended<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>
+no difficulty in winning her for his wife, but he was
+overestimating the smoothness of true love’s course.</p>
+
+<p>When he begged Kamehameha to grant him Kaala
+for a wife, the king made no objection, but ventured
+to suggest, in justice, a reference to the father, too.</p>
+
+<p>Even this, difficult as it may appear in prospect to
+most lovers, did not seem a hopeless task to Kaaialii,
+for he was well known as a warrior and better born
+than Opunui.</p>
+
+<p>Opunui, however, thought otherwise. He had a
+grudge against Kaaialii which went back as far as
+the battle of Maunalei, when they had been opposed in
+the conflict, and, moreover, there was another suitor,
+who, although detested by the girl, was more than
+eligible in the eyes of her father.</p>
+
+<p>This favored one was Mailou, “the bone breaker”—one
+whose prowess as a wrestler had won the unstinted
+admiration and regard of the father, but inspired
+no tender feeling in the breast of the daughter.</p>
+
+<p>Now Opunui was too wise to meet Kamehameha’s
+request for his daughter with a blunt refusal, and he
+respected the “bone breaker’s” powers of body too
+much to cast him aside for another without an effort,
+so he assumed an air of great deference, told the king
+how pleased he would be to comply, and how great
+an honor he would esteem it to have Kaaialii for a
+son-in-law, but that unfortunately he had pledged his
+word to his estimable friend Mailou. The only way
+out of the dilemma, the wily old man suggested, was
+for Mailou and Kaaialii to wrestle the matter out between
+them. He would be content to leave the girl
+in the victor’s hands.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>Of course he had such faith in the cruel embrace
+of the “bone breaker” that he believed it vain for his
+daughter to aspire to the embrace of Kaaialii.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere the news of the contest spread, and was
+received with pleasure, for the Hawaiian needed nothing
+more than <i>panem et circenses</i> to make up the
+joy of life. There was only one exception and this
+was the maiden who was to be chief gainer or loser
+by the struggle.</p>
+
+<p>She was driven almost to despair by the news, for
+she knew the deadly strength of Mailou, and could not
+forget the reports of the many wives he had slain and
+cast into the sea. She clung to Kaaialii as to one
+whom she was sending to his death, and yet one in
+whom was her only hope of life.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the arena was prepared. The two combatants
+stood face to face—Mailou with his long arms,
+broad shoulders and mighty limbs, his fingers opening
+and closing, as if impatient to tear his adversary
+to pieces—Kaaialii in comparison almost frail and
+slender, yet with no lack of cheerful confidence expressed
+in his handsome features.</p>
+
+<p>Kaala knew no more of Shakespeare than Shakespeare
+knew of her; but, as she gazed trembling at
+her lover, she felt, with Rosalind:</p>
+
+<p class="center">“The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.”</p>
+
+<p>Then the battle began, a struggle to the death, in
+which every injury it was possible to inflict was permissible.
+To the taunts of Mailou, Kaaialii made no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>
+reply, but when the “bone breaker” sprang like a wild
+beast at his throat, his shark-like teeth grinning with
+anticipated triumph, he was on the alert and, dexterously
+swinging aside his body, he allowed Mailou to
+fall headlong to the earth. In another instant he had
+seized his right arm, and with a skillful kick snapped
+the bone below the elbow. With a howl of rage Mailou
+rushed again to the attack, but was felled to the
+ground and his left arm broken as the right had been.
+With both arms broken, the furious giant rushed once
+again at the warrior, charging with lowered head, like
+a bull. But this was his last charge, for Kaaialii had
+him by the hair as he fell, and, placing his knee against
+his back, with a mighty effort broke his spine.</p>
+
+<p>There was general rejoicing at Kaaialii’s victory,
+for the wrestler, though feared on account of his
+strength, was too much of a bully to be popular, and
+only in the heart of Opunui was there any regret at
+the issue. Opunui, so far from being reconciled to
+Kaala becoming the wife of Kaaialii, was more than
+ever determined that the latter should never carry away
+his prize.</p>
+
+<p>So, although he opposed no word when Kamehameha
+placed the lovers hand in hand before him and
+pronounced them married, he formed his plan. With
+soft, plausible words he approached his daughter, expressing
+his delight at her happiness, but requesting
+that she would come with him for the last time to visit
+her mother, Kalani, and speak the sad words of farewell.
+The maiden tearfully acquiesced and, assuring
+Kaaialii of her speedy return, followed her father<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>
+down the valley of Palawai, towards the Bay of Kaumalapau.</p>
+
+<p>“Why go to the bay, my father, since you say that
+my mother is ill at Malana?” inquired the girl.</p>
+
+<p>The old hypocrite answered that her mother was at
+the seashore, where she had prepared a banquet in
+celebration of her child’s marriage. There were crabs,
+shrimps, limpets, and all kinds of dainties. Kalani
+only awaited her husband and daughter.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the shore, however, Kaala saw that her
+mother’s fire was not there, and knew that her father
+was deceiving her. Glancing up she saw his face
+lighted with a cruel smile, which no longer concealed
+his real feelings.</p>
+
+<p>“Listen,” he said, “rather than be the bride of
+Kaaialii you shall have a shark for your mate, and
+in his palace beneath the sea I will keep you safe till
+the king has left Lanai with his warriors.”</p>
+
+<p>The poor girl screamed, for she guessed his purpose,
+but it was too late to resist. Just below the
+bench of rock on which they stood, the Spouting Cave
+roared and foamed. Opunui knew its entrance well,
+and seizing his daughter in his arms waited for the
+moment when the column of water settled down into
+the vortex. Then he sprang and, sinking beneath the
+surface, the two found themselves drawn swiftly by
+the current down and down, and then suddenly swept
+through the entrance into a dark and gloomy cavern.</p>
+
+<p>The greenish light showed even to the fainting girl
+the horror of her surroundings, and it was as in a
+dream that she heard her father declare that there she
+should remain till the hated Kaaialii had given her up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>
+and gone. She had barely time to renew her vow of
+fidelity to her lover before Opunui seized the proper
+moment, plunged once more into the water and was
+sucked up with the spouting column into the upper
+air.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, brought back to consciousness by the very
+terror of her situation, was left alone to waste her
+strength in unavailing efforts to return through the
+water. Alas! this was a feat requiring a strength and
+a skill far beyond such as hers.</p>
+
+<p>We return to Kaaialii, who was anything but pleased
+with the bride’s so sudden departure. He followed
+her with his eyes as long as he could, then he transferred
+his thoughts to the meeting again on the morrow.
+But when the morrow came and no Kaala, and,
+still more, when he learned that Kaala had never been
+near the hut of Kalani, his heart misgave him.</p>
+
+<p>He started to seek his lost one, and wherever he
+went signs of evil multiplied. The path of his beloved
+led to the sea and stopped; Opunui kept out of
+his way and took refuge in a <i>puuhonua</i>; the diviners,
+whom he consulted, could only tell him:</p>
+
+<p>“The sweet-smelling flower of Lanai is neither in
+the hills nor in the valleys. Search the sea. There
+are cliffs that are hollow, and caves beneath the
+waves.”</p>
+
+<p>With this vague oracle in his mind he wandered
+along the rocky shore, crying out in his despair:</p>
+
+<p>“O Kaala, Kaala! if living, where sleepest thou? If
+dead, where rest thy bones?”</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly from the waters below him there seemed
+to come a voice mounting upward from a wraith of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>
+water. He looked below, and the vortex at his feet
+seemed to call him by name and invite him. She was
+dead, he thought, her spirit had called! What could
+he do better than die too?</p>
+
+<p>So with the cry “Kaala” upon his lips, he leaped
+and was engulfed in the waves which dragged him
+below as with invisible hands.</p>
+
+<p>A friend following him and knowing that here was
+the entrance to the Spouting Cave, fled along the rocks
+and told what he had seen, and in an hour or two
+Kamehameha himself, rowed by his sturdiest oarsmen,
+was near the spot in his canoe.</p>
+
+<p>Kaaialii found himself drawn downwards till he no
+longer believed himself alive. At last his feet gained
+the sloping beach and he found his head once more
+above water, but, in the dark, he believed he had arrived
+in the hall of the dead. The thundering of the
+breakers sounded above him, life seemed left far behind,
+but both hope and memory came back with the
+touch of cold and slimy things crawling over and
+stinging his flesh. He knew he was alive, and just
+at that moment a low moan reached his ears which
+made his heart stand still.</p>
+
+<p>Looking around he saw a dark form upon the strand,
+and from this direction came the moaning.</p>
+
+<p>He crawled towards it, and had barely reached it
+ere he heard his name pronounced. It was the body
+of Kaala he saw before him and the creeping things
+of the sea were sucking her blood.</p>
+
+<p>Kaaialii flung himself upon her with a passionate
+kiss.</p>
+
+<p>“O Kaala! Kaaialii is here!” He pushed back her wet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>
+hair, took her in his arms, and began to carry her towards
+the opening of the cave. But with a voice which
+grew gradually fainter, Kaala told him that she was
+dying.</p>
+
+<p>“I am so happy that you are here! Lay me down
+and let me die!”</p>
+
+<p>The smile that played upon her lips testified to her
+joy, but it also made Kaaialii hope for her life. When,
+however, he laid his hand upon her heart, it was cold
+and still. Death had come and found her happy.</p>
+
+<p>But Kaaialii still clasped his precious burden as
+though waiting for Kaala to awake. He sat in silence,
+all unconscious of the flight of time, until he
+was roused from his stupor by a splash.</p>
+
+<p>In another instant came another, and then there rose
+up from the water two forms: first the figure of Ua,
+a friend of Kaala, and immediately behind Kamehameha,
+who had been shown the mouth of the cave and
+had dauntlessly leaped to wrest from it its secret and
+his friend.</p>
+
+<p>A swift glance revealed to the king all that had
+happened. The warrior laid his dead bride beside him,
+rose to his feet, and with bent head stood before his
+chief.</p>
+
+<p>The stern monarch was touched with Kaaialii’s unspoken
+grief. “I see,” he said; “she is dead. Let her
+rest; she can have no better sepulchre. Come, Kaaialii,
+let us go.”</p>
+
+<p>Then Kaaialii came to himself. He had never gone
+further in his thoughts as yet than the discovery of
+his loved one. Now he knew and faced the consequences.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>“Go?” he cried. “Nay, I stay. Oh, my king, never
+have I disobeyed you before, and never will I disobey
+you again. But here I must stay. My life ends
+here.”</p>
+
+<p>With a swift movement he seized a stone, dashed it
+against his head, crushing into the very brain, then
+sank lifeless beside the body of Kaala.</p>
+
+<p>Kamehameha left them together, and by-and-by had
+them wrapped in folds of <i>kapa</i>. There their bones lie
+to-day. Few, however, to-day know the secret of the
+entrance to Puhio-Kaala.</p>
+
+<p>The minstrels made a dirge about it and in after
+years, when Kamehameha rested at Kealia or Waipio,
+there was no <i>mele</i> he loved so well to hear as that
+which told of the faith of Kaala and Kaaialii:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first">“Oh! dead is Kaaialii, the young chief of Hawaii,</div>
+<div class="verse">The chief of few years and many battles.</div>
+<div class="verse">His limbs were strong and his heart was gentle.</div>
+<div class="verse">His face was like the sun, and he was without fear.</div>
+<div class="verse">For his love he plunged into the deep waters;</div>
+<div class="verse">For his love he gave his life.”</div>
+</div></div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">X<br>
+
+<small>LONO’S LAST MARTYR</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> heroes of victory are rarely without their monuments:
+the heroes of lost causes are too often forgotten.
+The old order changes, giving place to new, and
+in course of time we praise the bold innovators who
+let in the light, but we forget that even the defeated
+darkness may have its martyrdoms, its faith and its
+courage worthy of the poet’s song.</p>
+
+<p>It is a story of such heroism as this which gathers
+round a neglected tumulus, now well nigh hidden in
+clustering ferns and creeping vines on the island of
+Hawaii. Not far from Kilau, on the western coast of
+the island, almost under the shadow of Mauna Hualalai,
+which rises nearly 9,000 feet above the sea, there
+is a plain of rough lava, whose barrenness is only in
+places veiled by tufts of waving grass and by spreading
+creepers and richly hued flowers. In many places
+there rise the ruins of former temples and fortifications
+belonging to the old warlike time. The massive,
+squarely shapen stones contrast strangely with the
+spherical volcanic boulders which attest that here Nature
+has warred as well as man. After traveling over
+two miles of such country as this you will begin to
+stumble over frequent heaps of stones well nigh concealed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>
+in the grass and ferns. Your imagination suggests
+graves, rightly so, and you pick your way among
+them till you come to Kuamoo, where there is an oblong
+cairn, some ten feet long by six wide, built in the
+form of a tomb, and almost hidden from sight in the
+greenery of innumerable ferns and the blossoms of
+morning glory and passion flower. Well does Nature
+keep the spot beautiful and fragrant, for here lie side
+by side the mortal remains of two heroes and two lovers,
+whom, heathen though they were, the new time
+will not willingly permit to be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the autumn of 1819 that the great change
+came which has been hailed by many as the day of
+new birth for the Eight Islands—the abolition of the
+tabu and the destruction of the idols. We shall not
+attempt to defend the anterior condition of the island
+kingdom, but it will be seen in the course of this story
+that the transition was by no means without its element
+of danger and mischief.</p>
+
+<p>No darkness could well have been deeper than that
+of olden Hawaii, with its bloody worship, its human
+sacrifices, its oppression of the <i>makaainana</i>, or common
+people, and, above all, its tabu. How this pressed
+with leaden weight upon the people would be almost
+incredible if described in detail. Suffice it to say that
+for every act and condition of life there was a tabu,
+extending to food, dress, etiquette, time, place, labor,
+and privilege. And for every breach of the tabu there
+was but one penalty—death.</p>
+
+<p>It might, therefore, be thought that its abolition
+would be received with universal applause, that only
+from the hearts of the cruel bigots of heathenism, monsters<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>
+thirsting for human gore, tyrants ruling by oppression
+and fraud, would there be a sigh of regret
+when the death-knell of the old heathenism sounded
+forth.</p>
+
+<p>This, however, was not the case. Viewing the matter
+from close quarters we can easily see that the
+priests and worshippers of Lono, who protested
+against the act of Liholiho had some justice on their
+side.</p>
+
+<p>The mighty Kamehameha had breathed his last, and
+his dust had been hidden away somewhere, where, no
+one but Hoapili knew, among the mountains of Hawaii.
+Liholiho, his successor, was under the influence
+of the queen mother, Kaahumanu, who had long been
+chafing under the restraints of the tabu upon her sex.
+He himself, a youth of twenty-two, no stranger, unfortunately,
+to the fire-water of the whalers, deemed
+the law of tabu overmuch of a clog on his own princely
+liberty, and as entailing, moreover, a heavy expenditure
+for the support of the state idolatry and the
+maintenance of the priesthood.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Kawaihae, he heard of Kaahumanu’s intention
+to attempt the sacrilege, and, not indisposed to
+have his own share in the contemplated work, immediately
+sailed to the south. Landing at Puako, there
+followed a series of debauches to which the court of
+Kamehameha had been a stranger. For twenty-four
+hours the tumultuous merriment went on. The royal
+party joined the <i>hula</i>-dancers in their obscene revelry.
+They tossed bottles of liquor to the sea gods, inviting
+them to drink themselves drunk with them, and at
+last the moment arrived when a public violation of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>
+the tabu was to take place, in order to show that the
+old order had passed forever. This breach with the
+past was made by the king’s deliberate act of sending
+prohibited food from his own table to that of the
+women, and by his taking his own place among them.
+In a moment the royal example was followed, men
+and women were eating and drinking promiscuously
+together, and the feast was no longer “<i>ai kapu</i>,” or
+sacred eating, but “<i>ai noa</i>,” or common eating. A few
+chiefs turned pale in their drunkenness at the outrages
+offered to their religion and their law, some strode
+forth indignant and held counsel together, while Liholiho
+and the high-priest, Hewahewa, with their drunken
+crew, rode forth to destroy the images of the insulted
+gods, and the shrines where no sacrifice should be offered
+more.</p>
+
+<p>We shall not be ashamed to stay among the few
+still faithful to the old order and its traditions. It is
+true the tabu was tyrannous and cruel beyond belief,
+but a cruel code is far better than anarchy, and Liholiho
+had nothing to put in the place of the tabu but
+the lawless wantonness of the whalers. Was the liquor
+of the white men a better inspiration than the will of
+the chiefs? Had not Kamehameha, to whom the land
+owed prosperity and peace, deliberately given up drinking
+the <i>haole</i> gin and expressly warned his people
+against falling into its pernicious snare? And now
+had they not lived to see his son, a shameful sight to
+the people, reeling on horseback, arms and legs extended,
+raging against the gods of their fathers? If
+Vancouver had sent the white teacher he had promised
+they might have heard tidings worth giving ear to, as,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>
+rumor had it, had been the case in Tahiti, but surely
+it was better to keep the old law, by which the chiefs
+and people alike guided their steps, until they had considered
+the new!</p>
+
+<p>The chief speaker in the conference was the young
+and handsome Kekuaokalani, upon whom had fallen
+the defense of the traditions of church and state. No
+nobler Hawaiian had ever been listened to by the <i>alii</i>.
+Well nigh seven feet in height, with masses of raven
+black hair hanging upon his shoulders, perfect in features
+and form, wise, brave and magnetic, a chief of
+even bluer blood than his uncle Kamehameha, by his
+own choice also a priest, equal in learning to Hewahewa,
+he was a man well fitted to be the leader of a
+cause however desperate it might appear. Moreover,
+his marriage with the beautiful Manono, who lived in
+the light of his love, had touched the sympathy and
+imaginations of the people, and when he strode forth
+from the wild revelry of the crowd, bearing in his
+arms the insulted image of Lono, he may well have
+seemed a hero, or even a demi-god, to the amazed and
+troubled people.</p>
+
+<p>Whether ambitious or not, Kekuaokalani conceived
+that to him had come a charge from the gods to avenge
+their cause upon a drunken and degenerate king and
+to take the place before the shrines vacated by the
+renegade Hewahewa. As for Kaahumanu, he knew
+her to be a light woman, whose escapades had sorely
+troubled the heart and patience of Kamehameha. Certainly
+Lady Pele, goddess of the fire-world, slumbering
+within the mountain, would protect her honor
+against law-breakers such as she.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>So Kekuaokalani withdrew to Kaaweloa, where the
+conservative leaders and the priests offered him the
+crown, with the oracular saying: “A religious chief
+shall possess the kingdom, but irreligious chiefs shall
+always be poor.” It was a dangerous honor thus thrust
+upon him, but he accepted it gladly and prepared for
+the trial of strength with Liholiho. Many of the people
+who shared his spirit gathered around him and,
+when the winter solstice brought with it the annual
+feast of Lono, the festival was kept with a sincerity
+and enthusiasm all the more impressive from the presentiment
+entertained by not a few that it was the
+last festival which Lono would ever have in Hawaii.
+It is not a little pathetic to contemplate the people
+“about to die” face to face with the gods “about to
+die” for these five strange, sad, festive days.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the work of the royal “reformers” went
+on throughout the land and a month passed by, during
+which the news came daily of the pulling down of
+<i>heiaus</i> and the burning of idols. The king was happy
+in his iconoclasm, but no word came to him of the
+preparations of Kekuaokalani. Then suddenly the
+tidings reached Liholiho that Hamakua was being invaded
+by the rebels, and that one of the chiefs, Kainapau
+by name, was slain. Some of the king’s favorites
+endeavored to belittle the affair and strove to allay the
+royal alarm by offering, with forty warriors, to suppress
+the insurrection. Hewahewa, the renegade
+priest, knew Kekuaokalani better, and declared:</p>
+
+<p>“Not forty times forty will be enough! Kekuaokalani
+is in the field to conquer or to die!”</p>
+
+<p>Then the alarm was genuine and general, and while<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>
+the resourceful Kaahumanu bethought herself of the
+purchase of muskets from the white traders, Liholiho
+endeavored to quench the fire of rebellion by the sending
+of an embassy.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the most notable men in the crowd were
+selected, men close of kin to Kekuaokalani, as well as
+high in the counsels of Liholiho. There was prominent
+among them, Naihe, the uncle of the rebel chief,
+and Kalaimoku, the commander of the king’s forces.
+And with these was Keopuolani, the bluest blooded
+queen of Kamehameha.</p>
+
+<p>“We come,” they said, “to make peace between you
+and the king. Liholiho offers you freedom to follow
+your own religion if you will consent to lay aside
+your arms.”</p>
+
+<p>“Alas!” replied the chief, “to what avail is liberty
+to worship when the gods and the temples are consumed
+with fire? How can we serve the gods acceptably
+when the tabu exists no more and men know
+not what is sacred and what is common?”</p>
+
+<p>“You will have war, then?” asked the ambassadors.</p>
+
+<p>“Nay, I choose not,” cried Kekuaokalani. “Here
+stand I where Liholiho and Hewahewa, king and high-priest,
+should stand to defend the traditions to which
+I am pledged by my oath as <i>alii</i>. Lono will not forget
+the faithful, and if we die we die true to our ancestors
+and to the gods who made them kings.”</p>
+
+<p>Kalaimoku withdrew with his company sadly and
+respectfully, and Kekuakoalani went within his house
+and, falling upon the breast of his wife, burst into
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>O! beautiful was life surrounded with the love of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>
+Manono! Hard it were to die and go beneath the
+ground with such sunshine flooding the earth. But
+Kekuaokalani was right: “He could not choose.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is there a choice for strong souls to be weak?”
+Though he die, he must be loyal to his faith in Lono.
+The night before, the <i>alae</i> had uttered its shrill note
+of presaging ill outside the house. Manono was all
+disconsolate with so many auguries of ill about her,
+but her husband bravely used every endeavor to turn
+aside her fears, saying that forebodings of ill were only
+for those who did ill. Yet he felt in his heart that
+the gods perhaps intended to take their cause into
+their own hands, and that he might be only a sacrifice
+where he had hoped to be a deliverer.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the next morning, when the army
+made itself ready for the march, Kekuaokalani had a
+countenance wherein was no trace of fear or foreboding.
+With cheerful shouts of encouragement to
+his eager followers, he trod the lava plains with as
+much alacrity as if starting to a feast, and close behind
+him, rather than with the other women in the
+rear, marched Manono, happier to stand on the field
+of blood beside her lover than to tarry behind in ignoble
+safety. There were priests of Lono, too, carrying
+the gods newly arrayed for the carnage. Perchance,
+yet once again, might the war god Kaili be seen flying
+above the contending hosts, a luminous streak of
+vapor, uttering aloud the war cries which had cleared
+the way to victory for Kamehameha. How the drunkard
+Liholiho would feel his blood freezing in his veins
+at such an apparition!</p>
+
+<p>As they marched along they came to the spot where,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>
+twelve generations before, the mighty giant Maukaleoleo
+had appeared to the hero Umi and had given
+him strength above the lot of man to overcome his
+foes. Would that now that terrific figure might appear,
+plucking the cocoanuts from the tallest trees as
+he walked, or wading out to sea among the canoes!</p>
+
+<p>But, alas! no marvels came to aid their faith. They
+must fight the battle of the gods alone to-day.</p>
+
+<p>So at last they came to Kuamoo on the morning of
+December 19, 1819, a day forever memorable in the
+history of Hawaii as the day in which the forces of
+the old era were defeated by those of the new, both
+struggling in the dark and ignorant of the light which
+was so soon to come.</p>
+
+<p>Kalaimoku was even yet anxious to avoid a battle
+with Kekuaokalani, who was his own sister’s son, and
+he sent a messenger with an affectionate entreaty for
+another interview. But, even though his own mother
+pleaded, together with his uncle, the dauntless heathen
+refused to listen to the messenger and compelled him
+to leap into the sea and swim with all his might to
+save his life.</p>
+
+<p>The forces then took up their respective positions,
+Kalaimoku knowing that now only the grim arbitrament
+of battle could decide. Liholiho’s forces were
+strong in musketry and in the aid of foreigners, and
+their retreat was protected by the formidable squadron
+of double canoes which had been the pride of
+Kamehameha’s declining years. Kekuaokalani placed
+the priests of Lono with the images in the front of his
+line for a while, and then loud were the imprecations
+denounced upon the royal army. But, to be of more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>
+avail to-day, behind these was a splendid force of
+spearmen eager for the <i>lehua</i>, or first-slain victim.
+Behind all were the women, who followed the soldiers
+with calabashes of water and dried fish, to recruit the
+strength of the combatants when these were weary or
+athirst. But every woman was ready to fight and die
+with Kekuaokalani.</p>
+
+<p>The attack was made by the rebel forces, who bore
+down upon the army of Liholiho with an impetus such
+as must have swept all before it, had it not been for
+the foreigners with their guns vomiting streams of
+fire upon their assailants. The company of musketeers
+kept up such a murderous fire upon the rebel center
+that, after a terrific and protracted struggle, this was
+driven back to the rising ground. Kekuaokalani, whose
+tall form was seen everywhere in the fray as he
+shouted orders to his spearmen, was wounded early
+in the battle, but fought on without knowing it, rallying
+his forces behind a stone wall about breast high,
+where there took place a struggle which for obstinacy
+and valour had no parallel in the annals of Hawaiian
+warfare. The double canoes commanded by the queen
+mother, Kaahumanu, raked the insurgent position with
+their guns, but two heroic figures seemed to stand out
+among the falling after every discharge, as if bearing
+charmed lives amid the rain of death. These were
+Kekuaokalani and his wife, Manono, who fought side
+by side, heedless of the heaped corpses around them.
+Weak with loss of blood from his previous wounds,
+Kekuaokalani more than once leaned fainting upon
+the arm of his wife, but he revived again and again
+to fight with a still more desperate valor. The temptation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>
+was sore when he beheld, through the battle
+smoke, his uncle Kalaimoku and his mother signalling
+him to ask for quarter; he set his teeth hard and fired
+again. Had it been Manono herself, he had most like
+done the same, though her breast had faced the bullets!
+No longer able to stand, he sat upon a fragment
+of lava and continued to load and fire his musket. No
+Kaili flew above the host as of old, no Lono came to
+lend supernatural aid to his faithful martyrs. Instead,
+the forces of Kalaimoku were advancing, and Kekuaokalani
+knew himself left to die, with life still sweet
+on his lips. The fated ball came at last, pierced his
+left breast, and, folding his face in his feather cloak,
+Kekuaokalani fell forward at the feet of Manono, and
+expired without a groan. Manono wept not, but
+awaited hopefully the messenger of death which
+should make them fellows again in the halls of Milu.
+On came the conquerors; in vain Kalaimoku and his
+sister cried to save her. Another bullet, unerring in
+its aim, pierced her temple and she fell upon the
+warm but lifeless body of her husband.</p>
+
+<p>The insurgents made but little more resistance now
+that their leader had fallen. It was sunset and under
+the cover of the darkness any that could, escaped.
+Some surrendered or were captured by the royal
+troops, a few crept into caves and holes of the mountains,
+and, covering the entrance with pieces of lava,
+lay concealed till Liholiho had returned to Kailua.</p>
+
+<p>Kalaimoku and his sister stood over the corpses of
+Kekuaokalani and Manono, and, gazing long upon the
+noble dead, exclaimed with tears:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>“Truly, since the days of Keawe, no nobler Hawaiians
+have lost the light of the sun!”</p>
+
+<p>Thus perished Lono’s last champions, faithful unto
+death.</p>
+
+<p>Three months later the first Christian missionaries
+reached the group with the tidings so long desired.
+The first news which reached them from the shore was
+in the almost incredible words: “The idols of Hawaii
+are no more!”</p>
+
+<p>May we not, while rejoicing in the new day which
+was thus brought to the land left by Liholiho bereft
+of law and religion, retain a tender heart for the youthful
+pair whose bodies sleep beneath the morning glory
+and the heaped-up stones on the shore of Kuamoo?</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">XI<br>
+
+<small>KEOUA</small></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><i>A Story of Kalawao</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> laws of men are merciful in intent, but they
+sometimes grind hard upon the innocent and the poor,
+at times through the necessary imperfection of all human
+efforts after the ideal, at times through the harsh
+administration of enactments good enough in themselves.</p>
+
+<p>No laws have ever seemed so necessary in Hawaii
+as the laws enforcing the segregation of lepers; no
+laws just in themselves have ever been the cause of so
+much grief and pain. There have been times, moreover,
+when they were carried out neither wisely nor
+mercifully.</p>
+
+<p>At such a time only could the following story have
+been possible—the story of a love which laws could
+not abrogate nor death itself annul.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Pauoa is a valley of almost perpetual rainbow, where
+the mists dance in the sunshine on the mountainside
+and the waters trickle down through thickets of ferns
+and scarlet creepers to the long lines of cocoanut<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>
+palms which stand like sentinels along the beach from
+Diamond Head to Honolulu.</p>
+
+<p>But its chief beauty to Keoua, returning with his
+net from fishing outside the coral reef, lay in the fact
+that he was homeward bent. There, a hundred yards
+further, was the grass hut, secluded behind a screen
+of banana trees, and rising apparently out of a glistening
+swamp of taro-patch made on a terrace of the
+mountainside. What joy to feel the embrace of his
+good <i>wahine</i>, Luka, and to have the crowing brown
+baby thrust into his arms to fondle! Was it not always
+worth while to be the long day away to know
+such a homecoming as this?</p>
+
+<p>But to-night there was no welcome, and Keoua’s
+heart sank. In his haste he waded through the taro-patch,
+instead of skirting the enclosure as usual. The
+child was there, he heard its cry before he entered,
+but of wife there was no sign. The baby lay on the
+matted floor, feebly whining; the mother was gone,
+apparently not without struggle, for the matting at
+the door had been torn violently away, making the hut
+look like a desolate cave.</p>
+
+<p>Keoua did not search the enclosure: he knew what
+had happened. The officers of the Board of Health
+had found his hut at last, and had taken away his wife,
+for—<i>she was a leper</i>. They had taken her away in
+the husband’s absence, for they knew that, had he been
+there, he would have fought to the death. His loaded
+gun still lay where he had left it in the corner of the
+hut. They had taken her by violence as it seemed, and
+callously left the helpless babe behind, for Hawaiian
+officials, even those with bowels of compassion, were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>
+not much given to thinking about babies. Some Chinese
+coolies working in the neighborhood corroborated
+the suggestions of his fear. Luka had been carried
+away to the <i>haole</i> (white) doctors, and she would be
+taken to Molokai, and there be dead—dead to husband,
+child and friends.</p>
+
+<p>Keoua was a crushed man when he took his helpless
+babe in his arms. It did not occur to him to give it
+away, as many of his friends would have done, or
+even to find a nurse for it. Somehow it reminded him
+that he once had a home. He did not go fishing now.
+For three or four days he tried to make the babe eat
+some <i>poi</i>, or even, so stupid or ignorant was the man,
+some hard taro, or a piece of banana, but, although it
+did not cry, it refused to eat, and one day towards
+evening its cries ceased forever. Then Keoua, more
+miserable and lonely than ever, wrapped the tiny
+corpse in fold upon fold of <i>kapa</i> and took it to
+the Kawaiahao cemetery. Here, among the graves of
+so many of his fast-dying race, he found a little
+wooden hut and knocked at the door. An old white-haired
+Hawaiian, no other indeed than Keoua’s father,
+opened. He was living here on the very soil which
+was in time to be his grave, and to him Keoua handed
+the bundle without a word of explanation, even as to
+the absence of Luka. The two men uttered their
+“<i>auwe</i>” together, the young man in his youth and the
+old man in his age, over the body of the babe. Then,
+as the moon rose, silvering the cocoanut groves of Waikiki,
+Keoua stole back to his deserted hut, with the instinct
+of a beast wishing to hide its head in the earth.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>Two days later the “<i>Likelike</i>” is on her way from
+Honolulu to Mani. What a dream that voyage is!
+For a while the empty craters of Leahi and Koko
+Head, fringed with breakers along the coral reef, stand
+out in glorious sunlight. Then suddenly—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first">“The sun’s rim dips,</div>
+<div class="verse">The stars rush out,</div>
+<div class="verse">At one stride comes the dark.”</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mattresses are spread on deck, the passengers
+stretch themselves for sleep, the air is heavy with the
+scent of the wreaths of flowers with which almost every
+voyager is bedecked; overhead the stars swing like
+lamps, or as though the whole vault of heaven, with
+its million eyes, were one lamp swaying in infinite
+space. Then, with a faint consciousness of something
+breaking in upon your dream, you feel an anchor drop
+and hear the splash of oars. You have not, however,
+reached your destination yet. This is some boat coming
+off from the shores of Molokai for stores for a
+lonely ranch in the mountains. If you rise, you may
+lean over the bulwarks and look through the mists
+upon a black mass of mountain wall which conceals
+the most loathsome scene the world affords—the great
+lazar house of Hawaii in Nature’s fairest garden, the
+saddest witness our earth possesses to the existence of
+the serpent’s trail.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it is not the chill night-mist which makes you
+shiver; for, although you know the leper settlement
+is not on this side of the island, at Kaunakakai, but
+on the other side over the <i>pali</i> at Kalaupapa, you feel<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>
+that no wall of mountain can shut out the thought of
+thirteen hundred fellow creatures suffering a living
+death in the land which God made so fair.</p>
+
+<p>If you had been onboard the “<i>Likelike</i>” on the day
+of which I speak, you would have heard, almost coincident
+with the lifting of the anchor, a splash so indistinct
+that when some one shouted “Man overboard!”
+few believed the cry. Men lazily looked over
+the bulwarks, but saw nothing, for the moon was behind
+the mountain, and presently, with the comforting
+assurance that, if anybody had gone overboard, he
+was by this time food for sharks, lay back on their
+mattresses to continue their dreams and their voyage.</p>
+
+<p>But a man <i>had</i> gone overboard, a man whose heart
+was bent on crossing seas and mountains to his leper
+bride. Keoua swam ashore silently, fearing every second
+to see the white fin of a shark start up beside him
+in the water. Once he felt the cold, slimy sucker of
+a squid against his ankle, but he tore himself free,
+and, shooting on a high roller through a narrow break
+in the reef, lay at last, spent and breathless, but safe
+upon the beach.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the worst was still before him. Kalaupapa could
+only be approached by crossing the mountain range,
+and the only path on the other side was down a <i>pali</i>
+so steep that it made the head of the bravest climber
+dizzy to look upon it. However, there was no help
+for it, and in a few minutes, Keoua, recovering from
+the exhaustion consequent upon his swim, set off on
+the upward journey. This was comparatively easy,
+though it was still easier in the darkness to miss the
+path and get into those haunted gorges where of old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>
+the poison goddess had her grove. Long ropes of
+<i>ieie</i>, tough as wire cables, formed a ladder up the face
+of the mountain. By these, scarcely touching the
+ground, he toiled upwards through tangled growths
+which would otherwise have been impassable. When
+he reached the top, the sun was just rising from the
+clouds, and revealing one after another the majestic
+ridges of Haleakala and the rock-bound coasts of Maui
+and Lanai. Then the wind came sweeping up and
+threatened to dash the intruder backwards down the
+rocks. The trees swayed and bent, the foliage of the
+<i>kukui</i> shivered with its ghostly sheen, the clouds swept
+away from the bay of Kalawao, and there, several
+thousand feet below, lay the white roofs and <i>lanais</i> of
+as peaceful a settlement, to all appearances, as any
+upon which the sun has ever shone.</p>
+
+<p>But if ever a place could be called a whited sepulchre
+it was this; not that Christian love and self-sacrifice
+had not cast an aureole of beauty about it which
+made it sacred, but because here was the realization
+of Milton’s terrible vision:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="first">“A lazar house it seemed, wherein were laid</div>
+<div class="verse">Numbers of all diseased; all maladies</div>
+<div class="verse">Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms</div>
+<div class="verse">Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,</div>
+<div class="verse">Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,</div>
+<div class="verse">Intestine stone and ulcer, cholic pangs,</div>
+<div class="verse">Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,</div>
+<div class="verse">And moonstruck madness, pining atrophy,</div>
+<div class="verse">Marasmus and wide-wasting pestilence,</div>
+<div class="verse">Dropsies and asthmas and joint-racking rheums.</div>
+<div class="verse">Dire was the tossing, deep the groans: Despair</div>
+<div class="verse">Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch;</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>
+<div class="verse">And over them triumphant Death his dart</div>
+<div class="verse">Shook, but delayed to strike, though oft invoked,</div>
+<div class="verse">With vows, as their chief good and final hope.”</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>How could Nature sing so sweetly and smile so fair
+when the eyes rested upon a cancer so foul!</p>
+
+<p>Keoua looked down as though he expected to see
+there the grass hut of Pauoa Valley with Luka and
+her baby at the door to greet him, but the place seemed
+deserted till, when half-way down, the sweet tinkle of
+a chapel bell roused him from a dream, and he supported
+himself by a clump of guava bushes to watch
+the dark-cassocked priests and white-hooded sisters
+passing from the House of Misery to the solace of the
+House of God. Such was the mood of Keoua that he
+could not feel any thrill in the thought of these brave
+men and sweet women thus living in grim company
+with death. He thought only of the curse the white
+man had brought to his race from the days of Cook,
+the discoverer, to the day when the fruits of ancient
+vice had burst forth in the heart of his own home. So
+it was with hard and bitter thoughts he hastened on
+his way, scarce knowing what he intended to do, perhaps
+carry Luka bodily away from the pest-house to
+the fastnesses of the mountains, where they might live
+like the free wild beasts and die in peace.</p>
+
+<p>As he came near the hospital, however, there met
+him, sauntering forth, a man dressed in a cool suit of
+white linen, whose keen eye and earnest serious face
+proclaimed him the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at the wayfarer with something of surprise,
+seeing that he was endeavoring to avoid an encounter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>“<i>Aloha!</i>” he exclaimed, using the familiar Hawaiian
+greeting. The man made no response, but looked savagely
+on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>“Hello, my man; what’s the matter?” For Keoua
+looked ghastly through his olive skin, and his steps
+tottered. But strength came to answer, fiercely:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Hele aku</i>—go away—curse you. Before time,
+<i>kanaka</i> live here, no <i>pake mai</i>—(leprosy)—all <i>maikai
+loa</i>—very good. Then <i>haole</i> man come, bring <i>pake
+mai</i>. Poor <i>kanaka</i> die; make die all time. <i>Haole</i> man
+thief steal kanaka’s <i>wahine</i>; <i>haole</i> man kill <i>kanaka’s
+keiki</i> (child). <i>Hele!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor thought of all he might say, for it was
+eminently reasonable, all this segregation, and the
+kanaka had much cause to be grateful for what the
+government was doing for the lepers. But he knew
+logic was not what the poor wretch wanted, and while
+he hesitated the need of answering vanished, for there
+rose up from the hospital a strange sound, strange at
+least from such a place. It was the strain of a band
+of music, plaintive yet joyful—no dirge, but the voice
+of rejoicing. For in this lazar-house joy is not unknown,
+albeit it comes at an hour when others weep.
+A soul freed from pain, from pollution, and from the
+body of death, born into the light of Paradise—in such
+a case was it not fitting that cymbals should clash and
+trumpets sound?</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Heaha kela?</i>” exclaimed Keoua; “what is that?”</p>
+
+<p>“The good God has taken to rest the soul of a poor
+woman who was glad to go.”</p>
+
+<p>“What was her name?” cried the Hawaiian, excitedly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>“Luka,” replied the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>An ashy pallor spread over the man’s already bloodless
+face. It was plain to the doctor that Death had
+come even quicker than Love. Then there came a
+bitter cry, mingled with bitter laughter.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Akua maikai!</i> Good God!... Ha, ha, ha, ha....
+He bad God! He all same <i>haole</i>! Steal poor
+kanaka’s <i>wahine</i>.... <i>Auwe</i> ... <i>auwe</i>....
+Me curse Him!”</p>
+
+<p>But the curse came not. A change as though an
+angel had whispered to him came swift as thought. He
+pressed his hands on his heart and murmured:</p>
+
+<p>“Me no curse Him! Good God! He good God!
+Sweet wife, sweet <i>keiki</i> ... I come. <i>E Christo
+e aloha mai.</i>” Then he fell heavily to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>An angel had indeed spoken to him—the kindest
+angel whom God had sent to Kalaupapa—the angel
+of Death.</p>
+
+<p>The music played on, and celestial harmonies seemed
+to mingle with its strains. It was as though glad spirits
+met and welcomed one another in a land fairer
+even than Hawaii, a land, moreover, where the serpent’s
+blight may never come.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>A double funeral took place in the leper cemetery
+that very afternoon, and those who were there said the
+priest must have been absent-minded, for at the close
+of the service he spread his hands over the grave and
+said:</p>
+
+<p>“Those whom God hath joined together, let no man
+put asunder.”</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="transnote">
+<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p>
+
+<p>Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.</p>
+
+<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p>
+
+<p>Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.</p>
+</div></div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76499 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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