Part 3

“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.