great longing came upon hiwa to see her lover once more, and to learn what was taking place in the kingdom. the royal city was only eight miles away, and a swim of that distance and back again was no great feat. neither, as she thought, would such a visit be attended with much danger.
so one evening, leaving aelani asleep, she armed herself with a short spear and swam up the coast to the waipio river. she chanced to land close to a fisherman’s hut. the night was warm, there being no breeze from the sea, and the fisherman and his wife and their girl baby were sleeping on a mat outside.
[39] the fisherman was eaeakai, whose boat hiwa had taken. his testimony as an eye witness to her death had turned aside aa’s wrath and saved his life. it did not occur to hiwa that she had wronged him in taking his boat. neither had he so regarded it. it simply was his fate. no more do we think that we wrong bees when we take their honey, or beasts when we take their skins. we look upon them as creatures quite different from ourselves, and existing merely for our own needs and pleasures.
hiwa glanced at the fisherman and at the woman and child sleeping beside him. the appearance of the latter arrested her attention. the child was about the age and size of aelani, and her features were strikingly like his and very beautiful. as hiwa looked at the mother she saw that she bore an equally close resemblance to herself. the family likeness was plain as day, the blood of wakea and papa through forty generations. hiwa had heard of a fisher-girl of marvellous beauty, but had never before deigned to notice her. this, then, must be that girl; for [40] no other woman in all the land could be compared with hiwa.
“beyond a doubt,” she murmured, “this is my half-sister! papaakahi, the mighty, had many loves. so had my mother; but, if this woman were my mother’s child, she could not be a fisherman’s wife.”
so hiwa, believing that the fisherman’s wife was what her lowly condition indicated, a king’s daughter but not a queen’s, dismissed the matter from her mind as of no consequence, and passed on to the palace of ii. it was not a single building, but, like the establishments of wealthy hawaiians even to this day, a little village. the principal house or hall was raised on a stone embankment, a wooden framework thatched with grass. around it were many smaller buildings, used for eating and sleeping purposes and storehouses and for servants, the whole being enclosed by a stone wall. men in all stages of intoxication were around the palace. sounds of drunken revelry came from within. shouts and snatches of song told the story.
“it is,” mused hiwa, “as papaakahi said [41] it would be. ii worships only awa, and aa rules the land. one squanders the wealth of the kingdom, and the other is grasping and cruel. the time may come, perhaps too soon, when the chiefs will be ready to fight against them both.”
on this occasion the retainers of the court were too drunk to take note of passers-by, and they had become so habitually turbulent and lawless that honest people avoided that part of the town after nightfall. hiwa, therefore, had no difficulty in making her way undiscovered to a distant camp. when she reached it, further progress was quite another matter, for, although peace reigned throughout the land, a considerable body of men slept on their arms, guarded by vigilant sentinels. but, under cover of the night, and taking advantage of every hummock and shrub, hiwa noiselessly crawled to the entrance of the great grass house of the chief. she found it guarded by a man who had often admitted her in times past—a warrior, brave, trusty, and silent.
emerging from the darkness, she stood before him with uplifted hand. instantly [42] he dropped prone on the ground with his face in the dust.
“laamaikahiki,” she said, in low, soft, solemn tones, “i am the spirit of hiwa, whom ukanipo, the shark god, took to himself. i have come from the other world to bless your master. retire twenty fathoms.” laamaikahiki, without a word or a sign, with his face still in the dust, wriggled backwards like a huge worm. hiwa entered the house.
kaanaana lay sleeping on a mat, his sling, spears, and war-club beside him. hiwa stood motionless for some moments, gazing upon him. of the two master passions of her life she herself could not have told which was the stronger: love for the man sleeping before her eyes, or for her child sleeping in the hollow of the mountain.
“oh,” she murmured, “how i long to feel his arms about me and his kisses on my lips! death with him is sweeter than life without him. he is my life. if i make myself known to him, he will leave all and follow me to the mountain, or muster his vassals and hurl that drunkard from the throne. it [43] might have been! but now it cannot be, for my sin would bring the heavy wrath of ku upon him. i am a thing accursed!”
she bent over him and lightly touched his forehead with her lips. he stirred, opened his eyes, for an instant looked wonderingly at her, and then, with a cry of joy, sprang up to clasp her in his arms.
the self-sacrifice of love held her to her purpose. moving backward, she restrained him with a gesture.
“i am only hiwa’s spirit,” she said. “you cannot touch me. do not try. yet i love you with all my being, as i loved you when i was flesh and blood. i am permitted to come to you this once from the other world to bless you. may ku’s eternal blessings rest upon you, my own, my only love!”
then she vanished into the darkness.
the next morning aelani awoke in his mother’s arms, and his little body was wet with her tears.
