iwa repeated her visits to waipio many times as the years went by. in her anxiety to know the condition of affairs she frequently ventured where she was likely to be seen and recognized. she knew that she had been recognized on several occasions. by day it might have cost her her life; but, appearing only at night, when spirits were supposed to be abroad, she was regarded, not as hiwa in living flesh and blood, but as the spirit of hiwa that ukanipo had taken to himself. she justly trusted to the superstition of the people for safety, knowing that she had become an object of mortal terror.
sixteen years had passed since her [52] escape. ii was rapidly nearing a drunkard’s grave, or, more accurately, the time when his bones would be hidden in a cave, for mois were not buried in the ground like common men. aa had become moi in all but name, and ruled with bloody and cruel hands. the masses groaned under his ruthless exactions. many of the lesser chiefs had been assassinated or sacrificed on the altars of ku, and their possessions confiscated. the great chiefs were becoming restive and alarmed. yet who should take up arms against the lord of life and death, vice-gerent of ku? ii and aa were of the blood of the gods. hiwa knew how matters stood, and believed the time for action would come soon if the great nobles understood they could have a leader of divine birth.
aelani had not reached his seventeenth year—a mere smooth-water swimmer. the pool, swarming with sharks, was a fine training school for a boy of twelve; but the ocean was the only proper place for an athletic young man, big, powerful, destined for great deeds. aelani had learned to love [53] it in its varying moods, and most of all when it was stirred to wrath, when tempests raged and huge waves dashed against the cliffs and broke in spray two hundred feet high. many a time, in calm and in storm, hiwa and aelani had sported together in the open sea, like the fish to which they were almost akin, but always with the greatest precautions against discovery, for the superstition which protected her might not protect him. now the time was at hand when risks must be taken.
“keike,” said hiwa, one evening, “we will go windward to-night and see your royal city.”
they emerged from the water, at their journey’s end, close to eaeakai’s hut. on this night also the fisherman and lilii, his wife, and manoa, their daughter, were sleeping outside. the girl—just past sixteen, which is three years older in the tropics than in the frozen north—was surpassingly beautiful, as her mother and hiwa had been in the bloom of early womanhood. she lay in the moonlight, her lips half parted, smiling in her sleep, as if happy dreams were her [54] guests. her lustrous black hair, reaching in heavy masses half way to her feet, was her only covering. it was not shamelessness. neither was it the innocence of a babe. it was nature untainted and unpurified by what we call civilization.
the sensations of the young man who had never before seen a female face or form save his mother’s may be imagined more easily than described. he stood gazing, like one in a trance.
“well, keike,” hiwa observed with a peculiar smile, as he reluctantly followed her, “at last you have seen a woman! and perhaps it is time you should.”
avoiding the town, they made their way to the kukuihaele side of the valley, and climbed to a height of about five hundred feet. it seemed to aelani, as the valley lay spread before him, that he had already seen it many times, it had been described to him so well. to his right was the winding trail, the serpentine ladder, that led to the heights of kukuihaele, forming the southern exit to the outer world, and beyond, stretching [55] northwesterly, long lines of white surf glistened in the moonlight and thundered on the beach. to his left was the mighty southern wall, and, at its further end, the stupendous falls of the waipio river, sixteen hundred feet high. then the wall bent irregularly to the northwest, apparently extending to the waimano side; but aelani knew that the valley, for a dozen miles more, wound its way, a deep chasm in the mountains. he knew the stream that traversed it, joining the waipio river near the sea. he knew the rocky defile leading to the southwest, by which an army might some time enter to make him moi. he knew it from vivid description, although he could not see it. opposite, across the valley, the waimano cliffs, which hiwa sixteen years before had sealed in her flight, rose to an altitude of three thousand feet, and below them, in the midst of rich, green lowlands, lay the royal town. in the centre of the town, distinguished by its size, was the palace of the moi, and near it that of the high-priest. scattered through the valley, and also distinguishable by their size and the [56] clusters of huts about them, were the town residences of the great nobles. kaanaana’s was on the kukuihaele side, not far from where hiwa and aelani stood. but it was empty. he and his retinue had long since withdrawn to his domains beyond the mountains of hamakua.
the night was calm, and, as hiwa was pointing out things to be carefully remembered, and the houses of the different chiefs, a wail arose which, spreading beyond the town, reached them even where they stood. it was the mournful au-we, passing from lip to lip, at first low, gradually swelling to loud, passionate shrieks, and then subsiding to weird, blood-curdling sobs. a few started it, then hundreds, then thousands took it up, and the mountains echoed with it—“au-we! au-we! au-we!”
hiwa’s face lighted with a smile of joy, at once savage and sublime.
“that,” she exclaimed, “is the wailing for a dead moi! the drunkard has gone! our time has come!”
she stood for some minutes, rapidly forming plans of action.
[57] “follow the cliff to the beach,” she said at last, “and wait for me at the mouth of the river. it may be an hour. it may be more.”
“i should go with you,” urged aelani.
“keike,” she cried, “do as i bid you! the spirit of hiwa must appear at the wailing for the dead moi to make the hearts of aa and the hearts of his followers like the white milk of cocoanuts, and the moi that shall be must not be seen in his royal city till he comes to it with the spearmen of kohala at his back.”
so aelani followed the cliff to the sea and waited at the mouth of the river. but hiwa crept through the rank vegetation of the rich kuleanas until she reached the river, and swam softly up stream under the shade of the overhanging bushes until she was close to the palace of the moi, and there she hid herself in a clump of trees, a point from which she could see and hear what was taking place.
she knew that, for the next three days, according to ancient usage, there would be no moi, and therefore no law. she knew the [58] nameless horrors that accompanied the wailing for a dead moi, the drunkenness, the mutilations, the bestial excesses, the wild carnival of cruelty, indecency, and lust, and the wiping out of life-long grudges with fire and bloodshed.
but the weak and friendless were nothing to aa. his followers were the beasts of prey who would revel in outrage and murder. why should he restrain them? yet hiwa, in amazement, saw him send twenty picked men in the direction of the sea, and heard him mention the name of manoa. it could hardly be to murder her. the time for murder would be hours later, when men were frenzied with drink. but, if it were to save her from possibility of outrage, it was none too soon.
hiwa dismissed it from her thoughts for the moment. her first purpose was to fill the minds of aa and his followers with superstitious terror. the great high-priest was as fanatical as he was bloody, and believed in the religion of which he was the official head. he bent over the body of his nephew, chanting:
[59]
“ue, ue! ua make kuu alii!
ue, ue! ua make kuu alii!”
and the assembled chiefs took up the refrain:
“ue, ue! ua make kuu alii!”
a voice, low and distinct, came from the river-bank, saying:
“ue, ue! ua make kuu alii!
ae! dead is the chief! the spirit of hiwa comes from the other world for the spirit of ii, ruler of land and sea. and, lo! the spirit of hiwa prophesies, and her word is the word of a goddess who sees the things that have been and the things that shall be. aa, the bloody, shall be a mouse in the day of battle, and shall die a pig’s death, and his bones shall not be hidden in a cave, but shall be put to open shame. and, behold! there shall come a moi, the chosen of gods. at his birth the rainbow covered him, and ku thundered from the mountains. none shall be able to withstand him, for ku shall go before him, and behind him the hills shall be black with spearmen.”
[60] aa’s cruel face was sallow with rage and terror, and blank amazement held the chiefs spell-bound. at length one of them, bolder or less superstitious than the rest, ventured to the river-bank whence the voice had come. the water flowed sluggishly and undisturbed. far down towards the sea was a ripple that might have been made by a fish.
hiwa swam under water for fifty yards, and then, having risen to breathe, took another long swim beneath the surface. so she kept on, alert and invisible. as she neared the hut of eaeakai, the fisherman, and raised her head, she heard loud voices, shrieks of terror, and a cry as of some one in death agony. she crept up under cover of the river-bank and looked. aa’s men were dragging lilii and manoa away in the direction of the town, and eaeakai lay on the ground with a spear-thrust through his body.
beneath caste and religion, which put an immeasurable gulf between them, hiwa had a woman’s heart. besides, she remembered the fisherman had been the means of saving her life. then she was beginning to think [61] it possible that lilii was her mother’s as well as her father’s daughter, and, if so, manoa, being of the blood of the gods, was a fit mate for aelani. as soon, therefore, as aa’s men were at a safe distance she went to eaeakai and bent over him. but the moment he saw her he shrank from her in fear, and, with his last remaining strength, turned and buried his face in the dust.
“i do not want to live,” he moaned, “for they have taken the joy of my heart and the life of my life. but why do you come—a vision to me—oh, goddess? leave me to die alone!”
then hiwa spoke very gently to him, and tears stood in her eyes. “you shall die in peace,” she said, “and your body shall be buried in the ground as becomes your degree. i cannot save your life, my poor fellow; i would if i could. it may not be given me to rescue those you love, but this much i promise you, i will try.”
“goddess,” murmured the dying man, “i thank you with my face in the dust.”
“one thing more!” cried hiwa, and her voice grew stern, and her eyes flashed. “i [62] swear to you that aa, who did this thing, shall die a pig’s death, and his bones shall not be hidden in a cave, but shall be put to open shame!”
again the fisherman murmured his thanks.
“but why did he take them?” inquired hiwa, her suspicion becoming almost a conviction that he had a deeper motive than the mere possession of a young and beautiful woman.
“i do not know,” replied eaeakai.
“who is your wife? who was her mother?” hiwa demanded, for she saw that the man’s life was fast ebbing away.
“i do not know,” he feebly answered. “she was exposed and adopted, picked up, a new-born babe, the very day the great goddess who now speaks to me was born.”
“who found her? who picked her up?”
eaeakai tried to answer, but the death rattle was in his throat, a convulsive shudder ran through his frame, and, with his face still in the dust, he died.
hiwa swam to the mouth of the river, where she found aelani waiting. in a few words she told him what had happened, [63] but not what the dying man had said. she had never before seen him so deeply moved. although time pressed and a kingdom was at stake, they returned and buried the fisherman according to his degree, as had been promised.
as they swam home in the small hours of the morning, hiwa pondered on many things, not least on the mystery of the fisherman’s wife and daughter. she remembered that lolo, the court jester, once asked her if she had seen her twin sister, and, when she repeated the saying, that her mother laughed and said it was only the quip of a fool; but, never hearing of it again, she did not believe it, although she knew the custom of her people, and also that lolo died that night of a broken head.
more kittens are drowned than grow up, yet there is no dearth of cats. infanticide was regarded in much the same way by the ancient hawaiians. no woman was thought worse of on account of killing her babies, and a large percentage of new-born children were exposed to perish, or to be picked up and adopted, as chance might direct. hiwa [64] and lilii, therefore, might be twin sisters, and it might have been thought that twin princesses, too divine to marry mortal men, would cause state embarrassments. the more hiwa thought it over the more probable it seemed.
“aa,” she mused, “is old and not fond of women. he would not do this thing for the girl’s youth and beauty. ambition is his ruling passion, and now that ii is dead it blazes up in a fierce flame. if he knows, as i believe, that they are my mother’s child and grandchild, he means to kill one to cut off all possibility of rival heirs to the throne, and to marry the other. that is why he seized them the moment my brother was dead. if the girl is aelani’s cousin on my mother’s side, the boy shall have her for his wife in spite of aa, for her blood is divine.”
so hiwa, pondering on these things, and planning for the future, swam silently homeward. aelani swam in silence by her side. a new inspiration had come to him. the master passion of love had taken a mighty hold on him. heretofore he had [65] been a patient and painstaking pupil—not because he greatly cared to be a moi, but because he loved his mother. now the pathway to the throne was his only pathway to manoa.
