Part 7

It was indeed a wild and reckless life that Kaupeepee and his daring associates led; but it lacked neither excitement abroad nor amusement at home. On the upper terrace a kahua channel had been cut, along which they rolled the maika and threw the blunted dart. They played konane, puhenehene, and punipeki, and at surf-riding possessed experts of both sexes who might have travelled far without finding their equals. The people of the island were friendly with the dashing buccaneers, and the fairest damsels became their wives, some of them living with their husbands at Haupu, and others with their relatives in the valleys.

II.

We will now return to Hina--or Hooho, as she was sometimes called--the beautiful wife of Hakalanileo, nephew of Paumakua, of Hawaii. Hakalanileo had acquired his possessions in Hilo partly through the influence of his own family, and partly through his marriage with the sister of a consequential district chief. Later in life he had seen and become enamored of Hina, the daughter of Uli, and prevailed upon her to become his wife. The marriage was not acceptable to Uli. The position and family connections of Hakalanileo were sufficiently inviting, but Uli, who dealt in sorcery and magic, saw disaster in the proposed union and advised her daughter against it. After much persuasion, however, her consent was obtained; but she gave it with this injunction:

"Since you will have it so, take her, Hakalanileo; but guard her well, for I can see that some day the winds will snatch her from you, and you will behold her not again for many years."

"Be it even as you say," replied Hakalanileo, "I will take the hazard. We do not well to reject a treasure because, perchance, it may be stolen. Hina shall be my wife."

And thus it was that Hina became the wife of the nephew of Paumakua--Hina, the most beautiful maiden in all Hawaii; Hina, whose eyes were like stars, and whose hair fell in waves below the fringes of her pau; Hina, whose name has come down to us through the centuries garlanded with song. And for years she lived happily with Hakalanileo, who loved her above all others--lived with him until she became the mother of two sons, Kana and Niheu; and then the winds snatched her away from her husband, just as Uli had predicted six years before. But the winds that bore her hence filled the sails of the great barge of Kaupeepee.

The chief of Haupu had heard of her great beauty, and resolved to see with his own eyes what the bards had exalted in song. Travelling overland from Puna in disguise, he reached her home in Hilo, and saw that the poets had done her no more than justice. She was beautiful indeed, and the wife of one to whose blood he had vowed undying enmity. Returning to Puna, where his barge lay in waiting for him, he hovered around the coast of Hilo for some days, watching for an opportunity to seize the woman whose charms had enraptured him.

At last it came. After sunset, when the moon was shining, Hina repaired to the beach with her women to bathe. A signal was given--it is thought by the first wife of Hakalanileo--and not long after a light but heavily-manned canoe dashed through the surf and shot in among the bathers. The women screamed and started for the shore. Suddenly a man leaped from the canoe into the water. There was a brief struggle, a stifled scream, a sharp word of command, and a moment later Kaupeepee was again in the canoe with the nude and frantic Hina in his arms.

The boatmen knew their business--knew the necessity of quick work--and without a word the canoe was turned and driven through the surf like an arrow. The barge, with a man at every oar and the sails ready to hoist, was lying a short distance out at sea. A speck of light guided the boatmen, and the barge was soon reached. All were hastily transferred to it. The sails were spread, the men bent to their oars, the canoe was taken in tow; and, while the alarm-drum was sounding and fires were appearing on shore, Hina, wrapped in folds of soft kapa, sat sobbing in one of the apartments of the barge, and was being swiftly borne by wind and oar toward the fortress of Haupu.

The return to Haupu occupied a little more than two days. During that time Hina had mourned continually and partaken of no food. Kaupeepee had treated her with respect and kindness; but she was bewildered with the shock of her abduction, and begged to be either killed or returned to her children.

The party landed a little before daylight. The sea was rough, but the moon shone brightly, and the passage into the mouth of one of the gulches was made without accident. In the arms of Kaupeepee Hina was borne up the rock-hewn path to the fortress, and placed in apartments on the lower terrace provided with every comfort and luxury known to the nobility of the islands at that period. They had been especially prepared for her reception, and women were in attendance to wait upon her and see that she wanted for nothing, except her liberty. The large private room of the three communicating apartments--the one designed for her personal occupation--was a model of barbaric taste and comfort, and to its adornment many of the exposed districts of Oahu and Maui had unwillingly contributed. Its walls were tapestried with finely-woven and brilliantly-colored mattings, dropping from festoons of shells and underlapping a carpet of hardier material covering the level ground-floor. The beams of the ceiling were also studded with shells and gaudily stained. On one side of the room was a slightly-raised platform, thickly strewn with dry sea-grass and covered with many folds of kapa. This was the kapa-moe, or sleeping-couch. Opposite was a kapa-covered lounge extending along the entire side of the room. In the middle of the apartment were spread several thicknesses of mats, which served alike for eating and lounging purposes. Light was admitted through two small openings immediately under the eaves, and from the door when its heavy curtains were looped aside. On a row of shelves in a corner of the room were carved calabashes and other curious drinking-vessels, as well as numerous ornaments of shells, ivory and feathers; and in huge calabashes under them were stores of female attire of every description then in use. In fact, nothing seemed to be wanting, and, in spite of her grief, Hina could scarcely repress a feeling of delight as she was shown into the apartment and the kukui torches displayed its luxurious appointments.

Declining food, Hina dismissed her attendants, and, throwing herself on the kapa-moe, was soon folded in the soft mantle of sleep and carried back in dreams to the home from which she had been ravished. The room was dark, and she slept for many hours. Awaking, she could not for a moment recollect where she was; but gradually the events of the preceding three days came to her, and she appreciated that she was a prisoner in the hands of Kaupeepee, of whose name and exploits she was not ignorant, and that repining would secure her neither liberation nor kind treatment. Therefore, with a sagacity to be expected of the daughter of Uli, and not without a certain feeling of pride as she reflected that her beauty had inspired Kaupeepee to abduct her, she admitted her attendants, attired herself becomingly, partook heartily of a breakfast of fish, poi, potatoes and fruits, and then sent word to Kaupeepee that she would be pleased to see him.

Kaupeepee expected a storm of tears and reproaches as he entered the room, but was agreeably disappointed. Hina rose, bowed, and waited for him to speak.

"What can I do for you?" inquired Kaupeepee in a kindly tone, while a just perceptible smile of triumph swept across his handsome face.

"Liberate me," replied Hina promptly.

"You are free to go anywhere within the walls of Haupu," returned Kaupeepee, moving his arms around as if they embraced the whole world.

"Return me to my children," said Hina; and at thought of them her eyes flashed with earnestness.

"Impossible!" was the firm reply.

"Then kill me!" exclaimed Hina.

"Did you ever see me before I had the pleasure of embracing you in the water on the coast of Hilo?" inquired the chief, evasively.

"No," replied Hina, curtly.

"Well, I saw you before that time," continued Kaupeepee--"saw you in your house; saw you among the palms; saw you by the waters. I made a journey overland from Puna to see you--to see the wife of my enemy, the most beautiful woman in Hawaii."

Hina was but a woman, and of a race and time when the promptings of the heart were not fettered by rigid rules of propriety. Kaupeepee was the handsome and distinguished son of a king, and his words of praise were not unpleasant to her. She therefore bent her eyes to the floor and remained silent while he added:

"Hina would think little of the man who would risk his life to possess himself of such a woman, and then kill or cast her off as not worth the keeping. You are like no other woman; I am like no other man. Such companionship has the approval of the gods, and you will leave Haupu only when its walls shall have been battered down and Kaupeepee lies dead among the ruins!"

To this terrible declaration Hina could offer no reply. The fierceness of this prince of the old line of Nanaula, this enemy of her people, this scourge of the southern chiefs, alike charmed and frightened her, and with her hands to her face she sank upon the lounge of kapa beside which she had been standing.

The chief regarded her for a moment, perhaps with a feeling of pity; then, placing his hand upon her shoulder, he softly said:

"You will not be unhappy in Haupu."

"Will the bird sing that is covered with a calabash?" replied Hina, raising her eyes. "I am your prisoner."

"Not more my prisoner than I am yours," rejoined the chief, gallantly. "Therefore, as fellow-prisoners, let us make the best of walls that shut out no sunshine, and of gates that are a bar only against intrusion."

"How brave, and yet how gentle!" mused Hina, as Kaupeepee, feeling that he had said enough, turned and left the room. "How strangely pleasant are his words and voice! No one ever spoke so to me before. I could have listened longer."

After that Hina harkened for the footsteps of Kaupeepee, and lived to forget that she was a prisoner in the fortress of Haupu. His love gently wooed her thoughts from the past and made sweet the bondage which he shared with her.

III.

The sudden disappearance of Hina created a profound excitement among the people of that part of the coast of Hilo from which she had been abducted. The women who had been permitted to escape ran screaming to the house of Hakalanileo with their tale of woe, and soon for miles around the country was in arms. When questioned, all they could tell was that a canoe filled with armed men suddenly dashed through the surf, and their mistress was seized and borne out to sea. This was all they knew.

Canoes were suddenly equipped and sent in pursuit, but they returned before morning with the report that nothing had been seen of the abductors. Messengers were despatched to the coast settlements of Hamakua, Hilo and Puna, but they brought no intelligence of the missing woman. Uli was consulted, but her divinations failed, for the reason, as she informed the unhappy husband, that the powers that had warned her against the marriage of her daughter and foreshadowed the result could not be prevailed upon to impart any information that would interfere with the fulfilment of the prophecy. Uli, therefore, sat down in gloom to await the developments of time, and Hakalanileo started on a systematic search through the group for his lost wife.

After visiting every district and almost every village on Hawaii, he proceeded with a small party of attendants to Maui, and thence to Molokai, Oahu, Kauai and Niihau, and back to Lanai and Kahoolawe; but no trace of Hina could be discovered. He was well received by the various chiefs, and assistance was freely offered and sometimes accepted; but all search was in vain, and he returned disheartened to Hawaii after an absence of more than two years.

But his first search was not his last. During the fifteen years that followed he made frequent voyages to the different islands on the same errand, and always with the same result. He offered sacrifices in the temples, made pledges to the gods, and consulted every kaula of note of whom he had knowledge; but his offerings and promises failed to secure the assistance of the unseen powers, and the kilos and astrologers could gather nothing of importance to him from their observations.

Meantime Kana and Niheu, the sons of Hina, grew to manhood and prepared to continue the search for their mother, which Hakalanileo had at last abandoned as hopeless. Again and again had their grandmother told them the story of the abduction of Hina, and as often had they vowed to devote their lives to a solution of the mystery of her fate. It was vouchsafed to Uli to see that her daughter lived, but beyond that her charms and incantations were fruitless. But when the beards of her grandsons began to grow she felt that the time was approaching when Hina's hiding-place would be discovered, and she inspired them to become proficient in the use of arms and the arts of war. And to their assistance she brought the instruction of supernatural powers.

Niheu became endowed not only with great personal strength and courage, but with unerring instincts of strategy and all the accomplishments of a successful military leader. To Kana were given powers of a different nature. He could contract his body to the compass of an insect, and expand or extend it almost indefinitely; but he was permitted to do neither except in cases of imminent personal peril, as the faculty was rarely imparted to mortals, and in this instance was accorded by Kanaloa without the knowledge of the powers to which that deity was subject.

Finally, after a season of long and patient inquiry, it was developed to Uli that her daughter was secreted in the fortress of Haupu and could be recovered only by force, as she had long been the wife of Kaupeepee and would not be surrendered peacefully. Hakalanileo regarded the development with distrust; for while at Kalaupapa, on the island of Molokai, less than three years before, word was brought to him from Kaupeepee, offering to open the fortress of Haupu to his inspection. Hence, when his sons set about raising a large force to attack that stronghold, he gave them every assistance in his power, but declined to accompany the expedition.

Before noting with greater detail the warlike preparations of Hina's sons, let us refer briefly to the changes which the years leading them to manhood had brought to others connected with the events of this legend. Hina had been a not unhappy captive at Haupu for nearly seventeen years, during which Kaupeepee had continued his desultory assaults upon the usurping chiefs of the neighboring islands. His name had become known throughout the entire group, and several combined attacks upon Haupu had been repulsed--the last by land, led by a distinguished Maui chief, with a slaughter so great that the adjoining gulches were choked with the slain. The venerable Kamauaua had passed away, leaving the government of Molokai to his son, Keoloewa, who had married Nuakea, daughter of the powerful chief, Keaunui, of Oahu, and sister of Lakona, of the strain of Maweke. Moi, another of Nuakea's brothers, had joined Kaupeepee at Haupu, and became not only his steadfast friend and adviser, but his kaula, or prophet, as well.

Paumakua had died at a very old age, and was buried at Iao, leaving his titles, meles and possessions to his son, Haho; but the change did not seem to affect the holdings of Hakalanileo in Hilo, although it brought to his sons some support in their subsequent war with Kaupeepee. Haho was a haughty but warlike chief, and refused to recognize the titles of many of the native nobles; and, to permanently degrade them, he founded the Aha-alii, or college of chiefs, which embraced the blue-blooded of the entire group, and remained in vogue as late as the beginning of the present century. To be recognized by this college of heraldry, it was necessary for every chief to name his descent from an ancestor of unquestioned nobility; and when his rank was thus formally established, no circumstance of war or peace could deprive him of it. There were gradations of rank and tabu within the Aha-alii, and all received the respect to which their rank entitled them, without regard to their worldly condition. No chief could claim a higher grade than the source from which he sprang; nor could he achieve it, although through marriage with a chiefess of higher rank he might advance his children to the grade of the mother. The Aha-alii had a language which was not understood by the common people, and which was changed whenever it became known to the makaainana, and it was their right on all occasions to wear the insignia of their rank, the feather wreath (lei-hulu), the feather cape (aha-ula), and the ivory clasp (palaoa); and their canoes might be painted red and bear a pennon. The royal color was yellow.

Although Kaupeepee was of the undoubted blood of Nanaula, and would not have been denied admission to the Aha-alii, he treated with contempt the institution of nobility founded by Haho, declaring that the blood of the founder himself was ennobled only through the thefts of his low-born grandfather. This was doubtless correct; but Kaupeepee's hatred of the southern invaders would not allow him to be just, even to their ancestors.

Such was the condition of affairs when the sons of Hina began to prepare for their expedition against Haupu. They sent emissaries to Oahu and Maui, and were promised substantial co-operation by the leading chiefs of those islands, the most of whom had suffered from the raids of the scourge of Molokai. They collected a mighty fleet of canoes and a force of six thousand warriors. As many more were promised from Oahu and Maui, which, were Keoloewa's permission obtained, would be landed at Molokai to operate in conjunction with the army from Hawaii.

As an attack on Haupu from the sea side was not considered practicable, even with the overwhelming force that was being organized against it, messengers were despatched to Molokai to prevail upon Keoloewa to permit a portion of the united armies to land on the south side of the island and assault the fortress from the mountain. His sympathies were with his brother, and he hesitated; but when he learned of the formidable force organizing for the reduction of Haupu, he appreciated that he was unable to successfully oppose the movement, and, with the assurance that his subjects would be neither disturbed nor despoiled of their property during the conflict, and that the invading armies would be withdrawn from the island at the end of the campaign against Haupu, he consented to the landing. Had he known the real motive of the assault he would have advised his brother to surrender his fair prisoner and save both from possible ruin; but, conceiving that Kaupeepee's depredations had become unendurable, and that the chiefs of the great islands had at length united to crush him, for his own safety he felt compelled to leave him to his fate.

This resolution accorded with the advice of Kaupeepee. Many days before his faithful kaula had told him of the approaching invasion, of the combination of chiefs against him, and the doubtful result of the struggle; and before the messengers reached his brother he had gone to and advised him to offer no opposition to the landing of his enemies on the island. "Opposition would be useless," argued Kaupeepee, "for my enemies are coming in great force. I have slain them and blasted their lands, and single-handed will meet the consequences. Do not embroil yourself with me, but save to our blood the possessions of our fathers."

"Perhaps you are right," said Keoloewa; "but why not abandon Haupu and save yourself, if you are not able to hold it?"

"Never!" exclaimed Kaupeepee. "For more than twenty years its walls have stood between me and my enemies, and I will not desert them now. I have a thousand brave men who will triumph or die with me. Should Haupu be taken, go and count the corpses around its walls, and you will not blush to see how a son of Kamauaua died!"

"So let the will of the gods be done!" replied the brother. "But we may not meet again."

"True," returned Kaupeepee, with a strange smile--"true, my good brother, for my sepulchre at Haupu needs ornamenting before the mourners come."

"In my name take anything required for your defence," said Keoloewa, still holding the hand of his brother, as if reluctant to part with him; "my heart, if not my arm, will be with you!"

"We shall be well prepared," were the words of Kaupeepee at parting; and before he reached the top of the pali on his return to Haupu, the messengers from Hawaii landed at Kalaupapa.

With this concession from Keoloewa the arrangements for the campaign were speedily made. The main body of the united forces was to concentrate at Kaunakakai, on the north side of the island, and move under the supreme leadership of Niheu, while a large detachment, embracing the best seamen of the several quotas, was to blockade the sea-entrances to Haupu, destroy the canoes of the fortress to prevent escape or succor, and co-operate generally with the land forces. This dangerous service was entrusted to the command of Kana.

At the appointed time the Hawaiian army set sail for Molokai in a fleet of over twelve hundred canoes, many of them double, and carrying a large supply of provisions. The assistance of the gods had been invoked with many sacrifices, and the omens had been favorable. In one of the large double canoes was Uli. Her form was bent with age, and her hair, white as foam, covered her shoulders like a mantle. In youth she was noted for her stateliness and beauty; but age and care had destroyed all traces of her early comeliness, and her wrinkled face, and black eyes glistening through the rifts of her long, white hair, gave her the appearance of one who dealt with things to be feared. She was surrounded with charms and images, and before her, on a stone-bordered hearth of earth, burned a continual fire, into which she at intervals threw gums and oily mixtures, emitting clouds of incense. Her canoe followed that of the sons of Hina, with their priest and war-god, and red pennon at the masthead; and as the fleet swept out into the ocean, with thousands of oars in the waves and thousands of spears in the air, Uli rose to her feet and began a wild war-chant, which was taken up by the following hosts and borne far over the waters.

The day following a number of expeditions left various openings on the coasts of Oahu and Maui--none of them approaching the Hawaiian army in strength, but together adding an aggregate of nine hundred canoes of all sizes and about four thousand warriors to the invading force. All of them reached the landing at Kaunakakai on the day appointed for their arrival, and Niheu found himself in command of ten thousand warriors and over two thousand canoes. No such number of spears was ever before seen massed on Molokai; but the people had been assured that they would not be injured either in person or property so long as they remained peaceful, and the terms of the agreement with Keoloewa were faithfully observed. Among the invaders the people found many friends and relatives, for intercourse between the islands at that time was free and frequent; and although their sympathies were with Kaupeepee, they soon came to regard the projected capture of Haupu as a great game of konane, played by agreement between two champions, during which the spectators were to remain silent and make no suggestions.