II.
With her recovery, in the home of her new friends at Kamoiliili, Kaha was introduced to a life that was new to her; but it was by no means an unpleasant change from the restraints of her listless and more sumptuous past behind the protecting shadows of her puloulous, where she was jealously watched, and where rank closed her doors to congenial companionship. She repaired to an unfrequented beach, and, unobserved, played with the shifting sands and sang to the waves, and at night went with Mahana to the reef with torch and spear in search of fish and squid.
Knowing that her restoration to life could not be long kept from her relatives, Mahana told her that his love for her was great, and asked her to become his wife.
“I shall never love any one better than Mahana,” replied Kaha; “but from infancy I have been betrothed to Kauhi; my parents, the Wind and Rain of Manoa, have promised that I shall be his wife, and while he lives I can be the wife of no other.”
The argument that Kauhi had forfeited all right to her by his cruelties failed to shake her resolution, and the brother of Mahana advised him to in some manner compass the death of Kauhi. To this end they apprised the parents of Kaha of her restoration to life, and conspired with them to keep secret the information for a time. This they were the more disposed to do because of their uncertainty concerning what Kauhi might again attempt should he find the girl alive.
In pursuance of the plan adopted, Mahana learned from Kaha all the songs she had chanted to mollify the wrath of Kauhi while she was following him through the mountains, and then sought the kilu houses of the king and chiefs in the hope of encountering his rival. It was not long before they met, under just such circumstances as Mahana desired. He discovered Kauhi engaged with others in the game of kilu, and joined the party as a player. The kilu passed from the hand of Kauhi to Mahana, who, on receiving it, began to chant the first of Kaha’s songs.
Surprised and embarrassed, Kauhi, in violation of the rules of the game, stopped the player to inquire where he had learned the words of the song he was singing. The answer was that he had learned them from Kaha, the noted beauty of Manoa, who was a friend of his sister, and was then visiting them at their home. Knowing that she had been deserted by the owl-god, and feeling assured that Kaha was no longer living, Kauhi denounced as a falsehood the explanation of the player. Bitter words followed, and but for the interference of friends there would have been bloodshed.
They met the next day at the kilu house, and in the evening following, when similar scenes occurred between Mahana and his rival, Kauhi became so enraged at length that he admitted that he had killed the beautiful Kaha of Manoa, and declared the Kaha of Mahana to be an impostor, who had heard of the death of the real Kaha and audaciously assumed her name and rank. He then challenged Mahana to produce the woman claiming to be Kaha, agreeing to forfeit his life should she prove in flesh and blood to be the one whom he knew to be dead, and subjecting Mahana to a like penalty in the event of the claimant proving to be other than the person he represented her to be.
It had been the purpose of Mahana to provoke his rival to a combat with weapons, but the challenge of Kauhi presented itself as a more satisfactory means of accomplishing the object of his aim, and he promptly accepted it; and, that both might be more firmly bound to its conditions, they were repeated and formally ratified in the presence of the king and principal chiefs of the district.
The day fixed for the strange trial arrived. It was to be in the presence of the king and a number of distinguished chiefs, and Akaaka, the grandfather of Kaha, had been selected as one of the judges. Imus had been erected near the sea-shore by the respective friends of the contestants, in which to roast alive the vanquished chief, and dry wood for the heating was piled beside them.
Fearing that the spirit of the murdered girl might be able to assume a living appearance, and thus impose upon the judges, Kauhi had consulted the priests and sorcerers of his family, and was advised by Kaea to have the large and tender leaves of the ape plant spread upon the ground where Kaha and her attendants before the tribunal were to be seated. “When she enters,” said the kaula, “watch her closely. If she is of flesh her weight will rend the leaves; if she is merely a spirit the leaves where she walks and sits will not be torn.”
On her way to Waikiki, the place designated for the trial, Kaha was accompanied by her parents, friends and servants, and also by the two spirit-sisters of Mahana, who had assumed human forms in order to be better able to advise and assist her, if occasion required. They informed her of Kaea’s proposed test with ape leaves, and advised her to quietly tear and rend them as far as possible for some distance around her, in order that the spirit-friends beside her, who would be unable to do as much for themselves, might thereby escape detection. If discovered, they would be exposed to the risk of being killed by the poe-poi-uhane, or spirit-catchers.
Arriving at Waikiki, Kaha and her companions repaired to the large enclosure in which the trial was to take place. The king, chiefs, judges and advisers of Kauhi were already there, and thousands of spectators were assembled in the grounds adjoining. The ape leaves had been spread, by the consent of the king, as advised by Kaea, and Kaha entered with her friends and advanced to the place reserved for them. Not far from her stood Kauhi. As he bent forward in anxiety and looked into her star-like eyes, with a sinking heart he saw that their reproachful gleam was human, and knew that he had lost the wager of his life.
Observing her instructions, Kaha took pains to quietly rend and rumple the ape leaves under and around her. So far as she was concerned, the test was satisfactory. The evidence of the leaves torn by her feet could not be questioned. Kaea was therefore compelled to admit that Kaha was a being of flesh and bone; but in his disappointment he declared that he saw and felt the presence of spirits in some manner connected with her, and would detect and punish them.
Irritated at the malice of the kaula, Akaaka advised him to look for the faces of the spirits in an open calabash of water. Eagerly grasping at the suggestion, Kaea ordered a vessel of clear water to be brought in, and incautiously bent his eyes over it. He saw only the reflection of his own face. Akaaka also caught a glimpse of it, and, knowing it to be the spirit of the seer, he seized and crushed it between his palms, and Kaea fell dead to the earth beside the calabash into which he had been peering.
Akaaka then turned and embraced Kaha, acknowledging that she was his granddaughter, and that her purity and obedience rendered her worthy of the love of the bold upland of Akaaka, and of her parents, the Wind and Rain of Manoa.
The curiosity of the king was aroused, and he demanded an explanation of the strange proceedings he had just witnessed. Kaha told her simple story, and Kauhi, on being interrogated, could deny no part of it. As an excuse for his barbarous conduct, however, he repeated, and attributed his jealous rage to, the boastful assertions of Kumauna and Keawaawakiihelei. The slanderers were sent for at once, and, on being confronted by Kaha, admitted that they had never seen her before, and that they had boasted of their intimacy with her to make others envious of their good fortune.
“Well,” replied the king, after listening to the confessions of the miscreants, “as your efforts in exciting the envy of others have brought terrible suffering to an innocent girl, I now promise you something of which no one, I think, will envy you. You will be baked alive with Kauhi! If you have friends among the gods, pray to them that the imus may be hot and your sufferings short!”
The imus were ordered to be heated at once, and Kauhi and the two calumniators were thrown into them alive and roasted. The first went to his death bravely, chanting a song of defiance as he proceeded to the place of execution, but the others vainly struggled and sought to escape. The retainers of Kauhi were so disgusted with his cruelty to Kaha that they transferred their allegiance to her, and the lands and fishing rights that had been his were given to Mahana at once.
“And how do you intend to reward the young chief who hazarded his life for you?” inquired the king, pleasantly addressing Kaha as he rose to depart.
“With my own, O king!” replied the girl, advancing to Mahana and laying her head upon his breast.
“So shall it be, indeed,” returned the king. “I have said it, and you are now the wife of Mahana.”
In his gratitude the happy young chief threw himself at the feet of the king and said:
“I am your slave, great king! Demand of me some great service or sacrifice, that you may know that I am grateful!”
“Even as you desire,” returned the king, “I will put you to a task that will tax to the utmost your patience.”
“I listen, O king!” said Mahana, resolutely.
“The sacrifice I ask,” resumed the king, with a merry twinkle in his eye, “is that for full three days from this time you embrace not your bride.”
“A sacrifice, indeed!” exclaimed Mahana, catching the kindly humor of the request, and slyly glancing at the downcast face of Kaha. “It is—”
“Too great, I see, for one whose beard is not yet fully grown,” interrupted the king. “Well, I withdraw the request. The girl is yours; take her with you without conditions!”
Here the story of the trials of Kaha should end; but it does not. Some time during the night following the death of Kauhi a tidal wave, sent by a powerful shark-god, swept over and destroyed the imus in which the condemned men had been roasted, and their bones were carried into the sea. Through the power of their family gods Kumauna and Keawaawakiihelei were transformed into two peaks in the mountains back of Manoa Valley while Kauhi, who was distantly related to the shark-god, was turned into a shark.
For two years Kaha and her husband lived happily together, surrounded by many friends and enjoying every comfort. Her grandfather, Akaaka, visited her frequently, and, knowing of Kauhi’s transformation and vindictive disposition, admonished her to avoid the sea. For two years she heeded the warning; but one day, when her husband was absent and her mother was asleep, she ventured with one of her women to the beach to witness the sports of the bathers and surf-riders. As no harm came to the swimmers, and the water was inviting, she finally borrowed a surf-board, and, throwing herself joyfully into the waves, was carried beyond the reef.
This was the opportunity for which Kauhi had long waited. Seizing Kaha, and biting her body in twain, he swam around with the head and shoulders exposed above the water, that the bathers might note his triumph. The spirit of Kaha at once returned to the sleeping mother and informed her of what had befallen her daughter. Waking and missing Kaha, the mother gave the alarm, and with others immediately proceeded to the beach. The bathers, who had fled from the water on witnessing the fate of Kaha, confirmed the words of the spirit, and canoes were launched in pursuit of the shark, still exhibiting his bloody trophy beyond the reef.
Swimming with the body of Kaha just far enough below the surface to be visible to the occupants of the canoes, the monster was followed to Waianae, where in shallow waters he was seen, with other sharks, to completely devour the remains. This rendered her restoration to life impossible, and the pursuing party returned sadly to Waikiki.
With the final death of Kaha her parents relinquished their human lives and retired to Manoa Valley. The father is known as Manoa Wind, and his visible form is a small grove of hau trees below Kahaiamano. The mother is recognized as Manoa Rain, and is often met with in the vicinity of the former home of her beloved and beautiful daughter.
The grandparents of Kaha also abandoned their human forms, Akaaka resuming his personation of the mountain spur bearing his name, and his august companion nestling upon his brow in the shape of a thicket of lehua bushes. And there, among the clouds, they still look down upon Kahaiamano and the fair valley of Manoa, and smile at the rains of Kauahuahine, which day by day renew their beauty, and keep green with ferns and sweet with flowers the earthly home of Kahalaopuna.