She would not allow her thoughts to go further, but seeing that the sun was low, a great fear suddenly possessed her—she ran down the slopes to go in search of Hawahee. Where had he been all day? she thought as she stood on the shore. Seeing no sight of him on the isle, a terrifying fright seized her heart. For the first time during the long years, a faint realisation of how she would feel were she left perfectly alone on the isle came to her. In her new terror she put forth her hands and screamed as though in appeal to the dumb, bright sky: “Hawahee! Hawahee! Where are you? Come to me, Sestra calls you!”
Inclining her head she listened eagerly, but only the faint echo of her voice answered from the palm-clad hills. As she stared about her, she suddenly observed a dark object moving in the jungle on the elevation where the lepers were buried. The joy of life returned to her. Her feet, winged with hope and fear, sped towards that small necropolis. She suddenly stopped short. Her joy had turned to fear and wonder. What was Hawahee doing? Why dig on that spot, just as he had dug when the lepers died, one by one? She stared again. Sure enough, he was busily digging a hole exactly next to the last grave which he had dug when Rohana died. The next moment she had rushed out from the shadows.
“Why are you digging? Who has died, since ’tis only we, you and I, who dwell on this world?” she cried, her voice full of anguish.
“I make my own grave, Sestra, surely I must die some day,” murmured Hawahee as he suddenly stayed his hand, and rubbed his eyes as though he had just awakened from a strange dream. Then he hung his head as though in shame that he should cause the girl such grief.
“Come back to the palavana (homestead),” said Sestrina. And Hawahee followed her like an obedient child.
Directly Hawahee entered his hut, he rubbed his eyes and remembered what a strange thing he had done. Tears were in his eyes as he thought of Sestrina’s grief. “I have brought pain to her heart, Sestra, the flower, the light of my soul, the goddess of my soul’s misery! Surely the gods of the valley have deserted me that they should make me feel that I was as one dead, for did I not go and dig my grave by the side of Rohana’s sleep, and my other comrades who dwell in Langi? ’Tis the madness of desire, the long darkness and thirst which has made me forget I still breathe the light.”
As the sad Hawaiian reflected, he drew up the sleeve of his jerkin so that he might examine the leper patch on his arm. “Aue!” he exclaimed as he gazed on his arm, astounded! “’Tis dry! and hardly to be seen! O Atua! O Pelé! can it be that thou hast spared me? Kauhilo, blessed be thy name, and the pure fires of thy mountains.[[2]] In the fires of loveliness, O Kauhilo, thou hast surely purified my body! My body is sweet as are the flowers of the forest, and warm as the sunlight afloat on the seas. My desires! My desires! they shall be a blessing and not a curse on the woman I love.”
[2]. Just as the ancient Greeks gave Cyclops and his vassals, Hephaestus, etc, abodes in the volcanic mountains, abodes which were supposed to be the workshops of the Olympian Gods, the Hawaiians believed that Pelé, Kauhilo, Atua and their vassals, had their abodes in the volcanoes of Hawaii.
In the deep gratitude which he felt towards his gods, his eyes filled with tears. Once again he pressed the muscles of his arms, and, sure enough, the leper patch was dry—cured! He rose to his feet. He pulled the delicately woven tappa shirt half over his shoulders, and then gazed on his full chest. The flesh was soft, full-looking, like a woman’s, the throat’s perfect curves and lines full of manly grace, and of the splendid flush of health. The physical characteristics of his race were shown to splendid advantage by his god-like figure, the symmetry, the muscular beauty of his body’s strength. As he stood there, framed in his hut’s tall doorway, his fine, clear eyes gazing on his pagan stars in gratitude, he might easily have been mistaken for some god-like figure expressing manly beauty, wondrously done in smooth-veined gold-brown marble. In his ecstasy over his discovery, Hawahee lifted his arms and prayed aloud. He thought of all that his discovery meant to him. Already the shadow of night lay over the isle. In a frenzy of delight he rushed from his homestead. Again he waved his arms to the sky.
As he lifted his hands and called to Atua, and Pelé, and Kauhilo he looked what he was—a pagan praying to the stars.