But his exhilaration wore off, after a time. Then came the reaction. A restlessness; an undefined, unsatisfied longing. Life became a burden. The seed of dissension had fallen in fresh and fallow soil: it was a souvenir of his sojourn among us. He, the child of Nature, must now follow out the artificial and hollow life of the world, or die unsatisfied; for he could not return to his original sphere of trust and contentment. He had learned to doubt all things, as naturally as any of us.
For days he moaned in spirit, and was troubled; nothing consoled him; his soul was broken of its rest; he grew desperate and melancholy.
I believe he was distracted with the problem of society, and I cannot wonder at it. One day, when his condition had become no longer endurable, he stole off to sea in his canoe, thinking, perhaps, that he could reach this continent, or some other; possibly hoping never again to meet human faces, for he could not trust them.
It was his heroic exit from a life that no longer interested him. Great was the astonishment of the islanders, who looked upon him as one possessed of the Evil Spirit, and special sacrifices were offered in his behalf; but the gods were inexorable; and, after several days upon the solitary sea, a shadow, a mote, drifted toward the valley,—a canoe, with a famishing and delirious voyager, that was presently tossed and broken in the surges; then, a dark body glistened for a moment, wet with spray, and sank for ever, while the shining coral reef was stained with the blood of the first-born.
I heard it all in the desolate wail of the mother, yet could not weep; my eyes burned like fire.
Little Niga came for me presently, and led me into the great grove of kamane-trees, up the valley. He insisted upon holding me by the hand: it was all he could do to comfort me, and he did that with his whole soul.
In silence we pressed on to one of the largest of the trees. I recognized it at once. Niga and I, one day, went thither, and I cut a name upon the soft bark of the tree.
When we reached it we paused. Niga pointed with his finger; I looked. It was there yet,—a simple name, carved in the rudest fashion. I read the letters, which had since become an epitaph. They were these:—
"KÁNA-ANÁ, Æt. 16 yrs."
Under them were three initials,—my own,—cut by the hand of Kána-aná, after his return from America.