The thing was the wickedness of Aa, for, knowing that Lilii and Manoa were of the divine blood of Wakea and Papa in the female line, he had commanded that they should be killed if the battle went against him, so that the victor might have no goddess-born wife. He had assigned the murder to the three men he trusted most, and they killed the mother before the daughter escaped.
The slaughter ended when darkness came. A few of Aa’s men scaled the heights of Kukuihaele; a few swam out to sea and got away; a few score swam across the river and reached the puuhonua and were safe, but many more were speared in attempting it. The greater part perished. A fourth of Kaanaana’s men perished also. In all more than a thousand men lay dead and dying on the field. The victorious survivors, worn out with marching and slaughter, sank on the ground beside them and slept until morning.
Hiwa and Kaanaana slept from dark till dawn; but the young moi kane, who had that day won his kingdom, lay awake many hours, and when sleep came to him he dreamed of love, and not of glory.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SACRIFICE
IN the morning after the battle word was brought to the palace that Aa had been found on the field still alive. Aelani commanded that he should be taken to the heiau, or temple, to be sacrificed, and that the spearmen should be assembled there to witness the sacred rites. So Aa was taken to the heiau, and awaited the coming of Aelani and Hiwa and Kaanaana and the spearmen of Kohala.
Then Aelani’s servants put on him the great mamo that had been the state robe of moi kanes of the blood of Wakea and Papa time whereof the memory of man ran not to the contrary. It reached from his shoulders to his ankles, and enveloped his whole body. It was made entirely of the yellow feathers of the mamo, and, as the mamo was a small bird, and lived in the mountains, and was wild and scarce, from being constantly hunted, and, moreover, had but few of the sacred feathers, the collection of feathers for that cloak had been the life-work of nine generations of hunters. Aelani also wore a helmet of the still more priceless feathers of the oo. The niho palaoa was on his neck, and in his hand he carried spears red with the blood of his enemies.
Hiwa wore a mamo like Aelani’s, broad and long, extending to her feet, priceless as the crown jewels of England. Upon her head was a lei, or wreath of yellow ilima and dark-green maile, and, crowning all, a lei of the fluffy, yellow feathers of the oo, feathers worth many times their weight in gold. Kaanaana, too, was richly clad, as became a mighty high-chief. A cloak of yellow and red feathers, only less rare and costly than the mamo, covered him from head to foot, and a yellow and red helmet adorned his head.
Before they left the palace Hiwa embraced Aelani and Kaanaana, kissing them and shedding tears, as if she were parting from them forever, so that they greatly wondered, not dreaming of what was in her mind. Then, when the chiefs had assembled—all who had the right to stand in presence of the moi—Hiwa made a signal that Kaanaana should kneel before her. So he kneeled before her, and she, in presence of them all, took the feather lei from her head and twined it around his helmet.