Kneeling in his canoe, Eaeakai paddled to the shore and prostrated himself with his face to the ground, for well he knew that by Hawaiian law it was death for a common man like him to stand in the presence or in the shadow of Hiwa, alii-niaupio, tabu moi wahine, goddess-queen.
She sprang into the canoe, seized the paddle, and sped up the coast.
Eaeakai lay grovelling on the ground until she was a goodly distance from him. Then he sat up and began to realize that probably he was ruined. His boat, which made him the envy of fishermen for fifty miles around, and upon which he had spent months of patient toil, was gone. It was his pride, his wealth, his livelihood. Hiwa was fleeing from enemies. He could expect no reward if she should escape and return in triumph, for he was beneath her notice; but, if she should be overtaken and slain, the service he had rendered her would not be forgiven. The boat would tell the story, and he would be hunted down and killed or offered a sacrifice to the gods.
Presently, as he turned his eyes in the direction of his home, he saw a great war canoe approaching. He hid behind a rock and watched it. He counted twenty-six warriors at the paddles, and recognized Aa, the high-priest, commanding them. They had caught sight of Hiwa, and were doing their utmost to overtake her.
Eaeakai knew that an heir to the throne was expected. Who in all the land did not? “If it were not for her condition,” he said to himself, “she might give them a long chase; but the end would be the same.”
Her enemies rapidly gained on her, although she handled the paddle with marvelous strength and skill, and she seemed to have no chance of escape. Suddenly she plunged into the water and disappeared.
Her pursuers hastened to the spot. One of them reached out to save the boat, a chattel of great value to a Hawaiian; but the fanatical high-priest interposed. “Let it dash itself to pieces on the rocks!” he exclaimed. “It is accursed! Tabu!”
The shore at that point was a traverse section of one of the huge Saw-Teeth, rising from deep water nearly perpendicularly two thousand feet into the air. No living creature, save some insect or reptile that clings to the bare face of a rock, could obtain a foothold there. Hiwa was not a lizard to cling to that cliff, and if she were, she would be in plain sight. Neither was she a bird to soar above and beyond it. She was not a fish; if still alive, she must come to the surface. After watching for her long and anxiously, they discovered a few drops of blood. A sharp fin above the waves, slowly moving seaward, afforded a ready explanation.
The high-priest’s face lighted with savage triumph as he cried: “Ukanipo, the Shark-God, hath her! Ku is avenged!”
So thought Eaeakai. “Black death hangs over me!” he wailed. “Lilii will have no kane to bring her fish and poi and the little keike will be fatherless from its birth!”