Life and Adventure in the South Pacific

by John D. Jones

It was the eye of the powerful eric Nahi which had fallen on Kinau, and he had even sought a private interview with her, and declared his love; but she resolutely refused to listen to his advances a moment. “What!” said the haughty eric, “do you refuse to listen to the voice of Nahi, your chief? Daughter of my neighbor, tremble! Let tears as salt as the waters of the ocean fall quick and fast from thy earth-bound eye! Refuse to listen to the voice of Nahi, and the volcano of Waikukii shall consume the blood of Tuanoa, as the shark of the ocean devours the newly-hatched turtle.”

“Oh great Nahi,” answered Kinau, “suffer your neighbor’s daughter to return the love of Tuanoa, whose love, like mine, burns as the fire of the volcano, which the waters of the ocean can not quench.”

“Tremble!” exclaimed the eric, “daughter of Kuakini, and the beloved of Tuanoa. Go from the presence of Nahi, and let there be no more said.”

Kinau went from his presence with trembling limbs and a palpitating heart. She knew the disposition of Nahi; cruel and vindictive in the extreme, he spared nothing to obtain the object of his wishes. He had committed many crimes, for which he had often been reproved by the late king and his fellow erics. The people, also, were disgusted with his tyrannical conduct, and these things combined caused him to be more careful than he had been in the earlier part of his government. Kinau was well aware of this, and she therefore trusted that he would cease his importunities; but she dreaded his revenge, as she well knew that if an opportunity should ever present itself whereby he might injure her or Tuanoa, and escape the observation of the people from the apparent injustice of the act, he would seize upon it with avidity; and this was the cause of her dejection.

The king, Hoapili, had been dangerously ill for some days, and the active mind of Kinau saw the dreadful chasm which might be opened to receive her in the event of the king’s death. She knew that Nahi had the power of choosing one of the victims for the sacrifice, and the thought almost bereft her of her senses. She well knew that Tuanoa, the brave and beloved Tuanoa, would be sacrificed to the revenge of the cruel eric; and, under these trying circumstances, the constitution of Kinau evidently began to decline, much to the grief of her lover, who perceived his beautiful companion, like a lovely flower beset by the canker-worm, silently robbed of her beauty. He saw the devastation it committed, but could not discover its retreat. Kinau still kept the secret within her own breast.

One evening, as, to their minds, the sun was once more going to rest in the deep bosom of the ocean, the lovers reclined on the shelving and moss-covered rocks which were near to the habitation of Kinau, in the beautiful valley of Menoa. The broad-leaved banana waved around them, and fanned their cheeks with the sweet-scented evening air, when, just as the Pelé of Nuanu cast its deep shadow across the valley of her fathers, a distant cry of sorrow fell upon the ears of the unhappy pair. To Kinau’s mind the cause was revealed in an instant. “The king is gone!” shrieked the unhappy maid. “Oh, Tuanoa, let us fly; let us bury ourselves in the depths of the ocean, for death is for us also!” The extreme agitation of her mind robbed her of her senses; and as she lay, apparently without life, in the arms of her beloved and thunder-stricken Tuanoa, a number of their friends quickly approached the scene to render assistance, and to inquire the cause of the outcry.

“Neighbors,” exclaimed the bewildered Tuanoa, “my peace is broken; my beloved is no longer herself; the spirit of darkness has been here and stolen the light of her soul!” While they were using means to restore Kinau to her senses and to comfort Tuanoa, a band of persons approached, and proclaimed, amid loud wailings, that Hoapili the Good had given his last breath to the winds; and from out this mass of phrensied human beings rushed three men, with disordered dress and disheveled hair, with red streams of blood gushing from self-inflicted wounds, and approached Tuanoa. They immediately produced from under their torn tappas the fatal summons from the eric Nahi, which consisted merely of three dark-colored poisonous nuts, delineated with certain inscriptions and figures. Too well the brave Tuanoa knew their import, but he was helpless before them. They presented them to him with certain forms and ceremonies, and then, as if impatient for his heart’s best blood, leaped upon and bound him securely. Astonishment filled the minds of all his neighbors, who stood around Kinau, their hearts ready to burst with grief. They knew not the revengeful feelings which had actuated the hated eric to the choice of the best person in the village instead of the worst, as was the usual custom; for there was even a by-word among them, which was addressed to persons of bad repute, “Ah! you will serve for the fire—you will serve for the fire,” meaning that they would serve for the purpose for which Tuanoa had been taken. When the sounds of the phrensied multitude had passed away, and had left the valley of Menoa again to its solemn quietude, and there was only heard at intervals from out the group which still surrounded the bereft and senseless maiden the low murmur or the sorrowful exclamation for the departed king and the sorrows of the divided lovers, Kinau opened her discolored eyes, and shot them around the group, but saw not Tuanoa.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, “half of my soul has expired. Friends and neighbors, go; stay not with Kinau; the sun no longer shines upon her tarro-patches;[6] the water of the mountain has also turned from their roots, and has fallen into the hands of Nahi.”

Her kind neighbors did all in their power to comfort her in her great affliction, and then left her to the care of her aged parents. Nature soon overcame the infirm pair with sleep, and Kinau left her home, never more to return except with her beloved Tuanoa.

The past few months had altered the lovely Kinau very much. Her features were shrunken and distorted; her hair torn and loose; her dark eyes, rolling and flashing, betokened the storm within; her heaving bosom gave proof of the agitated heart; but her step was firm, and she stood erect, as if, with the last effort of a shattered frame, she had determined to devote all her remaining strength to one great purpose. She was convinced that there remained no hope from human means for the restoration of her beloved Tuanoa, and she therefore determined to visit the enchanter Kelkuewa, a thing seldom or scarcely ever attempted before, even by the bravest of the erics. But Kinau, feeling strong in her virtuous cause, feared not, and dared destruction in its wildest forms. Kelkuewa, the enchanter, resided in a glen at the bottom of the Pelé of Nuanu, and near the entrance of which the enchanted waterfall of two thousand feet in descent finished its perpendicular career. Here was the supposed habitation of a lizard as large as a man, which the tradition of the islanders claims as having resided there since the Flood.