While Kamakaua was pouring this poison into the ears of Neula, Kaululaau, who had made the acquaintance of Noakua, was planting in the mind of that chief the seeds of sedition. He flattered him with the opinion that he was made to rule, and by degrees developed to him a plan through which, with the favor of the queen, he could seize the government, unite the principal chiefs in his support, and prevent Kauholanui from returning to Hawaii.
The ambition of Noakua, and anger of the queen at the presumed neglect and infidelity of her husband, soon harmonized them in a plot against the absent king. Preparations for the revolt began to be observed, when Kaululaau, not wishing to be openly identified with the dangerous movement, quietly embarked with his party for Hilo, where he remained to watch the progress of the struggle which he had been instrumental in originating.
The prince had been in Hilo but a few days when a lunapai arrived from Waipio, summoning the chief of the district to repair thither with eight hundred warriors, and announcing the assumption of the sovereignty of the island by Neula. Similar notifications were sent to the chiefs of the other districts of the kingdom, and soon all was excitement from Kau to Kohala.
Hearing of the revolt, Kauholanui, who had been engaged in constructing a fish-pond at Keoneoio, in the neighborhood of Honuaula, left Maui at once with less than a hundred spears, and, landing in Kona, whose chief could be relied upon, he started overland for Waipio. The revolution was unpopular, and with great unanimity the chiefs and people rallied to the standard of the king. The struggle was brief. A battle was fought near Waimea, resulting in the defeat of the rebel army and the death of Noakua.
This ended the revolt. As a punishment to Neula the king took another wife. But the object of Kaululaau was accomplished, for Kauholanui never again visited Maui, although the queen spent much of her time thereafter at Honuaula, where her favorite guest and friend was Kamakaua.
Leaving Hilo, Kaululaau and his party leisurely drifted along the coasts of Puna until they reached the borders of Kau, when they landed at Keauhou to spend a few days in fishing and surf-riding.
Weary of the sport, Kaululaau left the bathers in the surf, one afternoon, and threw himself under the shade of a hala tree near the shore. Watching the clouds and the sea-birds circling in the heavens above him, he fell asleep, and when he awoke his eyes fell upon a beautiful woman sitting upon a rock not more than a hundred paces distant, and silently watching the swimmers as they came riding in on the crests of the rollers. Her skirts were a pau spangled with crystals, and over her shoulders hung a short mantle of the colors of a rainbow. Her long hair was held back by a lei of flowers, and her wrists and ankles were adorned with circlets of tiny shells of pink and white.
The appearance of the woman dazzled him, and after gazing for some time, and rubbing his eyes to be sure that he was not dreaming, he rose to his feet and approached the radiant being. Advancing within four or five paces of the woman, apparently unobserved, he stopped, and with a cough attracted her attention. Turning her face toward him, he greeted her courteously, and requested permission to approach nearer and converse with her. Her appearance indicated that she was a person of rank, and he did not feel like trespassing uninvited upon her privacy. She did not deign to make any reply to his request, but, after scanning him from head to foot, turned her face toward the sea again with a contemptuous toss of the head.
He hesitated for a moment, and then turned and strode rapidly down to the beach, where his double canoe had been safely drawn up on the sands. “In the guise of a bather,” thought the prince, “she evidently mistakes me for a servant. I will approach her in the garb to which my rank entitles me, and see what effect that will have.”
Entering the canoe, he girded his loins with a gaudy maro, hung round his neck a palaoa, and threw over his shoulders a royal mantle of yellow feathers. Then, crowning his head with a brilliant feather helmet, he selected a spear of the length of six paces and stepped from the canoe. As he did so he stumbled. “This means that I have forgotten or omitted something of importance,” said the prince to himself, stopping and in detail scanning his equipments. At that moment a lizard ran across his path and entered a hole in the earth. This brought to mind his battle with the gigantic gnome on Lanai, and with a smile he re-entered the canoe. Taking from a calabash, where it had been for months secreted, the charmed spear-point of Lono, he affixed it firmly to the point of a javelin, and, thus equipped, again sought the presence of the fascinating being by whom he had been repulsed.