“I cannot doubt that I am standing before Umi, son of Liloa, and guardian of our sacred temples and our fathers’ gods.” To these words the priest silently awaited an answer.
Umi did not reply at once; but after giving the face of the priest a searching glance, and recalling his meeting with Maukaleoleo the day before, and the vision through the branches of the sandal-tree, he frankly answered:
“I cannot deny it.”
“No; you cannot, indeed!” returned the priest, fervently; “for so have the clouds told me, and so has it been whispered in my dreams. Word has come to me from Waipio that Hakau knows you are in Waipunalei, and his emissaries are already here with orders to assassinate you.”
“Then further disguise would be useless, further delay cowardly!” exclaimed Umi, rising from his seat and grasping his ihe. “His cruelty forces me at last to strike! The time for action has come, and, spear in hand, as befits a son of Liloa, I will face the royal murderer in Waipio, and the black kapa shall be his or mine!”
“Spoken like a king and a son of a king!” returned the priest with enthusiasm, grasping Umi by the hand. “But you will not go alone. Come to me with your friends to-morrow—if possible to-night. Under my roof you will be safe, and there we will gather the spears that will make your journey to Waipio a triumphal march.”
“Thanks are the only payment I can now make to your friendship,” said Umi, in turn pressing the hand of the priest. “You may expect me and a few of my friends before another rising of the sun.”
With a few hasty words of explanation Umi left the hut with his heart on fire, and the priest watched him with a smile until he passed the broken wall. There he was rejoined by the messenger, who silently preceded him down the valley.
As he started to return Umi looked toward the sandal-tree above the hut. Maukaleoleo was no longer there, but he frequently discerned a mighty form moving down the valley along the wooded hillside, and knew that his great friend was not far away.
The northeastern coast of the island of Hawaii presents an almost continuous succession of valleys, with intervening uplands rising gently for a few miles, and then more abruptly toward the snows of Mauna Kea and the clouds. The rains are abundant on that side of the island, and the fertile plateau, boldly fronting the sea with a line of cliffs from fifty to a hundred feet in height, is scored at intervals of one or two miles with deep and almost impassable gulches, whose waters reach the ocean either through rocky channels worn to the level of the waves, or in cascades leaping from the cliffs and streaking the coast from Hilo to Waipio with lines which seem to be of molten silver from the great crucible of Kilauea.