“The day after to-morrow we will hold here a festival to Kane, and the altar shall be heaped with offerings,” said the king. “To-morrow I will send my people to the mountains to gather feathers of sacred and royal colors, and Kaili, the neglected war-god of Liloa, shall be made glorious in new plumage and glad with abundant sacrifice.”
“It is well,” replied the priest.
“Now let the conspirators marshal their spears!” continued Hakau, confidently, “and we will make short work of them. They cannot be punished in the hills of Hilo. With a showing of weakness we will lure them to Waipio, and not one of them shall escape. We will cut off their retreat, and close in their faces the gates of the puhonui!”
As already mentioned, of the two puhonuis, or places of refuge, on Hawaii at that time, one was an adjunct of the heiau of Paakalani, at Waipio. In times of war their gates, with white flags to mark them, were always open, and those who succeeded in passing into the enclosure were safe from assault, even though pursued by the king himself.
This savage proposal to close the gates of the puhonui was promptly resented by Laeanui. He would as soon have thought of tumbling the gods from their pedestals and consigning them to the flames.
“You suggest what is impossible,” said the priest. “Since the days of Wakea the puhonui has been sacred. Its gates cannot be closed to the defenceless, and the gods have said that he who shuts them against the weak shall seek in vain their shelter from the arm of the strong.”
“Well, then, keep them open!” retorted the king, sharply. “They will run swiftly who enter them!”
Torches were relighted, and the king and his attendants left the heiau. They had not passed beyond the outer wall before Nunu emerged from the inner court. His was the voice that had answered the king from the anu. Thus in the temple of Paakalani was shaped the destruction of Hakau, and the priests whom he had insulted and defied opened broadly and surely the way to his death.
The next morning an unusual commotion was observed in and around the royal mansion, and as party after party left the inclosure—some proceeding toward the sea-coast, and others up the valley and into the mountains beyond—the villagers wondered at the proceeding, and predicted that a strict tabu would soon follow, whatever might be the occasion. But when they learned that the war-god was to be redecorated, and an imposing religious festival was to follow the day after, they knew that trouble of some kind was anticipated by the king, and soon found a correct explanation of the movement in the rumors which they, too, had heard concerning Umi and his friends in Hilo and eastern Hamakua. The possibility of an uprising against Hakau gave them no uneasiness, however, for his cruelties had secured for him their hatred, while the name of Umi was to all classes a synonym of strength and gentleness.
The king was not indifferent to the danger with which he was about to be confronted, and promptly despatched lunapais to the district chiefs of Kohala, Kona, and Hamakua, ordering them to report without delay at Waipio with two thousand warriors each, while the governor of Hilo was commanded by a special lunapai to march at once with a body of warriors to Waipunalei, with the view of precipitating the movement of Umi upon Waipio, where, it was not doubted, he would be overwhelmed and crushed.