“Ha! ha!” laughed the bone-breaker, taking a stride toward Kaaialii; “so you are the insane youth who has dared to meet Mailou in combat! Do you know who I am? I am the bone-breaker! In my hands the limbs of men are like tender cane. Come, and with one hand let me strangle you!”
“You will need both!” replied Kaaialii. “I know you. You are a breaker of the bones of women, not of men! You speak brave words, but have the heart of a coward. Let the word be given, and if you do not run from me to save your life, as I half-suspect you will, I will put my foot upon your broken neck before you find time to cry for mercy!”
Before Mailou could retort the word was given, and with an exclamation of rage he sprang at the throat of Kaaialii. Feigning as if to meet the shock, the latter waited until the hands of Mailou were almost at his throat, when with a quick movement he struck them up, swayed his body to the left, and with his right foot adroitly tripped his over-confident assailant. The momentum of Mailou was so great that he fell headlong to the earth. Springing upon him before he could rise, Kaaialii seized his right arm, and with a vigorous blow of the foot broke the bone below the elbow. Rising and finding his right arm useless, Mailou attempted to grapple his adversary with the left, but a well-delivered blow felled him again to the earth, and Kaaialii broke his left arm as he had broken the right. Regaining his feet, and unable to use either hand, with a wild howl of despair the bone-breaker rushed upon Kaaialii, with the view of dealing him a blow with his bent head; but the young chief again tripped him as he passed, and, seizing him by the hair as he fell, placed his knees against the back of his prostrate foe and broke his spine.
This, of course, ended the struggle, and Kaaialii was declared the victor, amidst the plaudits of the spectators and the congratulations of Kamehameha and the court. Breaking from her father, who was grievously disappointed at the unlooked-for result, and who sought to detain her, Kaala sprang through the crowd and threw herself into the arms of Kaaialii. Oponui would have protested, and asked that his daughter might be permitted to visit her mother before becoming the wife of Kaaialii; but the king put an end to his hopes by placing the hand of Kaala in that of the victorious chief, and saying to him:
“You have won her nobly. She is now your wife. Take her with you.”
Although silenced by the voice of the king, and compelled to submit to the conditions of a contest which he had himself proposed, Oponui’s hatred of Kaaialii knew no abatement, and all that day and the night following he sat alone by the sea-shore, devising a means by which Kaala and her husband might be separated. He finally settled upon a plan.
The morning after her marriage Oponui visited Kaala, as if he had just returned from Mahana, where her mother was supposed to be then living. He greeted her with apparent affection, and was profuse in his expressions of friendship for Kaaialii. He embraced them both, and said: “I now see that you love each other; my prayer is that you may live long and happily together.” He then told Kaala that Kalani, her mother, was lying dangerously ill at Mahana, and, believing that she would not recover, desired to see and bless her daughter before she died. Kaala believed the story, for her father wept when he told it, and moaned as if for the dead, and beat his breast; and, with many protestations of love, Kaaialii allowed her to depart with Oponui, with the promise from both of them that she would speedily return to the arms of her husband.
With some misgivings, Kaaialii watched her from the top of the hill above Kealia until she descended into the valley of Palawai. There leaving the path that led to Mahana, they journeyed toward the bay of Kaumalapau. Satisfied that her father was for some purpose deceiving her, Kaala protested and was about to return, when he acknowledged that her mother was not ill at Mahana, as he had represented to Kaaialii in order to secure his consent to her departure, but at the sea-shore, where she had gathered crabs, shrimps, limpets and other delicacies, and prepared a feast in celebration of her marriage.
Reassured by the plausible story, and half-disposed to pardon the deception admitted by her father, Kaala proceeded with him to the sea-shore. She saw that her mother was not there, and heard no sound but the beating of the waves against the rocks. She looked up into the face of her father for an explanation; but his eyes were cold, and a cruel smile upon his lips told her better than words that she had been betrayed.
“Where is my mother?” she inquired; and then bitterly added: “I do not see her fire by the shore. Must we search for her among the sharks?”