Finally a night of inky darkness came—a night “as dark as the farthest confines of Po”—bringing with it a storm of wind and rain. In the midst of the storm the wooden wall began to move, but so noiselessly that the advance was not perceived by the fortress sentinels. Midnight came and went; the storm continued, and nearer and nearer to the wall of stone was crowded the wall of timber. Just as coming day began to streak the east the bases of the two walls came together, the backward inclination of both leaving them a few feet apart at their tops. Hundreds of men then laid hold of the braces, and in a moment the wooden wall was shoved over and stayed against the other.
The alarm was given within, and warriors from all parts of the enclosure sprang toward the menaced wall. But the movement of their enemies was not less prompt. Up the braces they swarmed in such numbers that the few who had succeeded in reaching the top of the wall from within were hurled from it, and after them poured a cataract of spears against which the opposing force was powerless. The huge stone was rolled back, the gate was opened, and soon the upper terrace was cleared and five thousand warriors, led by Niheu in person, were sweeping down to complete their work of slaughter.
But their victory was not to be cheaply purchased. They had slain two or three hundred on the wall and around the gate, but thrice as many more, under the desperate leadership of Kaupeepee, were stretched like a wall across the middle terrace, with a resolution to contest every pace of the ground with their lives. They might have escaped, perhaps, down the paths leading from that terrace to the gulches; but they preferred to die, as they had for years lived, in defence of Haupu.
Down the terrace swept the victorious horde in the gray dawn of the morning. Niheu vainly tried to hold his warriors in check, for he knew the main body of the fortress force was still before him, and would have advanced with prudence; but the voices of the leaders were drowned in the battle-shouts of the surging throng, which in a few minutes struck Kaupeepee’s wall of spears and battle-axes, and rolled back like a storm-wave broken against the front of Haupu. But the check was only momentary, for immediately behind the shattered column was a forest of advancing spears, and with a wild tumult of shouts and clashing weapons the entire force was precipitated upon Kaupeepee’s thin but resolute lines of defence.
The slaughter was frightful; but the unequal conflict could have but one result. Kaupeepee and the fifty or less of his followers left standing were crowded, fighting step by step, into the lower terrace, and thence to the heiau, and finally to the temple as a last place of defence. There the struggle was brief. The roof of the temple was fired, and as Kaupeepee and the last of his devoted band sprang from the blazing building to die at the throats of their enemies they were struck down with their javelins in the air. A spear penetrated the breast of Kaupeepee. As a last act he poised his ihe to hurl at a helmeted chief who had just struggled to the front. The chief was Niheu. By his dress or face, which bore a resemblance to the features of Hina, Kaupeepee must have recognized him. He looked, but his arm did not move. “Not for your sake, but for hers!” exclaimed the dying warrior, dropping his weapon to the earth and falling lifeless beside it.
Not one of the defenders of Haupu escaped, but more than one-half of Niheu’s army perished in the various assaults upon the fortress. Hina was found uninjured, and, while there was great joy to her in the embrace of her sons and aged mother, she wept over the death of Kaupeepee, who with his love had made light her long imprisonment.
The body of Kaupeepee was given to Keoloewa for interment, as were also the remains of Moi, who was among the last to fall. The walls of Haupu were levelled, never to be raised again, and Hina returned to her husband in Hilo, after a separation of nearly eighteen years, thus bringing to a close one of the most romantic legends of early Hawaiian chivalry.