“She may remain,” was Kamaiole’s grim reply.
“And well may she remain!” exclaimed Waikuku bitterly. “Iola is dead! To-day, even a few breaths past, her brutal brother found and with his own hand killed her!”
“Killed her?” repeated the king.
“Yes, killed her,” continued Waikuku; “and but that her cowardly murderer sought the protection of the royal enclosure, my spear would have tasted his blood!”
“Speak, and give good reason for this murder of the wife of Waikuku,” said the king, sternly addressing Kamaiole, “or, by great Lono! I will downward command your face!”
When a prisoner of war or malefactor was brought before an ancient Hawaiian king, if his order was “Downward the face!” the prisoner was taken away and slain at once by one of the royal executioners; but if it was “Upward the face!” his life was spared, either for complete pardon, slavery or sacrifice to the gods.
Giving little regard to the threat of the king, but burning with wrath at the insulting language of Waikuku, Kamaiole proudly answered:
“I am of the aha-alii of Hawaii. My war-canoes are red, and pennons float at their mast-tips. The blood of Nanaula is in my veins, and my ancestors were of the alii-nui—were kings here generations before Pili landed at Kohala or the Paumakuas blasted the shores of Hilo. With a rank befitting it was my purpose to mate my sister. But she secretly became the wife of a marauding puuku—possibly by force, probably by the charm of lies and the glitter of shells—and I followed and slew her, that her blood and mine might not be degraded by being mingled with that of Waikuku!”
“Puuku!” hissed Waikuku, enraged at the low rank contemptuously given him by Kamaiole, and making a hostile menace toward the speaker.
Kamaiole regarded Waikuku for a moment with a look of disdain, and then continued: