Therefore, instead of slaying Kamapuaa, the assistants, as they had been secretly instructed to do by the high-priest, removed the cords from his limbs, smeared his hair, face and body with the fresh blood of a fowl, and on their shoulders bore him back and placed him upon the altar as if dead.
The high-priest approached the apparently lifeless body, and bent for a moment over the face, as if to remove the left eye; then placing on a wooden tray the eye of a large hog, which had been procured for that purpose, he sent an assistant with it to Olopana, at the same time retiring within the inner court, and leaving by the side of Kamapuaa, and near his right hand, as if by accident, the sharp ivory pahoa, or dagger, with which he had, to all appearance, been operating.
Giving but a single glance at the eye presented to him by the assistant of the high-priest, Olopana passed it to an attendant without the customary semblance of eating it, and approached the altar alone. Kamapuaa did not breathe. His face was streaked with blood, his eyelids were closed, and not a single muscle moved to indicate life.
Olopana looked at the hated face for a moment, and then turned to leave the heiau, not caring to witness the ceremonies of the formal offering. As he did so Kamapuaa clutched the dagger beside his hand, and, springing from the altar, drove the blade into the back of Olopana. Again and again he applied the weapon until the chief, with a groan of anguish, fell dead at the feet of his slayer.
Horrified at what they beheld, the attendants of Olopana sprang toward their fallen chief. But their movements, whatever their import, did not disturb Kamapuaa. He had been accustomed to meeting and accepting odds in battle, and when he had secured possession of the ihe and huge axe of stone conveniently placed for his use behind the altar, he boldly approached and invited an encounter.
But the challenge was not accepted. The attendants of the chief did not ordinarily lack courage, but they were unnerved at the sight of a victim, slain, mutilated and laid upon the altar by the priest, coming to life and springing to his feet full-armed before his enemies.
Appearing upon the scene, the high-priest expressed great surprise and horror at what had occurred, and his assistants wildly clamored at the sacrilege; but no hand was laid upon Kamapuaa, and the friends of Olopana finally left the heiau, taking his body with them.
This tragedy in the heiau of Kawaewae created a profound excitement in the district. Had Kamapuaa been at all popular with the masses the death of Olopana at his hands would have occasioned but little indignation; but as many beside the dead chief had suffered through his plundering visitations, and hundreds of lives had been sacrificed in his pursuit and final capture, the people rose almost in a body to hunt him down and destroy him.
Hina attempted to save her son from the wrath of his enemies, but her influence was insufficient to protect him, and he again sought refuge in the mountains; but his following was small, and he finally crossed the island, and, with a party of forty or fifty reckless and adventurous spirits, set sail for the windward islands in a fleet of eight or ten canoes which he in some manner obtained from the people of Ewa.