The “fish”—as the Hawaiians called the Milky way—was already declining in the west and beginning to pale at the approach of a new day, and Lohiau still rode the waves.
That same night Kahua-nui, Lohiau’s sister, woke from her sleep with a start. She went out of doors and, lifting her eyes to the mountain wall, saw a light gleaming in the cave where lay her brother’s body. She rubbed her eyes to remove the cobwebs of sleep—yes, there it was, a quivering light, set like an eye in the socket of the mountain wall, and figures moving about. She rushed back into the house where slept her husband and stirred him with her foot.
“What are you about!” demanded the man. “Do you want to kill me?”
“Get up; there’s a fire burning in the cave, up the mountain. Come!”
“What crazy fit possesses you,” muttered the man as he went out. “To knock my wind out with such a kick!—and there’s no fire up there, merely a star sinking in the west. That’s all there was to it. Go to bed!”
The woman was silenced but not convinced. Her sleep continued to be broken. She fancied that she heard a human voice calling to her; yet, on listening, she could distinguish only the moaning of the surf. In her restlessness she wandered forth again and stood in the cool vault of night. The endless monotone of the ocean filled her ears, but it told her nothing new. She sought her bed again and turned her face to the mat in a resolute effort to sleep. She dozed, but the subtle goddess evaded her. Thoughts of her brother floated through her mind, and the booming of the surf now seemed to assume a more intimate tone and by some witchery of the imagination led her out under the winking stars, closer to old Ocean’s moan, and made her think: how Lohiau did delight in the surf; what pleasure he took in riding the billows! Thus she murmured to herself. At that moment her straining vision detected an object moving with the waves. “Some man surfing in our tabu waters—yet how can that be? Have not all the men of the village gone over to Niihau? Paoa urged them to go.” She moved along the beach. By this time it was dawn.
“There comes a woman,” said Wahine-oma’o.
“His sister, Kahua-nui,” Hiiaka remarked quietly.
Wahine-oma’o called to her by name and went forward to meet her.
“Ah, it is you two women,” Kahua-nui exclaimed.