Of the secret chamber under the sea,
Revealing the tricks of the merfolk twain,
Their bodies dead as the corpse of King Log,
And with them that of the Mermaid Queen;
For a ray has pierced to their resting place,
As a lightning flash illumines the deep.
You’re caught, my fellows, you’re caught!
Neither Kua nor Kahole-a-Kane were relieved of their guilty fears by Hiiaka’s soft words. They continued their flight along the same path which was soon afterwards followed by Hiiaka in her climb to Poha-kea. The only penalty inflicted by Hiiaka, when at last she came up with them and found them penitent, cowering in the brush, was their retirement from the ocean: not a light stroke, however, being almost the equivalent of taking away a mariner’s commission, thus separating him from his chosen element, his native air.