The eyes of Pele were literally, as well as metaphorically, opened. She turned herself about and, in a lowered voice, with a show of astonishment, for the first time, addressed Hiiaka: “Is this true, that you worked over Lohiau and restored him to life?”
“It is true, and it is also true that, not until you had put to death Hopoe, did I bestow any dalliance or caress of love upon Lohiau.”
Hiiaka’s expression as she faced Pele was such as might have sat upon the countenance of a judge passing sentence on a confessed criminal at the bar.
Pele sat impenetrable, sphinxlike, deep in her own labyrinthine philosophy of the obligations due to a social autocrat and a goddess.
Paoa broke the silence: “Shall not Lohiau, then, live again?”
“Go back to Haena,” said Pele, “and when you hear that Lohiau lives again, then will be the time for you to come and take him home.”
“That would be well, then,” said Paoa.
A spell of confusion, of enchantment, seemed now to fall upon the man whilom so boastful. “But where is Pele?” he asked, looking from face to face.
“That is Pele,” said the goddess, pointing to her sister Wave (Hiiaka-i-ka-ale-i).
“I have a sign by which I may know Pele; let me apply the test to these women,” said Paoa.