On the up-piled beetling cliffs of Makua,
The ladder... is taken away... it is gone!
Your way is cut off, my man!
With you I’ve backed the uhu of Maka-pu’u,
Tugging them up the steeps of Point-o’-woods,
A cliff that stands fatherless, even as
Sheer stands the pali of Ula-mao—
And thus... you are lost!
This is but a fragment of the song which Hiiaka pours out in her efforts to calm the fateful storm which she saw piling up along the horizon. The situation was tragic. Hiiaka, daring fate, defying the dragons and monsters of the primeval world, had made the journey to Kauai, had snatched away from death the life of Lohiau and with incredible self-denial was escorting the rare youth to the arms of her sister, whose jealousy she knew to be quick as the lightning, her vengeance hot as the breath of the volcano, and now she saw this featherhead, with monstrous ingratitude, dallying with fate, calling down upon the whole party the doom she alone could appreciate, all for the smile of a siren whose charms attracted him for the moment; but, worst of all, her heart condemned her as a traitress—she loved him.
Hiiaka held the trick-card and she won; by her miraculous power she kept the game in her own hands and foiled the hopes of the lovers.