Then Ala-la smoothed a board so that it would float steadily on the water, and he gave it to his son Pi-ko-i. Pi-ko-i then went where the crowd was; and this was the first time he had ever been with a crowd.
He had a sharp face, and he had little bones, and he had hair that was like a rat’s hair. When the crowd saw him they cried out, “A rat, a rat! What is a rat doing amongst us?” Pi-ko-i did not mind what they said; he went to where they were casting their boards on the current, and he cast on it the board that his father had smoothed for him.
It floated the steadiest of all the boards. It floated in one place without being carried down the rapids. The crowd shouted for Pi-ko-i. Then the other boys got jealous of him; they took his board, and they flung it over the rapids. Pi-ko-i jumped after his board. He was carried over the rapids and down to the sea. “A good riddance,” said the boys to each other. “What business has a rat coming amongst us?” [[71]]
Pi-ko-i was carried out to sea. For two days and two nights he floated on the currents of the ocean, and then he was washed up on the beach of another Island.
Now it happened that where he was washed up was near where his older sisters, I-ol-e and O-pea-pea, lived with their husbands. A man came down to the beach and found Pi-ko-i, and this man was Kaua, the good servant of I-ol-e and O-pea-pea. “Where have you come from?” said Kaua to Pi-ko-i when he found him on the beach, all wearied out, and weak from hunger and the buffeting of the ocean. “From the sea,” said Pi-ko-i. “Come with me,” said the good servant, and he brought the boy to his sisters’ house.
The servant spoke to the sisters and he said, “I found him lying on the sand, and all he says is that he has come from the sea.” “Where are you from? Where were you born, and who are your parents?” said the sisters to him. Pi-ko-i answered: “I am from Wai-lua on the Island of Kau-ai; Ala-la is my father, and Kou-kou is my mother.”
When he told them this, the women of the house knew that the boy was their brother. They sprang upon him, and they cried over him, and they told him that they were his sisters.
And then their husbands came home, and a great feast was prepared for Pi-ko-i. A pig was killed, yams were made ready, and pig and yams were put [[72]]into the underground oven to cook. But while the cooking was being done, Pi-ko-i left the house and wandered off to where there was a crowd and where games were being played.
The King and the Queen were at these games. It was a game of shooting that was on; a man was shooting arrows at rats, and the King and the Queen were making wagers on his shooting.
It was a Prince who was shooting arrows at the rats—Prince Mai-ne-le—and all thought that his aim was most wonderful. The King was winning all her property from the Queen, for he was laying wagers all the time on Mai-ne-le’s shooting.