Down to the beach came the King with a great spear in his hand. “Who shall have the first chance with the spear?” he cried out when he saw Paka, [[86]]“the stranger or the son of the soil?” “The son of the soil,” answered Paka.
When that answer was made the King threw his spear in the full belief that it would go through the stranger, for he had never missed his throw. As the spear neared him Paka moved; he moved aside ever so slightly. He made a quick motion of his elbow outward, and he allowed the spear to enter between his arm and his body. He closed his arm on the spear as the wind whistled by, and the point of the spear quivered where he held it. The spear was held for a moment; then Paka let it fall down.
The King was sure he had struck the stranger, and he uttered his triumph in a chant.
“How could he stand against my spear?
It never misses what it is flung at!
Not the blade of grass,
Not the ant, not the flea!
How then could it miss the stranger, a man?”
But when he had uttered all this he saw Paka let the spear drop from under his arm. The King looked on him with amazement, and he chanted this:
“How did my spear miss the mark?