That night Paao could not sleep. He studied the stars. He felt a breeze that seemed to him in some way different from the ordinary sea-breezes.
“Do you feel the new wind from the eastern star?” he said softly to his steersmen.
“Aye!” they replied. “We have to hold the steering paddles more firmly.”
Paao awakened his prophet and whispered: “Does the new wind have a voice for you?”
The prophet sniffed the air, then stepped upon the high prow and breathed again.
“Aye, the wind has the voice of smoke, perhaps the smoke of the burning-mountain.”
“Say nothing about the voice. We will change our course and sail toward the bright star.”
During the day the men said, “this is a new wind and it has the storm voice.”
The next day came, and then the next. Paao and his prophet alternated between hope and fear. The awful suffering of hunger and thirst was among them. If a mistake had been made there was no possible escape from starvation. In the very early morning of the third day, as Paao was restlessly looking eastward, his wife crept to his side. [[71]]
“O my Paao,” she said, “I am about to die. I have just dreamed of the green-walled paradise. I smelled the sweet Maile blossoms and the leaves of our marriage wreath. I saw the spirits of my sons stand by the cocoanut tree. The vision is from the gods, I must surely die.”