Captain Cook tried to persuade the king to go to the ship with him. The king was held back by [[111]]his chiefs. They were suspicious, but the king could not readily give up his confidence.
Meanwhile, a chief living across the bay saw Captain Cook going ashore. He and another chief launched a double canoe and sailed quickly across.
Sailors saw these men in red cloaks, fired upon them from the ships and killed one of them. The other hurried his boatmen and escaped to the king’s house. Captain Cook had issued an order forbidding canoes to come near the ships. When the chief saw the king by the side of Captain Cook he cried out: “O Kalani! O the sea is not right—Kalimu has been killed! Return to the house!” He told how the sailors had fired upon his friend and himself.
Kalola, wife of Kalaniopuu, heard the death-word, and that the chief had been killed by the gun of the foreigners, so she ran out of the woman’s house, put her hand on the king’s shoulder and said, “O Kalani, let us go back.”
The king turned, thinking he would go back, but Captain Cook seized his hands. A chief thrust his spear between them, and the king and some of his chiefs went back to the house.
Then the battle commenced. When Lono (Captain Cook) saw the spear pushed between the king and himself he caught his sword and struck that chief on the head, but the sword slipped and cut the cheek. Then that chief struck Lono with his spear and knocked him down on the lava beach. [[112]]
Lono cried out because of the hurt. The chief thought, “This is a man, and not a god, and there is no wrong.” So he killed Lono (Captain Cook). Four other foreigners also were killed. Many daggers and spears were used in killing Captain Cook.
When the officers and men saw that Captain Cook and some others had been killed, they ran down, got on the boat, fired guns and killed many of the natives. Some natives skilled in the use of sling-stones threw stones against the boat. When the sailors saw that Captain Cook was dead, they fired guns from the ship. The natives held up mats as shields, but found they were no protection against the bullets.
The king offered the body of Captain Cook as a sacrifice. This sacrifice meant that the body was placed on an altar with prayers as a gift to the gods because the chief and his kingdom had been saved by the gods. When the ceremonies of the sacrifice were over, they cleaned off the flesh from the bones of Lono and preserved them. A priest kindly returned a part of the body to the foreigners to be taken on their ship. Some of the bones were kept by the priests and worshipped.
Eight days after the death of Lono at Ka-awa-loa the natives again met those who remained on the ship.