Kalaniopuu had brought part of his household with him. His chief queen, Ka-lo-la, was the sister of Kahekili. She had come to share in the victory over her brother and assist in the pacification of her former friends. The attack had been [[141]]made, and the ragged remnants of a vanquished army had come back.
He was too heavily burdened with camp equipage and suffering men for immediate fight. He proposed that they sue for peace and that his wife, Ka-lo-la, be the messenger to her brother. The queen utterly refused to face her brother. There had been too many past personalities between them, and she had evidently been a vigorous endorser of her husband’s invasions into her old homeland. Life was too precious to be risked in that brother’s presence. She proposed that the royal prince, Kiwalao, her son, be sent as ambassador.
Kiwalao was robed with all the royal elegance of a king according to the customs of that almost naked, savage life. He wore his finest neck ornaments, his most costly feather cloak and girdle and helmet. He was attended by high chiefs carrying the royal kahili, or large feather banner, and a royal calabash. These chiefs preceded the young prince as his heralds.
When his name and position were announced to the outposts of the Maui army, they fell flat on the face in the sand while he passed by. It was death to stand before a prince or a tabu chief. Kiwalao was one of the highest sacred tabu chiefs in all the islands.
Runners carried the news of the coming of this prince to the Maui king. He was lying on a mat in the royal grass house at Wailuku. Ka-lani-hale[[142]]—“the heaven house”—was the name of this home of the king.
As Kiwalao drew near the door all the Maui chiefs prostrated themselves before him, while the king lazily turned over and partly raised himself, lifting his head in token of friendly greeting. To have turned away from the prince, letting his face look down, would have been the sign of immediate death of his visitor. Kiwalao, with slow and dignified tread, crossed the room and seated himself in his uncle’s lap. Then both wailed over the troubles which had brought them together, and over the deaths among their followers.
The embassy was successful, and terms of peace between the two kings were arranged. Kalaniopuu returned to Hawaii, to begin at once a new crusade against Kahekili. During the ensuing two years the war degenerated into a series of petty raids by which he kept his wife’s brother busy marching warriors from one end of Maui to the other to repel his attacks. In 1779 the coming of Captain Cook changed the course of action and gave the people new things to think about, until Kamehameha secured white men’s arms and conquered all the islands. [[143]]