Whilst she was warming herself in the cave, there appeared at the narrow edge a slave, sent by Tutanekai, to fetch some water; and when he had filled his calabash Hinemoa called out to him: ‘Slave, for whom is that water?’—and the frightened slave answered: ‘For Tutanekai, my ariki.’ Hinemoa spoke: ‘If it is for Tutanekai, then give it to me,’—and the frightened slave reached her the calabash, and she drank and broke it on the rocks. The slave called out: ‘Why did you break Tutanekai’s calabash?’ But Hinemoa never answered.
Again did Tutanekai send the slave, and again spoke Hinemoa: ‘Give me Tutanekai’s calabash’—and again the frightened slave reached it to her into the darkness, and she drank and broke it again.
When Tutanekai heard the words of the slave, he reached full of wrath for his war-weapon of whalebone, calling, so that it sounded all over the island: ‘Woe be to the man, woe be to the bad spirit, woe be to him who broke my calabashes! I will make a calabash out of his skull!’”
Harsh come the words from Ngawai’s lips, but full of laughter are her eyes, and she wanders a while, smiling to herself.
“Tutanekai, in the dark cave, his powerful weapon lifted for a deadly blow cried fiercely: ‘Who is that enemy, that I may give his name to my cup which I will make out of his skull?’
A voice answered softly out the darkness: ‘It is I’—and the beautiful Rangatira, dressed in her flowing hair, stretched longingly her arms towards Tutanekai: ‘O, Tutanekai, my ariki, kill me, kill Hinemoa.’
Ha! the powerful weapon fell to the ground like a useless stick; forgotten was the God of War; forgotten the lizards: sorrow and fear and full of love sounds the voice out of the cave: ‘Hinemoa!’
And from the rocks it echoed over the lake: ‘Hinemoa!’”
Long is Ngawai staring in her hands, squatting down on the beach, then form her lips one word: “Hinemoa.”