Promptly at the time appointed the principals were on the ground. The attendants of Kamaiole were nowhere to be seen. By his orders they had quietly left the village two hours before, and the only friend at his side was Nanoa. He had thrown aside his cloak and helmet, and stood stern and motionless at the place assigned him, with a spear in his right hand, and another, with a javelin, at his feet. With limbs and shoulders bare, and beard and hair black as midnight veiling his neck, Kamaiole leaned upon his spear a picture of barbaric strength and courage.
Thirty paces in front of Kamaiole stood Waikuku, similarly armed and clad, but less calm than his adversary. Around him were a score or more of high chiefs, some rallying and others advising him; but he remained gloomily silent, nervously awaiting the arrival of the king and the word for action.
In a few minutes Kanipahu, accompanied by a number of armed attendants, arrived and took a seat prepared for him at a point about equally distant from the two combatants. It being announced that everything was in readiness, the king signaled the word to be given, and the hostile chiefs, advancing five paces each, were in a moment balancing their long spears for flight. The spear of Waikuku first shot through the air in a line direct for his adversary’s breast; but the latter adroitly turned it from its course with a touch from his own weapon, which he in turn launched at Waikuku without effect. The second spears were thrown to the injury of neither, when they grasped their javelins and slowly and warily began to advance. It was an exciting moment. As each had gripped his weapon with both hands, it was apparent that neither ihe would be thrown, and a hand-to-hand struggle was inevitable.
The king drew nearer to obtain a better view of the closing conflict, and the spectators eagerly watched every movement of the advancing chiefs. Approaching within striking distance—the javelins being about six feet in length—a few feints were made, and Waikuku ventured a desperate thrust at the breast of his opponent. The movement was evidently expected, perhaps invited, for like a flash the point of the ihe was thrown into the air, and the next moment Waikuku received a thrust through the side. He fell, javelin in hand, and Kamaiole was lifting his weapon to strike his prostrate enemy to the heart when “Stop!” came the command of the king.
Heedless of the royal order, or too greatly excited to be able to restrain his hand, Kamaiole savagely drove his javelin into the breast of Waikuku, inflicting a death-wound.
“Downward the face!” thundered the king, exasperated at Kamaiole’s apparent defiance of his order.
The chiefs began to move forward to seize or slay the offender. Knowing that his death had been decreed, Kamaiole recklessly poised his ihe, red with the life-blood of Waikuku, and with a wild cry of “Yes, downward the face!” hurled it at the heart of Kanipahu.
With exclamations of rage and horror the spectators sprang toward Kamaiole, the most of them dropping their unwieldy spears and grasping their pahoas, or daggers of ivory or hardened wood, as they advanced.
For an instant Kamaiole hesitated whether to defend himself to the death with the javelin of the dying chief, or take the almost equally desperate chances of escape by breaking through the lines of his encircling enemies. He chose the latter, and, grasping the javelin, started toward the king, with the view of drawing his assailants in that direction. This object being accomplished, he suddenly turned to the right, and charged and made an opening through the throng at a point that seemed to be the weakest. As he flew past the yielding line he miraculously escaped the spear and knife thrusts aimed at him, and succeeded in putting himself beyond the reach of spear and sling before real pursuit was made.
The javelin hurled at the king was received in the shoulder of a faithful attendant who had opportunely thrown himself in front of his royal master; and so rapid and confusing were the movements following that Kanipahu had scarcely recovered from his consternation at the bold assault upon his life before he learned that Kamaiole had escaped. Giving orders for a vigorous pursuit of the fugitive, the king walked to the body of Waikuku, and, discovering that life was extinct, directed its respectful removal, and then proceeded sadly to the royal mansion.
Kamaiole was not overtaken. He was strong and fleet of foot, and, as darkness soon intervened in his favor, he was able to elude his pursuers. He reached the coast in safety, and, boarding a canoe awaiting him in charge of his attendants, set sail for Kau. This provision for a hasty flight from Kohala renders it certain that Kamaiole meditated desperate work on landing there, and the relation of his subsequent exploits has shown how successfully he performed it.
II.
Kamaiole supposed he had killed his sister, and Waikuku, who had seen her just before his unfortunate encounter, thought she had but a few minutes to live; but the wounds inflicted did not prove fatal, and Iola finally recovered and became the mother of a daughter to her dead husband. Tradition attributes her recovery to the especial prayers of the high-priest, but careful nursing and a good constitution were probably the saving means, assisted by the fortunate escape of the vital organs from serious injury.
Returning to Kau, Kamaiole began to prepare for war at once, not doubting that Kanipahu, defied and assaulted at the very gates of the royal mansion, would feel it his duty to bring him to submission. Sending emissaries through the several districts, he appealed to the native chiefs and people to join him in a revolt against Kanipahu, for the purpose of transferring the sovereignty of the island to a ruler of the old Nanaula line, and restoring to them the simple worship of their fathers and the possessions of which they had been despoiled by the southern invaders.
The appeal was not without effect. Substantial aid was promised in Kona, Kau, Puna and Hilo, and in less than three months Kamaiole found himself at the head of an army large enough not only to protect him at Kau, which was doubtless the original purpose of the movement, but to carry the war into Kohala and effect a general revolution.
Whatever may have been the plans of Kanipahu concerning the rebellious Kau chief, he certainly seemed to be in no haste to put them in execution, for when Kamaiole arrived in Kohala at the head of his forces he was but feebly opposed. Tradition fails to account for the apathy of Kanipahu in the face of the supreme danger confronting him. All we are told is that, finding it impossible to raise an army strong enough to suppress the formidable revolt, he left his sons with a trusted friend in the valley of Waimanu, in the district of Hamakua, and sought refuge for himself on the island of Molokai. Iola, fearing to meet her brother, or that he might learn that she still lived, also found an asylum with the young sons of Kanipahu in the secluded valley of Waimanu.
Thus Kamaiole assumed the sovereignty of Hawaii almost without opposition, and Kanipahu lived quietly and unknown at Kalae, on the small island of Molokai. He dressed and comported himself as a simple commoner, performing his own work, bearing his own burdens, and accepting all the hardships to which the poor and untitled were subject. He won the love of his neighbors for his kindness, and on two occasions took up arms to assist them in repelling plundering raids from Maui; and so well did he use his weapons that his humble friends were astonished, and thought he must have been trained in the arts of war, even if he was not of chiefly blood. It is well known that the chiefs, as a class, were physically larger than the masses, so much so that they claimed, and still claim, a descent distinct from that of the common people. Kanipahu was nearer seven than six feet in height, and his size was suggestive of rank; but he habitually stooped his head and shoulders, that his height might be subject to less remark, and labored more industriously than any of his neighbors in order to convince them that he was reared to toil. And in the end, as the years came and went, toil became a comfort to him, for it occupied his thoughts and gave him dreamless and refreshing slumber.
Let us now pass over a period of eighteen years from the accession of Kamaiole to the sovereignty of Hawaii. Kanipahu was still a laborer