Page:Pele and Hiiaka; a myth from Hawaii (IA pelehiiakamythfr00emeriala).pdf/30

 had jerked from its ocean bed ages before, in his futile attempt to draw together the two islands Kaua'i and Oahu and unite them into one mass.

Pele, arguing from her exasperation, said, "It must be my old grandfather Pohaku-o-Kaua'i who is playing this trick with the music. If it's he that's leading me this chase, I'll kill him."

The old fellow saw her approach and, hailing her from a distance, greeted her most heartily. Her answer was in a surly mood: "Come here! I'm going to kill you to-day. So it's you that's been fooling me with deceitful music, leading me a wearisome chase."

"Not I, I've not done this. There they are, out to sea; you can hear for yourself." And, sure enough, on listening, one could hear the throbbing of the music in the offing.

Pele acknowledged her mistake and continued her pursuit, with the parting assurance to the old soul that if he had been the guilty one, it would have been his last day of life.

The real authors of this illusive musical performance were two little creatures named Kani-ka-wi and Kani-ka-wá, the former a sprite that was embodied in the nose-flute, the latter in the hokeo, a kind of whistle, both of them used as accompaniments to the hula. Their sly purpose was to lure Pele to a place where the hula was being performed.

Pele now plunged into the water—from this point at least she swam—and, guided by the call of the music, directed her course to the little village of Haena that perched like a gull on the cape of the same name, at the northernmost point of the island of Kaua'i. It was but a few steps to the hall of the hula—the halau—where throbbed the hula drums and where was a concourse of people gathered from the whole island.