Everything being in readiness for an advance upon the stronghold of
Kaupeepee, a war-council of the assembled chiefs was called. Among
them were several who were well informed concerning the approaches
to Haupu, and the main features of the campaign were arranged without
discussion. Signals and other means of communication between the two
divisions having been agreed upon, the next morning a detachment of
two thousand men, occupying five hundred canoes, under the command
of Kana, moved around the island to blockade the entrances to Haupu,
and immediately after the main army, leaving a strong reserve to guard
the canoes and look after supplies, broke camp and took up its line
of march across the island to the mountains back of the fortress. The
trails were rough, but at sunrise the next morning the land division,
stretched along the summit of the hills two miles back of Haupu,
looked down and saw the fleet of Kana drawn like a broad, black line
around the ocean entrances to the doomed stronghold.
Meantime Kaupeepee had not been idle. Every movement of the enemy had
been watched; and when word came to him that the shores of Kaunakakai
were so crowded with warriors that the number could not be told,
he grimly answered: "Then will our spears be less likely to miss!"
The walls of the fortress had been strengthened and replenished with
missiles; large quantities of provisions had been secured, and sheds
of ample space were finally erected for the collection of rain-water,
should communication be interrupted with the streams in the gulches
below. Before the enemy had reached positions completely cutting off
retreat from the fortress, Kaupeepee had called his warriors together
and thus addressed them:
"Warriors and friends!--for all, indeed, are warriors and friends in
Haupu!--for years you have shared in the dangers of Kaupeepee and have
never disobeyed him. Listen now to his words, and heed them well. A
mighty army is about to surround Haupu by land and sea. It already
blackens the shores of Kaunakakai, and will soon be thundering at our
gates. The fight will be long and desperate, and may end in defeat
and death to the most or all of us. I cannot order, cannot even ask
you to face such peril for my sake. The gates are open. Let all leave
with my good-will whose lives are precious to them. Let your acts
answer at once, for the enemy is approaching and no time can be lost!"
For a moment not a warrior of the thousand present moved. All stood
staring at their chief and wondering that he should doubt. Then a
confused hum of voices, rising louder and louder, swelled into a
united shout of "Close the gates!" and Kaupeepee was answered. And
a braver answer was never given than that which came from the stout
hearts and unblanched lips of the thousand fearless defenders of
Haupu. The gates were closed, with not a single warrior missing,
and the fortress was soon environed with its enemies.
Halting his army on the summit of the mountains overlooking Haupu,
Niheu despatched a messenger to the fortress with a signal of peace,
to ascertain with certainty whether Hina was a prisoner there, and,
if so, to demand the surrender of the captive. The messenger returned
in safety, bearing this message from Kaupeepee: "Hina is within the
walls of Haupu. Come with arms in your hands and take her!"
Communication was established with the fleet in front of Haupu, and
Kana was advised to enter the gulches in force the next morning,
destroy the canoes of the fortress, and maintain a footing there,
if possible, while a strong division of the land forces would move
down and draw attention to the rear defences by taking a position
within attacking distance.
In pursuance of this plan, early next morning Niheu despatched a
formidable force down the mountain in the rear of Haupu, with orders
to menace but not to assault the defences. Arriving near the walls,
a little skirmishing ensued, when the detachment took a position
beyond the reach of the slingers, and began the construction of a
stone wall across the ridge.
Meantime Kana's fleet of canoes, which had been hovering nearer and
nearer the walls of Haupu since daylight, with a wild battle-cry
from the warriors crowding them suddenly dashed through the surf,
and partially succeeded in effecting a landing in one of the
gulches flanking the fortress. So rapid had been the movement, and
so thoroughly had the attention of the besieged been engrossed with
the diversion from the mountains, that a division of the assaulting
party managed to reach the canoes of the fortress, and another to
secure a lodgment among the rocks on the opposite side of the gulch,
before meeting with serious opposition. The score or two of warriors
left to guard the canoes of the fortress were quickly overpowered
and slaughtered, and then the work of destruction began. With loose
rocks and heavy stone hammers the canoes were being hastily broken
in pieces, including the great war-barge of Kaupeepee, when from the
walls above the destroyers was precipitated a bewildering and murderous
avalanche of rocks of all sizes and heavy sections of tree-trunks. As
the missiles rolled and bounded down the steep declivity, sweeping it
at almost the same moment for two hundred yards or more in length,
the ground trembled as with an earthquake, and the gorge was filled
with a dense cloud of dust.
The thunder of the avalanche ceased, and in the awful silence that
succeeded Kaupeepee, at the head of two hundred warriors, dashed down
the narrow path leading from the middle terrace to finish the dreadful
work with spear, knife and battle-axe. The sight was appalling,
even to the chief of Haupu. The gulch was choked with the bodies of
the dying and the dead. Panic-stricken, those posted on the opposite
hillside had abandoned their only place of safety, and perished in
large numbers in attempting to reach their canoes. The few left alive
and able to retreat were wildly struggling to escape seaward from
the gulch in such canoes of their wrecked fleet as would still float,
or by plunging desperately into the surf.
With exultant shouts Kaupeepee and his warriors sprang over their
dead and dying enemies and swept down upon the unarmed and escaping
remnant of the invaders. Although a considerable reserve of canoes
came to their rescue from without, protected from assault from above
by the presence of Kaupeepee and his party, the most of the fugitives
would have been cut off but for the extraordinary efforts of Kana, who
led the attacking party, but miraculously escaped unhurt. In the surf,
in the deep entrance to the gulch, everywhere he moved around with his
head and shoulders above the water. He assisted the canoes through the
breakers, rescued exhausted and drowning swimmers, and from the bottom
of the ocean reached down and gathered huge rocks, which he hurled
at intervals at Kaupeepee's warriors to keep them in check. These
wonderful exploits awed the attacking party, and greater still was
their astonishment when they saw the strange being finally walk
through the deep waters, erect and with his head and breast exposed,
and step into a canoe quite half a mile from the shore. Turning to his
warriors, with these words Kaupeepee answered their looks of inquiry:
"He is Kana. I have heard of him. I am glad he escaped."
Kana returned with his shattered fleet and still worsely shattered
army to Kaunakakai. As the most of his canoes had been destroyed,
Kaupeepee was unable to follow the retreating enemy to sea, but,
hearing the shouts of conflict above, at once mounted with his
warriors to the fortress, to assist in repelling an attack on the
rear wall which had been hastily begun to save, if possible, the sea
party from destruction. With Kaupeepee at the front the assault was
quickly repulsed, the enemy retiring in confusion behind the lines
of defence from which the advance had been made.
The wounded in the gulch were despatched, six of the least injured
being reserved for sacrifice, and the night following the fortress of
Haupu was ablaze with savage joy. As the first-fruits of the victories
of the day, the six wounded prisoners were slain with clubs and laid
upon the altar of the heiau as offerings to the gods, and chants of
defiance were sent through the night air to the discomfited enemy
beyond the walls.
These disasters did not dishearten Niheu. The canoes of the fortress
had been destroyed, and that was something of a compensation for the
loss of nearly two thousand of his best warriors and a considerable
part of his fleet. Plans for further assaults from the sea were
abandoned, and a regular siege, with a final entrance by the rear wall,
was suggested and in the end agreed to by the chiefs in council.
Lines of pickets were accordingly stationed along the summits of the
mountains flanking the fortress, in order to prevent the entrance into
it of reinforcements or supplies, and the main body of the attacking
force was moved down and placed in positions within slinging distance
of the rear wall. This was not done without loss, for the wall was
manned with expert slingers; but in less than a week the besiegers
had advanced their main line of wooden defences within a hundred paces
of the rear bulwark of the fortress and were daily gaining ground.
This movable line of assault and defence was a device as ingenious as
it was effective. Timbers twenty feet in length, or corresponding with
the height of the wall, were firmly corded together side by side until
they stretched across the narrow summit leading to the fortress. To
the top of each fourth or fifth timber was lashed a movable brace
thirty feet in length, and then the wooden wall was raised into the
air nearly erect, and securely held in that position by its line of
supporting braces. It was a formidable-looking structure. Against
it the missiles of the besieged fell harmless, and behind it the
besiegers worked in safety.
Section by section and foot by foot this moving line of timber was
advanced, until the warriors on the wall could almost touch it with
their spears. Several desperate sorties, to destroy or prostrate
it, had been made, but nothing beyond the cutting of a few of the
lower fastenings had been achieved; and the defenders of Haupu,
with tightened grasp of their weapons, grimly awaited the final
assault, which they felt would not long be delayed. Day after day,
night after night, they watched; but the wooden wall did not move,
and they could only guess at what was going on behind it.
Finally a night of inky darkness came--a night "as dark as the farthest
confines of Po"--bringing with it a storm of wind and rain. In the
midst of the storm the wooden wall began to move, but so noiselessly
that the advance was not perceived by the fortress sentinels. Midnight
came and went; the storm continued, and nearer and nearer to the
wall of stone was crowded the wall of timber. Just as coming day
began to streak the east the bases of the two walls came together,
the backward inclination of both leaving them a few feet apart at
their tops. Hundreds of men then laid hold of the braces, and in a
moment the wooden wall was shoved over and stayed against the other.
The alarm was given within, and warriors from all parts of the
enclosure sprang toward the menaced wall. But the movement of their
enemies was not less prompt. Up the braces they swarmed in such numbers
that the few who had succeeded in reaching the top of the wall from
within were hurled from it, and after them poured a cataract of spears
against which the opposing force was powerless. The huge stone was
rolled back, the gate was opened, and soon the upper terrace was
cleared and five thousand warriors, led by Niheu in person, were
sweeping down to complete their work of slaughter.
But their victory was not to be cheaply purchased. They had slain two
or three hundred on the wall and around the gate, but thrice as many
more, under the desperate leadership of Kaupeepee, were stretched like
a wall across the middle terrace, with a resolution to contest every
pace of the ground with their lives. They might have escaped, perhaps,
down the paths leading from that terrace to the gulches; but they
preferred to die, as they had for years lived, in defence of Haupu.
Down the terrace swept the victorious horde in the gray dawn of
the morning. Niheu vainly tried to hold his warriors in check, for
he knew the main body of the fortress force was still before him,
and would have advanced with prudence; but the voices of the leaders
were drowned in the battle-shouts of the surging throng, which in a
few minutes struck Kaupeepee's wall of spears and battle-axes, and
rolled back like a storm-wave broken against the front of Haupu. But
the check was only momentary, for immediately behind the shattered
column was a forest of advancing spears, and with a wild tumult of
shouts and clashing weapons the entire force was precipitated upon
Kaupeepee's thin but resolute lines of defence.
The slaughter was frightful; but the unequal conflict could have but
one result. Kaupeepee and the fifty or less of his followers left
standing were crowded, fighting step by step, into the lower terrace,
and thence to the heiau, and finally to the temple as a last place
of defence. There the struggle was brief. The roof of the temple
was fired, and as Kaupeepee and the last of his devoted band sprang
from the blazing building to die at the throats of their enemies they
were struck down with their javelins in the air. A spear penetrated
the breast of Kaupeepee. As a last act he poised his ihe to hurl
at a helmeted chief who had just struggled to the front. The chief
was Niheu. By his dress or face, which bore a resemblance to the
features of Hina, Kaupeepee must have recognized him. He looked, but
his arm did not move. "Not for your sake, but for hers!" exclaimed the
dying warrior, dropping his weapon to the earth and falling lifeless
beside it.
Not one of the defenders of Haupu escaped, but more than one-half of
Niheu's army perished in the various assaults upon the fortress. Hina
was found uninjured, and, while there was great joy to her in the
embrace of her sons and aged mother, she wept over the death of
Kaupeepee, who with his love had made light her long imprisonment.
The body of Kaupeepee was given to Keoloewa for interment, as were
also the remains of Moi, who was among the last to fall. The walls
of Haupu were levelled, never to be raised again, and Hina returned
to her husband in Hilo, after a separation of nearly eighteen years,
thus bringing to a close one of the most romantic legends of early
Hawaiian chivalry.