Peace and prosperity followed the elevation of Lono to the throne
of Hawaii. His fame as an able and sagacious ruler soon spread to
the other islands of the group, and his court as well as his person
commanded the highest respect of his subjects. Weary of inaction,
and having no desire to embroil the kingdom in a foreign war, he at
length concluded to visit some of the neighboring islands with his
queen, and particularly Kauai, which he had once seen when a boy.
Leaving the government in charge of his brother Kanaloa, Lono embarked
on his journey of pleasure with a number of large double canoes and
a brilliant retinue. He took with him poloulous, kahilis and other
emblems of state, and the hokeo, or large calabash, containing the
bones of the six rebellious chiefs slain by his royal father at the
beginning of his reign.
The double canoe provided for Kaikilani and her personal attendants
was fitted out in a manner becoming the rank of its royal occupant. It
was eighty feet in length, and the two together were seven feet in
width. Midway between stem and stern a continuous flooring covered
both canoes, which was enclosed to a height of six feet, thus providing
the queen with a room seven feet broad and twenty feet in length. The
apartment was abundantly supplied with cloths and mats of brilliant
colors, and the walls were decorated with festoons of shells and leis
of flowers and feathers. In front of the entrance stood two kahilis,
and behind a kapa screen was a carved image of Ku, surrounded by a
number of charms and sacred relics. The canoes were brightly painted
in alternate lines of black and yellow, while above their ornamented
prows towered the carved and feathered forms of two gigantic birds
with human heads. Forty oarsmen comprised the crew, and sails of mats
were ready to lift into every favoring breeze.
The double canoe of the king was smaller and less elaborately
ornamented; and as it moved out of the harbor of Hilo, bearing the
royal ensign and followed by the sumptuous barge of the queen and
the humbler crafts of servants and retainers, the shores were lined
with people, and hundred in canoes paddled after them to give them
their parting alohas beyond the reef. The auguries had not been
favorable. So said the high-priest, and so had the people whispered
to each other. But, after preparing for the journey, Lono could not
be persuaded to relinquish it. It was therefore with misgivings that
he was seen to depart; and for many days thereafter sacrifices were
offered for him in the temples, and a strict tabu was ordered for a
period of three days, during which time no labor was performed and
a solemn silence prevailed over all the land embraced in the dread
edict. Swine were confined, fires were extinguished, dogs were muzzled,
fowls were hidden under calabashes, and the priests alone were seen
and heard, and they but sparingly. Such was the strict tabu for the
propitiation of the gods in case of emergency or peril, and death
was the certain penalty of its violation.
The weather was fair, and the royal party first stopped at Lahaina. It
had been Lono's purpose to spend a week or more at the court of
Kamalalawalu, but the moi was absent at the time, and the squadron
left Maui the next day for Oahu. A fair wind wafted the party through
Pailolo channel to the western point of Molokai. The sky was clear,
and Lono began to discern the tops of the mountains of eastern Oahu,
when one of his nephews threw his spear into and wounded a large
shark which for some time had been slowly moving around the bows of
the canoe. In an instant the weapon was thrown back with a violence
which drove the point through the rim of the boat. Blood tinged the
waves, but the shark disappeared.
Before Lono could recover from his astonishment a furious wind rose
from the south and west, and the fleet was driven around to the
north side of Molokai, and finally succeeded in effecting a landing
at Kalaupapa. Two of the canoes were destroyed during the gale, and
the thoughtless young chief who cast the spear was washed into the
sea and devoured by a school of black sharks before assistance could
reach him. Landing with his party, Lono learned from a priest the
cause of the disaster that had overtaken him. It was the god Moaalii,
who had taken his characteristic form of a shark and was guiding the
fleet to Oahu, that had been wounded by Lono's nephew.
The weather continued boisterous for some days, and Lono and his
party became the guests of the chiefs of Kalaupapa. It was not a
very inviting spot, and to beguile the time Lono and Kaikilani amused
themselves with the game of konane, played upon a checkered board and
closely resembling the game of draughts. One day, when thus occupied
in the shade of a palm near the foot of an abrupt hill, Lono heard a
voice above them. He gave but little attention to it until the name
of Kaikilani was pronounced. He listened without raising his head,
and soon heard the voice repeat:
"Ho, Kaikilani! Your lover, Heakekoa, is waiting for you!"
Lono looked up, but could see no one above them. He inquired the
meaning of such words addressed to the wife of the moi of Hawaii;
but the queen, seemingly confused, was either unable or unwilling
to offer any explanation. Enraged at what he hastily conceived to
be an evidence of her infidelity, Lono seized the konane board and
struck her senseless and bleeding to the earth. Without waiting to
learn the result of his barbarous blow, Lono strode to the beach,
and, ordering his canoe launched, set sail at once for Oahu, without
leaving any orders for the remainder of the fleet.
As he shoved from the shore Kaikilani approached, and, holding out
her blood-stained hands, pitifully implored him to remain or take her
with him; but he waved her back in anger and resolutely put out to
sea. She watched the canoe of her impetuous husband until it became a
speck in the distance, and then with a despairing moan sank senseless
upon the sands.
Kaikilani was tenderly borne to her domicile by her attendants, and for
nine days struggled with a fever which threatened her life. During all
that time she tasted neither fish nor poi, but in her delirium appealed
continually to Lono, declaring that no one had called to her from the
cliffs. On the tenth day her mind was clear and she partook of food,
and then on her hands and knees a young woman crawled to the side of
her kapa-moe, and, having permission to speak, said:
"O queen, I am the innocent cause of your misery, and my heart breaks
for you. I am the daughter of the chief Keeokane, and he has sent me
to you. Heakekoa loves me, and it was my name, Kaikinane, that he
called from the cliffs, and not yours. It is better that confusion
should come to me than shame and grief to the queen of Hawaii."
Kaikilani admonished her attendants to remember the words of the
girl, that they might be able, if necessary, to repeat them to Lono,
and then dismissed her with presents and a promise to speak kindly of
her to her father, who was greatly annoyed at the distress which the
indiscretion of his daughter had brought to their distinguished guest.
As soon as she had sufficiently recovered, Kaikilani, not knowing what
had become of her husband, sorrowfully returned to Hawaii in the hope
of finding him there and explaining away the cause of his anger. But
the news of Lono's assault upon her and his sudden departure from
Molokai had preceded her, probably through the return of some of the
canoes of the fleet, and when she arrived at Kohala she found the
kingdom in a state of rebellion.
With the avowed intent of slaying Lono, should he return to Hawaii,
Kanaloa had assumed the regency, supported by the principal chiefs
of the island, the relatives of the queen, and all the brothers of
Lono with the exception of Pupuakea, a stalwart and warlike son of
Keawenui by an humble mother unnamed in the royal annals, and who
had large possessions in the district of Kau.
But Kaikilani still loved her hot-headed but instinctively generous
husband, and refused to give countenance to the revolt raised in her
behalf. She therefore hastily left Kohala at night, and, so sailing
as to escape the observation of the rebels, suddenly appeared off the
coast of Kau and placed herself in communication with Pupuakea, the
only chief of note that still adhered to the fortunes of Lono. He had
succeeded in rallying to the support of his cause a very considerable
force, but he knew that it would avail him little against the united
armies of the opposition, and after a full consideration of the
situation it was decided that Pupuakea should remain on the defensive
until the return of Lono, of whom Kaikilani resolved to go at once
in search.
With this understanding Kaikilani, inspired by the hope of winning back
her husband's love, after a few preparations started on her errand;
but not before she had made sacrifices to the gods and implored
their assistance, and Pupuakea brought word to her from the temple
that the auguries of her journey showed a line of dark clouds ending
in sunshine. But what cared she for clouds, if the sunshine of Lono's
presence was to come at last? But where was Lono? Perhaps in the bottom
of the sea; but, if alive, she resolved to find him, even though the
search took her through all the group to the barren rocks of Kaula.
Rounding the capes of Kau and sailing nearly northward, Kaikilani
first stopped at Lahaina; but a week spent there convinced her that
Lono was not on the island of Maui. The moi treated her with great
respect and kindness, and offered to assist in the search for her
husband on the other islands; but she declined his services, and next
visited Lanai. Causing a thorough search to be made of that island,
and despatching a party to the windy wastes of Kahoolawe, the queen
proceeded to Molokai, to assure herself that Lono had not returned to
Kalaupapa, and then set sail for Oahu. She first landed at Waikiki, on
that island, but, learning that the king had established his court at
Kailua, departed for that place the next day, and reached it without
difficulty, for the captain of her crew was the distinguished old
navigator, Kukupea, who for a wager, in the reign of Keawenui, had made
the direct passage in a canoe between the Hawaiian bay of Kealakeakua
and the island of Niihau without sighting intermediate land.