where Koolau
ruled; but such a mountaineer must be very cool of head, and he must know
the wild-goat trails as well. The marvel was that the mass of human
wreckage that constituted Koolau's people should have been able to drag
its helpless misery over the giddy goat-trails to this inaccessible spot.

"Brothers," Koolau began.

But one of the mowing, apelike travesties emitted a wild shriek of
madness, and Koolau waited while the shrill cachination was tossed back
and forth among the rocky walls and echoed distantly through the
pulseless night.

"Brothers, is it not strange? Ours was the land, and behold, the land is
not ours. What did these preachers of the word of God and the word of
Rum give us for the land? Have you received one dollar, as much as one
dollar, any one of you, for the land? Yet it is theirs, and in return
they tell us we can go to work on the land, their land, and that what we
produce by our toil shall be theirs. Yet in the old days we did not have
to work. Also, when we are sick, they take away our freedom."

"Who brought the sickness, Koolau?" demanded Kiloliana, a lean and wiry
man with a face so like a laughing faun's that one might expect to see
the cloven hoofs under him. They were cloven, it was true, but the
cleavages were great ulcers and livid putrefactions. Yet this was
Kiloliana, the most daring climber of them all, the man who knew every
goat-trail and who had led Koolau and his wretched followers into the
recesses of Kalalau.

"Ay, well questioned," Koolau answered. "Because we would not work the
miles of sugar-cane where once our horses pastured, they brought the
Chinese slaves from overseas. And with them came the Chinese
sickness--that which we suffer from and because of which they would
imprison us on Molokai. We were born on Kauai. We have been to the
other islands, some here and some there, to Oahu, to Maui, to Hawaii, to
Honolulu. Yet always did we come back to Kauai. Why did we come back?
There must be a reason. Because we love Kauai. We were born here. Here
we have lived. And here shall we die--unless--unless--there be weak
hearts amongst us. Such we do not want. They are fit for Molokai. And
if there be such, let them not remain. Tomorrow the soldiers land on the
shore. Let the weak hearts go down to them. They will be sent swiftly
to Molokai. As for us, we shall stay and fight. But know that we will
not die. We have rifles. You know the narrow