-had been chafing
under the restraints imposed or attempted by his high priest, a
blameless man whose age and long service should have gained even a
king's consideration. It was approaching a new-year feast (the end
of December), toward the close of the twelfth century, and Hua had
made such levies on his people for useless wars and wasteful orgies
that the old man was moved to protest. Hua paid no attention to him,
but loudly ordered his hunters to go to the mountains and bring him
some water-birds for his table.

"Those birds can be found only by the sea," ventured the priest.

"You countermand my orders, do you?" roared the monarch.

"I gave no order," protested the venerable man.

"Hark you," insisted the king. "My men are going to the mountain. If
they find the birds there--and they will--you shall be slain as a
rebel and a false prophet."

Seeing that his master desired his death, the priest bowed and made no
answer. He went to his sons, who were studying for the priesthood,
prevailed on them to fly to Mount Haleakala, and probably hoped
to follow them, but being slow and lame with years, the hunters had
returned before he could escape. They bore their prey, the water-birds,
and said they had found them inland. Knowing this to be a lie, told
by the king's command, the priest said, "These birds came from the
sea. You can smell it upon them. Look." And he cut open two or three
of their bodies. "Here are little fish and bits of seaweed they have
eaten within the hour."

Enraged at the discovery of his paltry subterfuge, the king caught up
a spear and thrust it into the old man's heart. Though everything is
permitted to a king, the people could not repress a groan of horror,
and one by one they stole away from the spot, fearful of what might
follow this sacrilege. Well might they fear. The body of the priest
had barely reached the wooden cross that marked the temple-ground
as sacred when its bearers dropped it upon the earth and fled, for
a sudden fever smote the ground; hot, stifling winds began to blow;
the images of the gods wailed and moaned; the sky was red and dripped
blood, and the altar that was to have received the body sank through
the rock, leaving a hole from which gushed steam and dust. At that hour
every well, brook, and spring in the island went dry, save a rill in
a cave back of Hana that the gods devoted to the daughter-in-law of
the murdered priest and to the old woman who attended her, while