From his manner she felt uneasy and suspicious of him, and said,
"Alas! do you intend to desert me?"

Then Kaopele explained to his wife that he was not really going to
leave her, as men are wont to forsake their wives, but he foresaw
that that was soon to happen which was habitual to him, and he felt
that on the night of the morrow a deep sleep would fall upon him
(_puni ka hiamoe_), which would last for six months. Therefore,
she was not to fear.

"Do not cast me out nor bury me in the ground," said he. Then he
explained to her how he happened to be taken from Oahu to Kauai and how
he came to be her husband, and he commanded her to listen attentively
to him and to obey him implicitly. Then they pledged their love to
each other, talking and not sleeping all that night.

On the following day all the friends and neighbors assembled, and as
they sat about, remarks were made among them in an undertone, like
this, "So this is the man who was placed on the altar of the _heiau_
at Wailua." And as evening fell he bade them all _aloha_, and said
that he should be separated from them for six months, but that his
body would remain with them if they obeyed his commands. And, having
kissed his wife, he fell into the dreamful, sacred sleep of Niolo-kapu.

On the sixth day the father-in-law said: "Let us bury your husband,
lest he stink. I thought it was to be only a natural sleep, but it
is ordinary death. Look, his body is rigid, his flesh is cold, and
he does not breathe; these are the signs of death."