"Wait," was the answer. "Wait till the little wahine has come and
gone."

And when the maid was gone, and the gin and milk had travelled the
way predestined of gin and milk when mixed together, Hardman Pool
waited without further urge for the story. Kumuhana pressed his
hand to his chest and coughed hollowly at intervals, bidding for
encouragement; but in the end, of himself, spoke out.

"It was a terrible thing in the old days when a great alii died.
Kahekili was a great alii. He might have been king had he lived.
Who can tell? I was a young man, not yet married. You know,
Kanaka Oolea, when Kahekili died, and you can tell me how old I
was. He died when Governor Boki ran the Blonde Hotel here in
Honolulu. You have heard?"

"I was still on windward Hawaii," Pool answered. "But I have
heard. Boki made a distillery, and leased Manoa lands to grow
sugar for it, and Kaahumanu, who was regent, cancelled the lease,
rooted out the cane, and planted potatoes. And Boki was angry, and
prepared to make war, and gathered his fighting men, with a dozen
whaleship deserters and five brass six-pounders, out at Waikiki--"

"That was the very time Kahekili died," Kumuhana broke in eagerly.
"You are very wise. You know many things of the old days better
than we old kanakas."

"It was 1829," Pool continued complacently. "You were twenty-eight
years old, and I was twenty, just coming ashore in the open boat
after the burning of the Black Prince."