face of him?"

"That Kahekili was dead. That was what she whispered to Anapuni.
That Kahekili was dead, just dead, and that the chiefs, ordering
all within the house to remain within, were debating the disposal
of the bones and meat of him before word of his death should get
abroad. That the high priest Eoppo was deciding them, and that she
had overheard no less than Anapuni and me chosen as the sacrifices
to go the way of Kahekili and his bones and to care for him
afterward and for ever in the shadowy other world."

"The moepuu, the human sacrifice," Pool commented. "Yet it was
nine years since the coming of the missionaries."

"And it was the year before their coming that the idols were cast
down and the taboos broken," Kumuhana added. "But the chiefs still
practised the old ways, the custom of hunakele, and hid the bones
of the aliis where no men should find them and make fish-hooks of
their jaws or arrow heads of their long bones for the slaying of
little mice in sport. Behold, O Kanaka Oolea!"

The old man thrust out his tongue; and, to Pool's amazement, he saw
the surface of that sensitive organ, from root to tip, tattooed in
intricate designs.

"That was done after the missionaries came, several years
afterward, when Keopuolani died. Also, did I knock out four of my
front teeth, and half-circles did I burn over my body with blazing
bark. And whoever ventured out-of-doors that night was slain by
the chiefs. Nor could a light be shown in a house or a whisper of