CHAPTER XXIII 
Very heavy hearted was Laieikawai at her husband’s death, so she 
mourned ten days and two (twelve days) for love of him. 
While Laieikawai mourned, her counsellors wondered, for Laiei- 
kawai had given them her charge before going to Keaau. 
“Wait for me ten days, and should I not return,” she had bidden 
them as told in Chapter X XIT; so clearly she was in trouble. 
And the time having passed which Laieikawai charged her com- 
panions to wait, Aiwohikupua’s sisters awoke early in the morning 
of the twelfth day and went to look after their comrade. 
They went to Keaau, and as they approached and Laieikawai spied 
her counsellors she poured out her grief with wailing. 
Now her counsellors marveled at her wailing and remembered 
her saying “some evil has befallen”; at her wailing and at her 
gestures of distress, for Laieikawai was kneeling on the ground with 
one hand clapped across her back and the other at her forehead, and 
she wailed aloud as follows: 
O you who come to me—alas! 
Here I am, 
My heart is trembling, 
There is a rushing at my heart for love. 
Because the man is gone—my close companion! 
He has departed. 
He has departed, my lehua blossom, spicy kookoolau, 
With his soft pantings, 
Tremulous, thick gaspings, 
Proud flower of my heart, 
Behold—alas ! 
Behold me desolate— 
The first faint fear branches and grows—I can not bear it! 
My heart is darkened 
With love. 
Alas, my husband! 
When her companions heard Laieikawai wailing, they all wailed 
with her. 
520 
