Rice — Ha-iVaiian Legends 99 



he swam ashore and heard the great wailing over the sudden death of his 

 older brothers. 



Niheu hurried to Uli and Kana to tell them the sad news. Kana then 

 told his brother to call the astrologer and the crews for the canoes. After 

 everything was prepared, the people carried Kana to the sea. 



Mo-i, the famous kahuna of Molokai, saw all these preparations to 

 rescue Haka-lani-leo going on, on Hawaii. He called the plover and said, 

 "Go to our lord, the King, and say that I have had a dream. If he wishes 

 to escape harm he must return the woman he has stolen. If he refuses to 

 do this, dire calamity will befall him. The crop of coconuts and taro will 

 fail. A-a, small lava stones, will cover the land." 



The plover flew to the entrance of the palace and made known to the 

 king the dream of his kahuna. The king answered that no soldier was 

 brave enough to come to Molokai and attempt to conquer her king. 



Soon after, Mo-i slept and dreamed again. The plover, seeing his lips 

 move, awakened him and asked why he was muttering in his sleep. Mo-i 

 sent the plover to warn the king to send back the woman before the wards 

 of Uli should come to rescue her, and to bring disaster to Molokai. 



The king, in anger, sent his messenger to tell Mo-i to dream no more, 

 or he would be punished. 



Keoloewa then called his body guard of plovers, and told them to fly 

 over the world to see if any soldiers were preparing for a trip to Molokai. 

 The plovers flew everywhere and, seeing no soldiers, all but one returned 

 to the king. This one plover remained on Hawaii. He flew into the house 

 of Uli. Then he w^ent to Hilo and ran along the beach until he became 

 thirsty. After he had gone to a stream for a drink, he flew back to the 

 beach where he saw the tracks of a man in the sand. Each track was 

 a fathom long and a yard wide. 



With this information the plover returned to Molokai where he found 

 that the king had built a big fire, to put to death the bird messengers 

 because they had brought no news to him. When the king heard the 

 report of the one plover who had stayed behind, he put out the fire and 

 spared the lives of the others. He believed that there was no strong man 

 on Hawaii as the messengers had seen none. 



In the meantime Mo-i dreamed again and as before sent the plover to 

 the king with this message : "O King, return the woman within three days, 

 or the war canoes will be seen approaching our island. In my dream I 

 saw a figure flying above the fortress of Haupu. The head was higher 

 than the mountain. The eyes were as bright as the evening star." 



