The Grave Of Pupehe
:
IN THE PACIFIC
:
Myths & Legends Of Our New Possessions & Protectorate
Just off the southwest shore of Lanai is a block of lava eighty or
ninety feet high, vertical or overhanging on every side, absolutely
without foothold. Yet at its top one may see from the neighboring
shore a grave with a low wall built about it. This is the resting-place
of Pupehe, the wife of one to whom was given the name of Misty Eyes,
because the woman's eyes so dazzled his own. These two loved so well
that they w
re all in all to one another. They chose to live apart
from their people, roaming the woods, climbing the hills, surf-riding,
fishing, berrying as the whim took them.
Lest some chief should look on her face and envy him, Misty Eyes hid
his companion in a little hut among the trees, as secret and secure as
a bird's nest, and sometimes they would go together to a cave, opening
from the sea, opposite Pupehe's Rock, to catch and cook a sea-turtle.
The season of storms was at hand, but as the day had broken fair,
Pupehe went to the cave to prepare a meal, while her husband took
the calabashes to fill at a spring up the valley. A mist had come
up from nowhere when he turned to go back; the wind was rising to
a gale, the sea was whitening. His heart went into his throat, for
he recalled how the breakers thundered in at the cave and swept the
strip of beach inside. Flinging down the calabashes, he ran with
all his speed. Immense waves were sweeping the cavern from end to
end. Their thunder deafened him. Out of an acre of seething white
a brown arm lifted. He leaped in, seized Pupehe, and succeeded in
gaining the shore, but to no avail. She was dead. After the storm had
passed he paddled to the lonely rock; was raised, with his burden,
by a pitying god, and on the summit, where none might stand even
beside the grave of her whom in life he had guarded so jealously,
he buried the cold form. When the last stone had been placed on the
wall, Misty Eyes sang a dirge for his wife and leaped into the sea.