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.



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