Death is and has been ever since old Maui died.
Then Pata-tai laughed loud
And woke the goblin-god,
Who severed him in two, and shut him in,
So dusk of eve came on."
"And at the last," Kumuhana resumed, "I was not slain. Eoppo, the
killing knife in hand and ready to lift for the blow, did not lift.
And I? How did I feel and think? Often, Kanaka Oolea, have I
since laughed at the memory of it. I felt very thirsty. I did not
want to die. I wanted a drink of water. I knew I was going to
die, and I kept remembering the thousand waterfalls falling to
waste down the pans" (precipices) "of the windward Koolau
Mountains. I did not think of Anapuni. I was too thirsty. I did
not think of Malia. I was too thirsty. But continually, inside my
head, I saw the tongue of the harpooner, covered dry with sand, as
I had last seen it, lying in the sand. My tongue was like that,
too. And in the bottom of the canoe rolled about many drinking
nuts. Yet I did not attempt to drink, for these were chiefs and I
was a common man.
"'No,' said Eoppo, commanding the chiefs to throw overboard the
coffin.
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