But this was not what
decided me. I really felt sorry for old Ahuna, he was so beside
himself for fear the expedition would come to naught. And I was
coming to a great admiration for the old fellow, not least among
the reasons being the fact of his lying down to sleep between me
and the cliff-lip.
"So, with true alii-authority of command, saying, 'You will
immediately follow after me,' I dived in. Everything he had said
was correct. I found the entrance to the subterranean passage,
swam carefully through it, cutting my shoulder once on the lava-
sharp roof, and emerged in the darkness and air. But before I
could count thirty, he broke water beside me, rested his hand on my
arm to make sure of me, and directed me to swim ahead of him for
the matter of a hundred feet or so. Then we touched bottom and
climbed out on the rocks. And still no light, and I remember I was
glad that our altitude was too high for centipedes.
"He had brought with him a coconut calabash, tightly stoppered, of
whale-oil that must have been landed on Lahaina beach thirty years
before.
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