From his mouth he took a water-tight arrangement of a
matchbox composed of two empty rifle-cartridges fitted snugly
together. He lighted the wicking that floated on the oil, and I
looked about, and knew disappointment. No burial-chamber was it,
but merely a lava tube such as occurs on all the islands.
"He put the calabash of light into my hands and started me ahead of
him on the way, which he assured me was long, but not too long. It
was long, at least a mile in my sober judgment, though at the time
it seemed five miles; and it ascended sharply. When Ahuna, at the
last, stopped me, I knew we were close to our goal. He knelt on
his lean old knees on the sharp lava rock, and clasped my knees
with his skinny arms. My hand that was free of the calabash lamp
he placed on his head. He chanted to me, with his old cracked,
quavering voice, the line of my descent and my essential high alii-
ness. And then he said:
"'Tell neither Kanau nor Hiwilani aught of what you are about to
behold. There is no sacredness in Kanau. His mind is filled with
sugar and the breeding of horses.
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