I do know that he sold a feather
cloak his grandfather had worn to that English collector for eight
thousand dollars, and the money he lost the next day betting on the
polo game between Maui and Oahu. Hiwilani, your mother, is filled
with sacredness. She is too much filled with sacredness. She
grows old, and weak-headed, and she traffics over-much with
sorceries.'
"'No,' I made answer. 'I shall tell no one. If I did, then would
I have to return to this place again. And I do not want ever to
return to this place. I'll try anything once. This I shall never
try twice.'
"'It is well,' he said, and arose, falling behind so that I should
enter first. Also, he said: 'Your mother is old. I shall bring
her, as promised, the bones of her mother and of her grandfather.
These should content her until she dies; and then, if I die before
her, it is you who must see to it that all the bones in her family
collection are placed in the Royal Mausoleum.'
"I have given all the Islands' museums the once-over," Prince Akuli
lapsed back into slang, "and I must say that the totality of the
collections cannot touch what I saw in our Lakanaii burial-cave.
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