And he loved Laulani, and she fled with him. But in a
forgotten battle on the sands of Kalini, Akaiko rushed the lines of
the enemy, leading the charge that was successful, and seized upon
Keola, his wife's lover, and threw him to the ground, and sawed
through his neck to the death with a shark-tooth knife. Thus, in
the old days as always, did man combat for woman with man. And
Laulani was beautiful; that Keola should be made into a spearhead
for her! She was formed like a queen, and her body was a long bowl
of sweetness, and her fingers lomi'd' (massaged) 'to slimness and
smallness at her mother's breast. For ten generations have we
remembered her beauty. Your father's singing boys to-day sing of
her beauty in the hula that is named of her! This is Laulani, whom
you hold in your hands.'
"And, Ahuna done, I could but gaze, with imagination at the one
time sobered and fired. Old drunken Howard had lent me his
Tennyson, and I had mooned long and often over the Idyls of the
King. Here were the three, I thought--Arthur, and Launcelot, and
Guinevere.
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