WOMAN lay on the ground. She was about twenty years of age, of regal stature; for among ancient Hawaiians men and women of kingly stock were gigantic, fully six feet in height, with broad shoulders, deep, full bust, and huge hips and limbs that indicated great vitality and enormous strength. Yet her figure, from the mighty neck to the delicately shaped feet, was so graceful in its outlines, so perfect a type of beauty in a giantess, that it would have been a joy to Phydias. Her face was full of intelligence, of firmness, of daring, and of pride; full also of passion, of tenderness, and of love. It was both strong and beautiful. Her head was massive and noble, like her [9] body, and was crowned with a glory of jet-black hair reaching to her hips.
There was no clothing, not even an ornament, on her person. Her soft, delicate, satiny skin told of luxurious living. Exposure and pain and hardship were plainly new to her, and the mamo, which lay beside her, wet with the brine of the sea, was evidence that her rank among her people was like that of the immortal gods. Her hands and feet and arms and legs and thighs and body were bleeding, terribly cut and torn.
She endured her wounds and the pangs of maternity without a groan, her eyes resting meanwhile on the wall of rock, two thousand feet high, that encircled her. A rivulet, flowing from the mountain above, fell over the stupendous precipice, and the wind, eddying round and round in the enormous pit, the crater of an extinct volcano, spread out the water into a sheet of silvery spray like a vast bridal veil. The sun was now approaching meridian, and its rays, falling upon the spray, formed a brilliant rainbow, spanning the birth-scene.
As soon as the child was born the mother [10] clasped it in her arms and exultantly cried, “He shall sit on the throne of his fathers, for the rainbow covered him! Thus mois are born!”
Then she kneeled upon the ground and stretched forth her arms in prayer—“Eternal Ku, thou who bearest sway over gods and mois as over common men, hear this my vow! I have sinned, and my life is forfeit; but the child is sinless, and if I die now he will perish. Spare me to him till he can hurl the spears and lead the chiefs in battle for his throne, and I will offer thee such priceless sacrifice as never yet was slain before a god, for I, the goddess-queen, with my own royal hand will shed my sacred blood to thee.”
As she ceased a peal of thunder came from the mountains.
“Eternal Ku,” she exclaimed, “thou hast heard and answered, and although I die, my child shall yet be moi, the mightiest of his line! His name is Aelani, The Pledge from Heaven.”