He soon discovered that his change had awakened in the breast of the khan feelings of opposition beyond any he had anticipated. Ancestral pride--the office of khan being hereditary--early prejudices, strengthened by time and self-interest, often too influential over the actions of those who possess a better faith, exercised combined power on the old man's mind. Perhaps he was also stimulated by the more generous and romantic sentiment with which we are inclined to regard the decay of what has been hallowed by antiquity; and he stigmatized those who forsook the ancient idolatries as meanly subservient to the will of the great, endeavoring to imbue the mind of his daughter with similar feelings. Poor Oani had neither ability nor inclination for controversial disquisitions. When her lover tried to lay before her the truths which had influenced him to the change she deplored, a knowledge of which would enable her to appreciate his motives, she would only weep, and say, "Toleho, I am sad--sleep has gone from me, and my food has lost its sweetness. If you do not worship Pele, her priestess must try not to love you. No more may I sing for you when you are weary; no more gather summer fruits to refresh you; nor bind sweet flowers in a chaplet for your brow." When the chief remarked, that by her embracing Christianity these objections to their union would be obviated, her only answer was, "Could I leave my father? _He_ never will forsake Pele. Could I--the only light of his eyes--the last flower left to gladden the winter of his life--could I leave his old age desolate?" The separation of these Polynesian lovers was now inevitable, and it was a sore trial, for they were fondly attached. It was at this era of their story that I became acquainted with the young chief, and great was the interest with which I listened to his simple narration, heightened, probably, by the extraordinary circumstances under which I heard it, seated together as we were, at midnight, upon the brink of the fiery abyss, contemplating a scene so stupendous, so "horribly beautiful," that probably no other in this world can compete with it.