“Hiwilani struggled with the old codger for years. How she ever succeeded is beyond me. Of course, on the face of it, she was faithful to the old religion. This might have persuaded Ahuna to loosen up a little. Or she may have jolted fear into him; for she knew a lot of the line of chatter of the old Huni sorcerers, and she could make a noise like being on terms of utmost intimacy with Uli, who is the chiefest god of sorcery of all the sorcerers. She could skin the ordinary _kahuna lapaau_” (medicine man) “when it came to praying to Lonopuha and Koleamoku; read dreams and visions and signs and omens and indigestions to beat the band; make the practitioners under the medicine god, Maiola, look like thirty cents; pull off a _pule hee_ incantation that would make them dizzy; and she claimed to a practice of _kahuna hoenoho_, which is modern spiritism, second to none. I have myself seen her drink the wind, throw a fit, and prophesy. The _aumakuas_ were brothers to her when she slipped offerings to them across the altars of the ruined _heiaus_” (temples) “with a line of prayer that was as unintelligible to me as it was hair-raising. And as for old Ahuna, she could make him get down on the floor and yammer and bite himself when she pulled the real mystery dope on him. “Nevertheless, my private opinion is that it was the _anaana_ stuff that got him. She snipped off a lock of his hair one day with a pair of manicure scissors. This lock of hair was what we call the _maunu_, meaning the bait. And she took jolly good care to let him know she had that bit of his hair. Then she tipped it off to him that she had buried it, and was deeply engaged each night in her offerings and incantations to Uli.” “That was the regular praying-to-death?” I queried in the pause of Prince Akuli’s lighting his cigarette. “Sure thing,” he nodded. “And Ahuna fell for it. First he tried to locate the hiding-place of the bait of his hair. Failing that, he hired a _pahiuhiu_ sorcerer to find it for him. But Hiwilani queered that game by threatening to the sorcerer to practise _apo leo_ on him, which is the art of permanently depriving a person of the power of speech without otherwise injuring him. “Then it was that Ahuna began to pine away and get more like a corpse every day. In desperation he appealed to Kanau. I happened to be present. You have heard what sort of a man my father was. “‘Pig!’ he called Ahuna. ‘Swine-brains! Stinking fish! Die and be done with it. You are a fool. It is all nonsense. There is nothing in anything. The drunken _haole_, Howard, can prove the missionaries wrong. Square-face gin proves Howard wrong. The doctors say he won’t last six months. Even square-face gin lies. Life is a liar, too. And here are hard times upon us, and a slump in sugar. Glanders has got into my brood mares. I wish I could lie down and sleep for a hundred years, and wake up to find sugar up a hundred points.’