“There will be no more bites for a while,” he announced. “The fish-sharks are prowling around, and we shall have to wait until they are gone. And so that the time shall not be heavy, I will sing you the canoe-hauling song to Lono. You remember: “Give to me the trunk of the tree, O Lono! Give me the tree’s main root, O Lono! Give me the ear of the tree, O Lono!—” “For the love of mercy, don’t sing!” I cut him short. “I’ve got a headache, and your singing hurts. You may be in devilish fine form to-day, but your throat is rotten. I’d rather you talked about dreams, or told me whoppers.” “It is too bad that you are sick, and you so young,” he conceded cheerily. “And I shall not sing any more. I shall tell you something you do not know and have never heard; something that is no dream and no whopper, but is what I know to have happened. Not very long ago there lived here, on the beach beside this very lagoon, a young boy whose name was Keikiwai, which, as you know, means Water Baby. He was truly a water baby. His gods were the sea and fish gods, and he was born with knowledge of the language of fishes, which the fishes did not know until the sharks found it out one day when they heard him talk it. “It happened this way. The word had been brought, and the commands, by swift runners, that the king was making a progress around the island, and that on the next day a _luau_” (feast) “was to be served him by the dwellers here of Waihee. It was always a hardship, when the king made a progress, for the few dwellers in small places to fill his many stomachs with food. For he came always with his wife and her women, with his priests and sorcerers, his dancers and flute-players, and _hula_-singers, and fighting men and servants, and his high chiefs with their wives, and sorcerers, and fighting men, and servants. “Sometimes, in small places like Waihee, the path of his journey was marked afterward by leanness and famine. But a king must be fed, and it is not good to anger a king. So, like warning in advance of disaster, Waihee heard of his coming, and all food-getters of field and pond and mountain and sea were busied with getting food for the feast. And behold, everything was got, from the choicest of royal taro to sugar-cane joints for the roasting, from _opihis_ to _limu_, from fowl to wild pig and _poi_-fed puppies—everything save one thing. The fishermen failed to get lobsters. “Now be it known that the king’s favourite food was lobster. He esteemed it above all _kai-kai_” (food), “and his runners had made special mention of it. And there were no lobsters, and it is not good to anger a king in the belly of him. Too many sharks had come inside the reef. That was the trouble. A young girl and an old man had been eaten by them. And of the young men who dared dive for lobsters, one was eaten, and one lost an arm, and another lost one hand and one foot.