Night after night for a week, the conch-shells blew their challenge of defiance to the white men. Fires rallying to war danced on the hillsides. Howls and shouts of derision echoed from the shore. The stealthy paddle of treacherous spies could be heard through the dark under the keel of the white men's ships. Cook's clothing, sword, hat, were waved in scorn under the sailors' faces. The women had hurried to the hills. The old king was hidden in a cave, where he could be reached only by a rope ladder; and emissary after emissary tried to lure the whites ashore. One pitch-dark night, paddles were heard under the keels. The sentinels fired; but by lantern light two terrified faces appeared above the rail of the _Resolution_. Two frightened, trembling savages crawled over the deck, prostrated themselves at Clerke's feet, and slowly unrolled a small wrapping of cloth that revealed a small {207} piece of human flesh--the remains of Cook. Dead silence fell on the horrified crew. Then Clerke's stern answer was that unless the bones of Cook were brought to the ships, both native villages would be destroyed. The two savages were former friends of Cook's and warned the whites not to be allured on land, nor to trust Koah, the leper priest, on the ships. Again the conch-shells blew their challenge all night through the darkness. Again the war fires danced; but next morning the guns of the _Discovery_ were trained on Koah, when he tried to come on board. That day sailors were landed for water and set fire to the village of the cocoanut groves to drive assailants back. How quickly human nature may revert to the beast type! When the white sailors returned from this skirmish, they carried back to the ships with them, the heads of two Hawaiians they had slain. By Saturday, the 20th, masts were in place and the boats ready to sail. Between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning, a long procession of people was seen filing slowly down the hills preceded by drummers and a white flag. Word was signalled that Cook's bones were on shore to be delivered. Clerke put out in a small boat to receive the dead commander's remains--from which all flesh had been burned. On Sunday, the 21st, the entire bay was tabooed. Not a native came out of the houses. Silence lay over the waters. The funeral service was read on board the _Resolution_, and the coffin committed to the deep.