Читать книгу The Legends and Myths of Hawaii: The fables and folk-lore of a strange people - King of Hawaii David Kalakaua - Страница 18

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Everything being in readiness for an advance upon the stronghold of Kaupeepee, a war-council of the assembled chiefs was called. Among them were several who were well informed concerning the approaches to Haupu, and the main features of the campaign were arranged without discussion. Signals and other means of communication between the two divisions having been agreed upon, the next morning a detachment of two thousand men, occupying five hundred canoes, under the command of Kana, moved around the island to blockade the entrances to Haupu, and immediately after the main army, leaving a strong reserve to guard the canoes and look after supplies, broke camp and took up its line of march across the island to the mountains back of the fortress. The trails were rough, but at sunrise the next morning the land division, stretched along the summit of the hills two miles back of Haupu, looked down and saw the fleet of Kana drawn like a broad, black line around the ocean entrances to the doomed stronghold.

Meantime Kaupeepee had not been idle. Every movement of the enemy had been watched; and when word came to him that the shores of Kaunakakai were so crowded with warriors that the number could not be told, he grimly answered: “Then will our spears be less likely to miss!”

The walls of the fortress had been strengthened and replenished with missiles; large quantities of provisions had been secured, and sheds of ample space were finally erected for the collection of rain-water, should communication be interrupted with the streams in the gulches below. Before the enemy had reached positions completely cutting off retreat from the fortress, Kaupeepee had called his warriors together and thus addressed them:

“Warriors and friends!—for all, indeed, are warriors and friends in Haupu!—for years you have shared in the dangers of Kaupeepee and have never disobeyed him. Listen now to his words, and heed them well. A mighty army is about to surround Haupu by land and sea. It already blackens the shores of Kaunakakai, and will soon be thundering at our gates. The fight will be long and desperate, and may end in defeat and death to the most or all of us. I cannot order, cannot even ask you to face such peril for my sake. The gates are open. Let all leave with my good-will whose lives are precious to them. Let your acts answer at once, for the enemy is approaching and no time can be lost!”

For a moment not a warrior of the thousand present moved. All stood staring at their chief and wondering that he should doubt. Then a confused hum of voices, rising louder and louder, swelled into a united shout of “Close the gates!” and Kaupeepee was answered. And a braver answer was never given than that which came from the stout hearts and unblanched lips of the thousand fearless defenders of Haupu. The gates were closed, with not a single warrior missing, and the fortress was soon environed with its enemies.

Halting his army on the summit of the mountains overlooking Haupu, Niheu despatched a messenger to the fortress with a signal of peace, to ascertain with certainty whether Hina was a prisoner there, and, if so, to demand the surrender of the captive. The messenger returned in safety, bearing this message from Kaupeepee: “Hina is within the walls of Haupu. Come with arms in your hands and take her!”

Communication was established with the fleet in front of Haupu, and Kana was advised to enter the gulches in force the next morning, destroy the canoes of the fortress, and maintain a footing there, if possible, while a strong division of the land forces would move down and draw attention to the rear defences by taking a position within attacking distance.

In pursuance of this plan, early next morning Niheu despatched a formidable force down the mountain in the rear of Haupu, with orders to menace but not to assault the defences. Arriving near the walls, a little skirmishing ensued, when the detachment took a position beyond the reach of the slingers, and began the construction of a stone wall across the ridge.

Meantime Kana’s fleet of canoes, which had been hovering nearer and nearer the walls of Haupu since daylight, with a wild battle-cry from the warriors crowding them suddenly dashed through the surf, and partially succeeded in effecting a landing in one of the gulches flanking the fortress. So rapid had been the movement, and so thoroughly had the attention of the besieged been engrossed with the diversion from the mountains, that a division of the assaulting party managed to reach the canoes of the fortress, and another to secure a lodgment among the rocks on the opposite side of the gulch, before meeting with serious opposition. The score or two of warriors left to guard the canoes of the fortress were quickly overpowered and slaughtered, and then the work of destruction began. With loose rocks and heavy stone hammers the canoes were being hastily broken in pieces, including the great war-barge of Kaupeepee, when from the walls above the destroyers was precipitated a bewildering and murderous avalanche of rocks of all sizes and heavy sections of tree-trunks. As the missiles rolled and bounded down the steep declivity, sweeping it at almost the same moment for two hundred yards or more in length, the ground trembled as with an earthquake, and the gorge was filled with a dense cloud of dust.

The thunder of the avalanche ceased, and in the awful silence that succeeded Kaupeepee, at the head of two hundred warriors, dashed down the narrow path leading from the middle terrace to finish the dreadful work with spear, knife and battle-axe. The sight was appalling, even to the chief of Haupu. The gulch was choked with the bodies of the dying and the dead. Panic-stricken, those posted on the opposite hillside had abandoned their only place of safety, and perished in large numbers in attempting to reach their canoes. The few left alive and able to retreat were wildly struggling to escape seaward from the gulch in such canoes of their wrecked fleet as would still float, or by plunging desperately into the surf.

With exultant shouts Kaupeepee and his warriors sprang over their dead and dying enemies and swept down upon the unarmed and escaping remnant of the invaders. Although a considerable reserve of canoes came to their rescue from without, protected from assault from above by the presence of Kaupeepee and his party, the most of the fugitives would have been cut off but for the extraordinary efforts of Kana, who led the attacking party, but miraculously escaped unhurt. In the surf, in the deep entrance to the gulch, everywhere he moved around with his head and shoulders above the water. He assisted the canoes through the breakers, rescued exhausted and drowning swimmers, and from the bottom of the ocean reached down and gathered huge rocks, which he hurled at intervals at Kaupeepee’s warriors to keep them in check. These wonderful exploits awed the attacking party, and greater still was their astonishment when they saw the strange being finally walk through the deep waters, erect and with his head and breast exposed, and step into a canoe quite half a mile from the shore. Turning to his warriors, with these words Kaupeepee answered their looks of inquiry: “He is Kana. I have heard of him. I am glad he escaped.”

Kana returned with his shattered fleet and still worsely shattered army to Kaunakakai. As the most of his canoes had been destroyed, Kaupeepee was unable to follow the retreating enemy to sea, but, hearing the shouts of conflict above, at once mounted with his warriors to the fortress, to assist in repelling an attack on the rear wall which had been hastily begun to save, if possible, the sea party from destruction. With Kaupeepee at the front the assault was quickly repulsed, the enemy retiring in confusion behind the lines of defence from which the advance had been made.

The wounded in the gulch were despatched, six of the least injured being reserved for sacrifice, and the night following the fortress of Haupu was ablaze with savage joy. As the first-fruits of the victories of the day, the six wounded prisoners were slain with clubs and laid upon the altar of the heiau as offerings to the gods, and chants of defiance were sent through the night air to the discomfited enemy beyond the walls.

These disasters did not dishearten Niheu. The canoes of the fortress had been destroyed, and that was something of a compensation for the loss of nearly two thousand of his best warriors and a considerable part of his fleet. Plans for further assaults from the sea were abandoned, and a regular siege, with a final entrance by the rear wall, was suggested and in the end agreed to by the chiefs in council.

Lines of pickets were accordingly stationed along the summits of the mountains flanking the fortress, in order to prevent the entrance into it of reinforcements or supplies, and the main body of the attacking force was moved down and placed in positions within slinging distance of the rear wall. This was not done without loss, for the wall was manned with expert slingers; but in less than a week the besiegers had advanced their main line of wooden defences within a hundred paces of the rear bulwark of the fortress and were daily gaining ground.

This movable line of assault and defence was a device as ingenious as it was effective. Timbers twenty feet in length, or corresponding with the height of the wall, were firmly corded together side by side until they stretched across the narrow summit leading to the fortress. To the top of each fourth or fifth timber was lashed a movable brace thirty feet in length, and then the wooden wall was raised into the air nearly erect, and securely held in that position by its line of supporting braces. It was a formidable-looking structure. Against it the missiles of the besieged fell harmless, and behind it the besiegers worked in safety.

Section by section and foot by foot this moving line of timber was advanced, until the warriors on the wall could almost touch it with their spears. Several desperate sorties, to destroy or prostrate it, had been made, but nothing beyond the cutting of a few of the lower fastenings had been achieved; and the defenders of Haupu, with tightened grasp of their weapons, grimly awaited the final assault, which they felt would not long be delayed. Day after day, night after night, they watched; but the wooden wall did not move, and they could only guess at what was going on behind it.

Finally a night of inky darkness came—a night “as dark as the farthest confines of Po”—bringing with it a storm of wind and rain. In the midst of the storm the wooden wall began to move, but so noiselessly that the advance was not perceived by the fortress sentinels. Midnight came and went; the storm continued, and nearer and nearer to the wall of stone was crowded the wall of timber. Just as coming day began to streak the east the bases of the two walls came together, the backward inclination of both leaving them a few feet apart at their tops. Hundreds of men then laid hold of the braces, and in a moment the wooden wall was shoved over and stayed against the other.

The alarm was given within, and warriors from all parts of the enclosure sprang toward the menaced wall. But the movement of their enemies was not less prompt. Up the braces they swarmed in such numbers that the few who had succeeded in reaching the top of the wall from within were hurled from it, and after them poured a cataract of spears against which the opposing force was powerless. The huge stone was rolled back, the gate was opened, and soon the upper terrace was cleared and five thousand warriors, led by Niheu in person, were sweeping down to complete their work of slaughter.

But their victory was not to be cheaply purchased. They had slain two or three hundred on the wall and around the gate, but thrice as many more, under the desperate leadership of Kaupeepee, were stretched like a wall across the middle terrace, with a resolution to contest every pace of the ground with their lives. They might have escaped, perhaps, down the paths leading from that terrace to the gulches; but they preferred to die, as they had for years lived, in defence of Haupu.

Down the terrace swept the victorious horde in the gray dawn of the morning. Niheu vainly tried to hold his warriors in check, for he knew the main body of the fortress force was still before him, and would have advanced with prudence; but the voices of the leaders were drowned in the battle-shouts of the surging throng, which in a few minutes struck Kaupeepee’s wall of spears and battle-axes, and rolled back like a storm-wave broken against the front of Haupu. But the check was only momentary, for immediately behind the shattered column was a forest of advancing spears, and with a wild tumult of shouts and clashing weapons the entire force was precipitated upon Kaupeepee’s thin but resolute lines of defence.

The slaughter was frightful; but the unequal conflict could have but one result. Kaupeepee and the fifty or less of his followers left standing were crowded, fighting step by step, into the lower terrace, and thence to the heiau, and finally to the temple as a last place of defence. There the struggle was brief. The roof of the temple was fired, and as Kaupeepee and the last of his devoted band sprang from the blazing building to die at the throats of their enemies they were struck down with their javelins in the air. A spear penetrated the breast of Kaupeepee. As a last act he poised his ihe to hurl at a helmeted chief who had just struggled to the front. The chief was Niheu. By his dress or face, which bore a resemblance to the features of Hina, Kaupeepee must have recognized him. He looked, but his arm did not move. “Not for your sake, but for hers!” exclaimed the dying warrior, dropping his weapon to the earth and falling lifeless beside it.

Not one of the defenders of Haupu escaped, but more than one-half of Niheu’s army perished in the various assaults upon the fortress. Hina was found uninjured, and, while there was great joy to her in the embrace of her sons and aged mother, she wept over the death of Kaupeepee, who with his love had made light her long imprisonment.

The body of Kaupeepee was given to Keoloewa for interment, as were also the remains of Moi, who was among the last to fall. The walls of Haupu were levelled, never to be raised again, and Hina returned to her husband in Hilo, after a separation of nearly eighteen years, thus bringing to a close one of the most romantic legends of early Hawaiian chivalry.