“I love the beautiful Kaala, daughter of Oponui.  Give her to
     me for a wife.”

     “The girl is not mine to give,” replied the King.  “We must
     be just.  I will send for her father.  Come to-morrow.”

Oponui was not pleased when he was brought before the King and heard his request.  He had once, in war, narrowly escaped death at the hand of Kaaialii and now felt that he would rather feed his daughter to the sharks than give her to the man who had sought his life.  Still, as it would have been unwise to openly oppose the King’s wishes, he pretended to regard the proposal with favor, but regretted that his daughter was already promised to another man.  He was, however, willing, he added, to let the girl go to the victor in a contest with bare hands between the two suitors.

The rival suitor was Mailou, a huge, muscular savage known as the “bone breaker.”  Kaala hated and feared him and had taken every occasion to avoid him; but as her father was anxious to secure so strong an ally, his desire finally had prevailed against her aversion.

Kaaialii was less muscular than his rival, but he had superior cunning, and thus it happened that in the fierce contest which followed he tripped up the “bone-breaker,” seized his hair as he fell, placed his knees against his back, and broke his spine.

Breaking away from her disappointed father Kaala sprang through the crowd and threw herself into the victor’s arms.  The king placed their hands together and said:  “You have won her nobly.  She is now your wife.  Take her with you.”

But Oponui’s wrath was greater than before, and he plotted revenge.  On the morning after the marriage he visited Kaala and told her that her mother was dangerously ill at Mahana and wanted to see her before she died.  The daughter followed him, though her husband had some misgivings.  Arriving at the seashore, the father told her, with a wild glare in his eyes, that he had made up his mind to hide her down among the gods of the sea until the hated Kaaialii had left the island, when he would bring her home again.  She screamed and tried to escape, but he gathered the struggling girl in his arms and jumped with her into the circling waters above the Spouting Cave.  Sinking a fathom or so, they were sucked upward into the cave, where he placed her just above the reach of the water among the crabs and eels, with scarcely light enough to see them.  He offered to take her back if she would promise to accept the love of the chief of Olowalu and allow Kaaialii to see her in the embrace of another.  But she declared she would sooner perish in the cave.  Having warned her that if she attempted to escape she would surely be dashed against the rocks and become the food of the sharks, he returned to the shore.

Kaaialii awaited his wife’s return with his heart aching for her warm embrace.