“How can they be killed by those helpless girls, whom I intended to kill?” So said Aiwohikupua.

And because of the chief’s anxiety to know why his warriors did not come back he agreed with his counsellor to send messengers to see what the men were doing.

At the chief’s command the counsellor sent the Snipe and the Turnstone, Aiwohikupua’s swiftest messengers, to go up and find out the truth about his men.

Not long after they had left they met another man, a bird catcher from the uplands of Olaa;[53] he asked, “Where are you two going?”

The runners said, “We are going up to find out the truth about our people who are living at Paliuli; eight times forty men have been sent—­not one returned.”

“They are done for,” said the bird catcher, “in the great lizard, Kihanuilulumoku; they have not been spared.”

When they heard this they kept on going up; not long after they heard the sighing of the wind and the humming of the trees bending back and forth; then they remembered the bird catcher’s words, “If the wind hums, that is from the lizard.”

They knew then this must be the lizard; they flew in their bird bodies.  They flew high and looked about.  There right above them was the upper jaw shutting down upon them, and only by quickness of flight in their bird bodies did they escape.

CHAPTER XVII

As they flew far upward and were lost to sight on high, Snipe and his companion looked down at the lower jaw of the lizard plowing the earth like a shovel, and it was a fearful thing to see.  It was plain their fellows must all be dead, and they returned and told Aiwohikupua what they had seen.

Then Kalahumoku, Aiwohikupua’s great man-eating dog, was fetched to go and kill the lizard, then to destroy the sisters of Aiwohikupua.

When Kalahumoku, the man-eating dog from Tahiti, came into the presence of his grandchild (Aiwohikupua), “Go up this very day and destroy my sisters,” said Aiwohikupua, “and bring Laieikawai.”

Before the dog went up to destroy Aiwohikupua’s sisters the dog first instructed the chief, and the chiefs under him, and all the men, as follows:  “Where are you?  While I am away, you watch the uplands.  When the clouds rise straight up, if they turn leeward then I have met Kihanuilulumoku and you will know that we have made friends.  But if the clouds turn to the windward, there is trouble; I have fought with that lizard.  Then pray to your god, to Lanipipili; if you see the clouds turn, seaward, the lizard is the victor; but when the clouds ascend and turn toward the mountain top, then the lizard has melted away; we have prevailed.[54] Then keep on praying until I return."[55]

After giving his instructions, the dog set out up the mountain, and Aiwohikupua sent with him Snipe and Turnstone as messengers to report the deeds of the dog and the lizard.