other, he advanced along the knife-
edge to their wounded comrade. Koolau gave no sign, but watched them
slowly withdraw and become specks as they descended into the lower
valley.

Two hours later, from another thicket, Koolau watched a body of police
trying to make the ascent from the opposite side of the valley. He saw
the wild goats flee before them as they climbed higher and higher, until
he doubted his judgment and sent for Kiloliana, who crawled in beside
him.

"No, there is no way," said Kiloliana.

"The goats?" Koolau questioned.

"They come over from the next valley, but they cannot pass to this. There
is no way. Those men are not wiser than goats. They may fall to their
deaths. Let us watch."

"They are brave men," said Koolau. "Let us watch."

Side by side they lay among the morning-glories, with the yellow blossoms
of the _hau_ dropping upon them from overhead, watching the motes of men
toil upward, till the thing happened, and three of them, slipping,
rolling, sliding, dashed over a cliff-lip and fell sheer half a thousand
feet.

Kiloliana chuckled.

"We will be bothered no more," he said.

"They have war guns," Koolau made answer. "The soldiers have not yet
spoken."

In the drowsy afternoon, most of the lepers lay in their rock dens
asleep. Koolau, his rifle on his knees, fresh-cleaned and ready, dozed
in the entrance to his own den. The maid with the twisted arms lay below
in the thicket and kept watch on the knife-edge passage. Suddenly Koolau
was startled wide awake by the sound of an explosion on the beach. The
next instant the atmosphere was incredibly rent asunder. The terrible
sound frightened him. It was as if all the gods had caught the envelope
of the sky in their hands and were ripping it apart as a woman rips apart
a sheet of cotton cloth. But it was such an immense ripping, growing
swiftly nearer. Koolau glanced up apprehensively, as if expecting to see
the thing. Then high up on the cliff overhead the shell burst in a
fountain of black smoke. The rock was shattered, the fragments falling
to the foot of the cliff.

Koolau passed his hand across his sweaty brow. He was terribly shaken.
He had had no experience with shell-fire, and this was more dreadful than
anything he had imagined.

"One," said Kapahei, suddenly bethinking himself to keep count.

A second and a third shell flew screaming over the top of the wall,
bursting beyond view. Kapahei methodically