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in command. Resistance would have been foolish, flight impossible; yet,
as the captain stepped toward the brigand leader, the man in the cloak
attempted the foolish and impossible; he fired his pistol full at the
captain's head, flung the weapon after the bullet, missing his aim each
time, then started to run, upsetting one of the soldiers as he did so.
"Fire!" cried the captain.
Two musket-shots came upon the word. The tall man tumbled headlong. "It
is one the less to hang," exclaimed the officer, as he snatched a torch
from the hand of one of his men. He bent over the prostrate form:
the robber had been killed instantly. He withdrew the cloak from
the face and looked long without speaking. Finally he said, "I was
a better ghost than I supposed. These brigands will have to elect a
new leader, and Puerto Principe must have a new prosecuting attorney."
In the deserted inn, under the kitchen floor, were found the remains
of Enrique Carillo and several other victims of the robbers. And
it is said that on All Souls' eve their ghosts block the road and
beg all who pass to pray for them and to pay for a few masses. Most
importunate of all is the ghost of Pablo Ramirez.
IN THE PACIFIC
Finding of the Islands
One of the oldest legends of the Hawaiians relates to the finding
of their islands by Hawaiiloa, a great chief and great-grandson
of Kinilauamano, whose twelve sons became the founders of twelve
tribes. Guided by the Pleiades he sailed westward from America, or
northward from some other group,--doubtless the latter,--and so came
to these pleasant lands, to the largest of which he gave his own name,
while the lesser ones commemorate his children. In another tradition
the islands of Oahu and Molokai were the illegitimate children of two
of his descendants, who were wedded, but jealous of one another and
faithless. Still another folk-tale runs to the effect that an enormous
bird, at least as large as the American thunder-bird or the roc of
Arabia, paused in its flight across the sea and laid an egg which
floated on the water. The warmth of the ocean and the ardor of the sun
hatched the egg, and from it came the islands, which grew, in time,
to their present size, and ever increased in beauty. Some years after
they were found by a man and a woman who had voyaged from Kahiki in
a canoe, and liking the scenery and climate, they went ashore on the
eastern side of Hawaii, and remained there to become th
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