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"It's a vulgar fraction." There were seven of us walking on the crater of the volcano: great banks of sulphur on the right, dark glaciers of lava on the left, high walls of scoria and volcanic crust enveloping us all about. We were four thousand feet above the level of the sea. We were standing at the door of the House of Pele, the Goddess of Fire. We knocked, but she would not open.
On regaining the edge of the crater, they saw several persons approaching, among whom, to Kapoiolani's great satisfaction, was the missionary, accompanied by her husband. The people who followed her, as soon as they saw them, set up a loud shout of joy; for many of them till then had fully believed that their chieftainess would have been destroyed by the vengeance of Pele.
It was built of grey stone, covered with a rough-cast, so tempered by age to the colour and surface of the stone, that the many patches where it had dropped away produced hardly any disfiguring effect. The rugged "pele" tower, origin and source of all the rest, was now grouped with the gables and projections, the broad casemented windows, and deep doorways of a Tudor manor-house.
She, the great Pélé, will come upon you, she and the Husband of Thunder, with the Fire-Thruster, and the Red-Fire Cloud-Queen, they will destroy you altogether." The listening Hawaiians shuddered as they saw the shaggy priests calling down the anger of Pélé.
The priests were angry because the preaching of the missionaries had led many away from the worship of Pélé which, of course, meant fewer hogs for themselves; and now the whole nation on Hawaii, that volcanic island of the seas, seemed to be deserting her.
It was a sacred duty to furnish food to the dead for several weeks. Sometimes the remains were thrown into the boiling lava of the volcanoes, and this mode of sepulture was regarded as homage paid to the goddess Pele, who fed principally on human flesh. Liloa reigned over the island of Hawaii.
As always with distinguished company, you must let your competitor win, if you fancy that it is Pele in disguise who is your rival in a toboggan contest; for a chief of Puna having once suffered himself to distance her, she revengefully emptied a sea of lava from the nearest crater and forced him to fly the region. Many tales of her amours survive.
This lake, the Hale-mau-mau, or House of Everlasting Fire of the Hawaiian mythology, the abode of the dreaded goddess Pele, is approachable with safety except during an eruption.
What, therefore, Madame Pele will show you hereafter is uncertain. What we saw was this: two large lakes or caldrons, each nearly circular, with the lower shelf or bank, red-hot, from which the molten lava was repelled toward the centre without cessation.
Harry was her chief instructor; and never was there a more attentive pupil. He was surprised at the rapidity with which she learned to read. Some time had thus been spent, when there was a commotion in the village, and it was announced that a person of importance was approaching, no less than the high-priestess of Pele, if not Pele herself, as the heathen inhabitants asserted.