Short Stories
self by his hands toward the cave. His legs trailed out helplessly
behind him, while the blood was pouring from his body. He
seemed bathed in blood, and as he crawled he cried like a little
dog. The rest of the lepers, with the exception of Kapahei, had
fled into the caves.
"Seventeen," said Kapahei. "Eighteen," he added.
This last shell had fairly entered into one of the caves. The
explosion caused the caves to empty. But from the particular
cave no one emerged. Koolau crept in through the pungent, ac-
rid smoke. Four bodies, frightfully mangled, lay about. One of
them was the sightless woman whose tears till now had never
ceased.
Outside, Koolau found his people in a panic and already be-
ginning to climb the goat-trail that led out of the gorge and on
among the jumbled heights and chasms. The wounded idiot,
whining feebly and dragging himself along on the ground by his
hands, was trying to follow. But at the first pitch of the wall his
helplessness overcame him and he fell back.
"It would be better to kill him," said Koolau to Kapahei, who
still sat in the same place.
"Twenty-two," Kapahei answered. "Yes, it would be a wise
thing to kill him. Twenty-three—twenty-four."
The idiot whined sharply when he saw the rifle levelled at
him. Koolau hesitated, then lowered the gun.
"It is a hard thing to do," he said.
"You are a fool, twenty-six, twenty-seven," said Kapahei. "Let
me show you."
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