the shells were moaning, whining, screaming by, and the valley was
rumbling and reverberating with the explosions. As he came in sight
of the caves, he saw the two idiots cavorting about, clutching each
other's hands with their stumps of fingers. Even as he ran, Koolau
saw a spout of black smoke rise from the ground, near to the idiots.
They were flung apart bodily by the explosion. One lay motionless,
but the other was dragging himself 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, acrid 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 beginning 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.