nd to be laughed at by my own tint.

The chief, however, maintained the impartial attitude of the
bystander at a street fight. Smothered in the embraces of Daughter
of the Pigeon, covered with embarrassment, I struggled and cursed,
and had desperately decided to fling her bodily over the eight-foot
wall of the _paepae_ into the jungle, when another arrival dashed up
the trail. This was the brother of Daughter of the Pigeon.

It was evident that my cabin had been appointed as a rendezvous,
though I had no acquaintance with any of my three visitors. A
suspicion was born in my dull brain. To make it surety, I grasped my
feminine wooer by wrists and throat and thrust her into the arms of
the chief with a stern injunction to hold her. Then, without hint of
my intention, I hastened into the house and brought forth the
demijohn and cocoanut-shells.

The amorous fury of Daughter of the Pigeon melted into gratitude,
and after two drinks apiece the company galloped away, leaving me to
repair tattered garments and thank my stars for my supply of _namu_.

But the end of court-day was not yet. I had barely fallen into my
first slumber that night when I was awakened by the disconsolate
Shan-Shan man, who came humbly to present me with a half-pound
doughnut of his own making, and to beg my intercession with the
governor for the return of his gun. He reiterated tearfully that he
had not meant to shoot _kukus_ with it, that he had not done so,
that he desired it only in order to be able to take a pot-shot at
the offending countryman in the village. He urged desperately that
the other Chinese still possessed a gun well oiled and loaded. He
asserted even with tears that he had all respect and admiration for
the white man's law. But he wanted his gun, and he wanted it quickly.

I calmed him with the twice-convenient _namu_, and after promising
to explain the situation to the governor, I sat for some time on my
_paepae_ in the moonlight, talking with the unhappy convict.
Without prompting he divulged to me that my suspicions had been
correct; Drink of Beer had himself instigated the raid of the bold
Daughter of the Pigeon upon my rum. Drink of Beer, it appeared, was
known in the islands for many feats of successful duplicity. One had
nearly cost the life of Jean Richard, a young Frenchman who worked
for the German trader in Taka-Uka.

"Earth Worm was a man of Taaoa," said my guest, sitting cross-legged
on my mats, his long-nailed, ye