eechoed distressfully with screams and blows. But the madness of a
woman for a man is not thus to be set aside, and the more Malamalama
beat her with a stick, the more ardent grew her love for Professor No
No; and when he talked with her and argued, she would answer unabashed
that whites were whites and Kanakas were Kanakas, and that it was ill to
mix the oil and water of the races.

"But he is overgrown with hair like a dog," said Malamalama, "except on
his head, which glistens like a sting ray in the sun, and he is
altogether hideous and frightening. It is not reasonable that anyone
should prefer him to me."

"But there is that in his head which makes him beautiful," said Salesa.

"Lo! I have things in my head also," said Malamalama, "and I pass my
life, besides, like a man, diving for shell, and cutting copra on my
property, and attending to the affairs of the church where I am deacon,
and finding everywhere a better employment than that of looking at dead
fish through bits of glass."

"Malamalama," said Salesa, "divorce me and let me go, and take thy
choice of all the maids of Uvea in my stead. Professor No No loves me
not, but I am his bondslave in love, and care for no other man but him."

Now this was very good advice, and the chief would have done well to
follow it. But there is in men a pride about their women that blinds
their eyes to sense, and Malamalama, instead of heeding, grew, on the
contrary, morose and willful. He listened more greedily than ever to
Billy Hindoo, and to the tales the nigger brought him constantly of
Salesa's misdoing; for Billy Hindoo was crazed with anger against his
master, and against the woman who had so successfully supplanted him,
and was eager to revenge himself on both. And one day he brought not
only a new tale, but a bottle of gin he had managed to pilfer from the
camp of Professor No No.

Malamalama began to drink the gin, and the more he drank the more he
began to feel the aching of his spirit. He stopped the passers-by and
told them of his wrongs; he rolled over in the road, so that he was all
dirty, calling out curses on his wife and Professor No No. He cried and
cried, and staggered about and shouted, and rushed hither and thither,
exclaiming, "I will kill them! I will kill them!" And all the while he
drank of the gin with an increasing fury, so that he went at last and
got his rifle and four boxes of cartridges and walked unsteadily toward
the lagoon, weeping and