laughing and beating the air with his loaded
gun. And I, then only a little child, followed him at a distance,
wondering and mocking with the others.

Now on this occasion it happened that Salesa was away in the boat, and
Professor No No, all alone, was sitting at his table and looking at dead
fish through bits of glass. Malamalama stopped at the taboo line, not
daring to cross it, and withheld, besides, by the notice on the tree;
and he was so tipsy with the gin that he could barely shout, nor hold
the gun up to his shoulder. But he fired, as straight as he could, in
the direction of Professor No No, and shattered a glass barrel of dead
fish at his elbow. Professor No No leaped in the air, so that at first
we thought, erroneously, that he had been hurt; and he ran this way and
that, dodging the bullets from Malamalama's gun. He seemed to believe
that the taboo gave him protection, for, instead of bolting into the
undergrowth, he raced around and around in a circle, and then inside
this tent and that, so that it was laughable to watch him popping in and
out like a terrified rat. And Malamalama, so overcome with gin that he
could barely see, fired and fired and fired from the four boxes of his
cartridges. Then, when all was finished, he rose and went home, while
the children crowded the line and shouted, "Professor No No, art thou
dead?"

That night there was a meeting of the ancients in the speak-house, and
all the culprits were there under guard to receive a judgment.
Malamalama was fined one dollar for being drunk and fifteen dollars for
firing unwarrantably at Professor No No; and Professor No No was fined
fifteen dollars for having won Salesa from her husband; and Billy Hindoo
was fined fifteen dollars for having given the gin to Malamalama and for
the mischief he had caused with his lying tongue; and Salesa was
surrendered to the matrons of the village to receive a lashing for her
misconduct. Then Tanielu, the pastor, prayed that God's wrath might be
averted from so wicked a village, and made a beautiful parable about the
Garden of Eden and the serpent.

One might have thought that this would have healed the matter, and that
a punishment so nearly equal would have been submitted to with humility
and grace. But, on the contrary, the quarrel went from bad to worse, so
that Tanielu, the pastor, would say sorrowfully from the pulpit that
Uvea was like another hell, but with four devils instead of one.
Malamalama, on