ds, and drank with them; they hired a carriage and drove into the
country, and there drank again. All the time Keawe was ill at ease,
because he was taking this pastime while his wife was sad, and because
he knew in his heart that she was more right than he; and the knowledge
made him drink the deeper.

Now there was an old brutal Haole drinking with him, one that had been a
boatswain of a whaler, a runaway, a digger in gold mines, a convict in
prisons. He had a low mind and a foul mouth; he loved to drink and to
see others drunken; and he pressed the glass upon Keawe. Soon there was
no more money in the company.

"Here you!" says the boatswain, "you are rich, you have been always
saying. You have a bottle or some foolishness."

"Yes," says Keawe, "I am rich; I will go back and get some money from my
wife, who keeps it."

"That's a bad idea, mate," said the boatswain. "Never you trust a
petticoat with dollars. They're all as false as water; you keep an eye
on her."

Now this word stuck in Keawe's mind; for he was muddled with what he had
been drinking.

"I should not wonder but she was false, indeed," thought he. "Why else
should she be so cast down at my release? But I will show her I am not
the man to be fooled. I will catch her in the act."

Accordingly, when they were back in town, Keawe bade the boatswain wait
for him at the corner, by the old calaboose, and went forward up the
avenue alone to the door of his house. The night had come again; there
was a light within, but never a sound; and Keawe crept about the corner,
opened the back-door softly, and looked in.

There was Kokua on the floor, the lamp at her side; before her was a
milk-white bottle, with a round belly and a long neck; and as she viewed
it, Kokua wrung her hands.

A long time Keawe stood and looked in the doorway. At first he was
struck stupid; and then fear fell upon him that the bargain had been
made amiss, and the bottle had come back to him as it came at San
Francisco; and at that his knees were loosened, and the fumes of the
wine departed from his head like mists off a river in the morning. And
then he had another thought; and it was a strange one, that made his
cheeks to burn.

"I must make sure of this," thought he.

So he closed the door, and went softly round the corner again, and then
came noisily in, as though he were but now returned. And, lo! by the
time he opened the front door no bottle was to be seen; and Kokua sat in