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And she, so defiant and proud, became as another person; so that she was kind not only to Professor No No, but to others whom she had previously treated with contumely. She carried the white man’s packages when he went abroad, his photograph box and all manner of apparatus and tools, and the bottle of beer and the sardines for his well-being, never heeding the sun nor the fiery sand. She sat with him daily in his boat, baiting his hooks and catching fish likewise, and grew wise also in looking at them through bits of glass, so that he no longer ran at her and cried, “No, no!” when she touched his things. On the contrary, her wisdom increased in such matters, becoming in time even as his own, so that she also took photographs, and hammered off pieces of coral from the reef, and grew excited over little, common, worthless fish that stung you if you touched them.

It is not to be supposed that Malamalama watched with any equanimity this increasing friendship between Professor No No and his wife, or that the constant tale of scandal and evil-doing fell on heedless ears. He beat Salesa repeatedly with a stick, and she bit him in return all over his beautiful body; and their fine house, once the envy of all Uvea, reechoed 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 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.