A sailor of the schooner Roberta, who had stolen a case of absinthe from Captain Capriata’s storeroom aboard and destroyed the peace of a valley to which he took it as a present to a feminine friend, was fined five dollars and sentenced to four months’ work on the roads.

The criminal docket done, civil cases were called.  The barefooted bailiff, Flag, stole out on the veranda occasionally to take a cigarette from the inhabitants of the valley of Taaoa, who crowded the lawn around the veranda steps.  All save Kahuiti, they had come over the mountains to attend in a body a trial in which two of them figured—­the case of Santos vs.  Tahiaupehe (Daughter of the Pigeon).

Santos was a small man, born in Guam, and had been ten years in Taaoa, having deserted from a ship.  He and I talked on the veranda in Spanish, and he explained the desperate plight into which love had dragged him.  He adored Tahaiupehe, the belle of Taaoa.  For months he had poured at her feet all his earnings, and faithfully he had labored at copra-making to gain money for her.  He had lavished upon her all his material wealth and the fierce passion of his Malay heart, only to find her disdainful, untrue, and, at last, a runaway.  While he was in the forest, he said, climbing cocoanut-trees to provide her with luxuries, she had fled his hut, carrying with her a certain “Singaire” and a trunk.  He was in court to regain this property.

“Ben Santos me Tahaiupehe mave!  A mai i nei!” cried Flag, pompously.  The pair entered the court, but all others were excluded except me.  As a distinguished visitor, waiting to breakfast with the judge and the clerk, I had a seat.

The Daughter of the Pigeon, comely and voluptuous, wore an expression of brazen bitterness such as I have seen on the faces of few women.  A procuress in Whitechapel and a woman in America who had poisoned half a dozen of her kin had that same look; sneering, desperate, contemptuous, altogether evil.  I wondered what experiences had written those lines on the handsome face of Daughter of the Pigeon.

Ben Santos was sworn.  Through the interpreter he told his sad tale of devotion and desertion and asked for his property.  The Singaire had been bought of the German store.  He had bought it that Daughter of the Pigeon might mend his garments, since she had refused to do so without it.  He had not given it to her at all, but allowed her the use of it in consideration of “love and affection” he swore.

Daughter of the Pigeon glared at the unhappy little man with an intensity of hatred that alarmed me for his life.  She took the stand, malevolently handsome in finery of pink tunic, gold ear-rings, and necklace of red peppers, barefooted, bare-armed, barbaric.  She spat out her words.

“This man made love to me and lived with me.  He gave me the sewing-machine and the trunk.  He is a runt and a pig, and I am tired of him.  I left his hut and went to the house of my father.  I took my Singaire and my trunk.”