“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.”
“Ben Santos,” inquired the judge, with a critical glance at Daughter of the Pigeon, “What return did you make to this woman for keeping your house?”
“I provided her food and her dresses,” stammered the little man.
“Food hangs from trees, and dresses are a few yards of stuff,” said the surgical Solomon. “The fair ones of the Marquesas do not give themselves to men of your plainness for popoi and muslin robes. You are a foreigner. You expect too much. The preponderance of probability, added to the weight of testimony, causes the court to believe that this woman is the real owner of the sewing-machine and the trunk. It is so adjudged.”
“La mujer es una diabola, pero me gusto mucho,” said Santos to me, and sighed deeply. “The woman is a devil, but I like her very much.”