“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.”

[Illustration:  Tahaiupehe, Daughter of the Pigeon, of Taaoa]

[Illustration:  Nataro Puelleray and wife He is the most learned Marquesan and the only one who knows the language and legends thoroughly]

The unfortunate Malay got upon his horse and, his soul deep in the swamp of jealousy, departed to resume his copra-making.

Court adjourned.  The judge, the clerk, and the interpreter, Daughter of the Pigeon, and I toasted the blind goddess in rum, the sun being very hot on the iron roof.  Bauda and I stayed to breakfast at eleven o’clock, and the governor permitted me to look through the dossier of Daughter of the Pigeon.  This record is kept of all Marquesans or others resident in the islands; each governor adds his facts and prejudices and each newcoming official finds the history and reputation of each of his charges set down for his perusal.  In this record of Daughter of the Pigeon I found the reason for the malevolent character depicted by her face.

The men of the hills have a terrible custom of capturing any woman of another valley who goes alone in their district.  Grelet’s first companion was caught one night by forty, who for punishment built the ten kilometres of road between Haniapa and Atuona.  Many Daughters, the beautiful little leper, when thirteen years old was a victim of seventeen men, some of whom were imprisoned.  Daughter of the Pigeon had had a fearful experience of this kind.  It had seared her soul, and Santos was paying for his sex.

In feud times this custom was a form of retaliation, as the slaying of men and eating them.  It has survived as a sport.  Lest horror should spend itself upon these natives of the islands, I mention that in every state in our union similar records blacken our history.  War’s pages from the first glimmerings to the last foul moment reek with this deviltry.  British and French at Badajoz and Tarragona, in Spain, left fearful memories.  Occident and Orient alike are guilty.  This crime smutches the chronicle of every invasion.  It is part of the degradation of slums in all our cities, a sport of hoodlum gangs everywhere.  In the Marquesas it is a recognized, though forbidden, game, and has its retaliatory side.  Time was when troops of women have revenged it in strange, savage ways.