“O my husband!” said Kokua. “Is it not a terrible thing to save oneself by the eternal ruin of another? It seems to me I could not laugh. I would be humbled. I would be filled with melancholy. I would pray for the poor holder.”
Then Keawe, because he felt the truth of what she said, grew the more angry. “Heighty-teighty!” cried he. “You may be filled with melancholy if you please. It is not the mind of a good wife. If you thought at all of me, you would sit shamed.”
Thereupon he went out, and Kokua was alone.
What chance had she to sell that bottle at two centimes? None, she perceived. And if she had any, here was her husband hurrying her away to a country where there was nothing lower than a cent. And here — on the morrow of her sacrifice — was her husband leaving her and blaming her.
She would not even try to profit by what time she had, but sat in the house, and now had the bottle out and viewed it with unutterable fear, and now, with loathing, hid it out of sight.
By and by, Keawe came back, and would have her take a drive.
“My husband, I am ill,” she said. “I am out of heart. Excuse me, I can take no pleasure.”
Then was Keawe more wroth than ever. With her, because he thought she was brooding over the case of the old man; and with himself because he thought she was right, and was ashamed to be so happy.
“This is your truth,” cried he, “and this is your affection! Your husband is just saved from eternal ruin, which he encountered for the love of you — and you can take no pleasure! Kokua, you have a disloyal heart.”
He went forth again furious, and wandered in the town all day. He met friends, 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, and convict in prisons. He had a low mind and a foul mouth; he loved to drink and see others drunk; 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 struck 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 in 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 a chair and started up like one awakened out of sleep.
“I have been drinking all day and making merry,” said Keawe. “I have been with good companions, and now I only come back for money, and return to drink and carouse with them again.”
Both his face and voice were as stern as judgment, but Kokua was too troubled to observe.
“You do well to use your own, my husband,” said she, and her words trembled.
“Oh, I do well in all things,” said Keawe, and he went straight to the chest and took out money. But he looked besides in the corner where they kept the bottle, and there was no bottle there.
At that the chest heaved upon the floor like a sea billow, and the house spun about him like a wreath of smoke, for he saw she was lost now, and there was no escape. “It is what I feared,” he thought. “It is she who has bought it.”
And then he came to himself a little and rose up; but the sweat streamed on his face as thick as the rain and as cold as the well water.
“Kokua,” said he, “I said to you today what ill became me. Now I return to carouse with my jolly companions,” and at that he laughed a little quietly. “I will take more pleasure in the cup if you forgive me.”
She clasped his knees in a moment; she kissed his knees with flowing tears. “Oh,” she cried, “I asked but a kind word!”
“Let us never one think hardly of the other,” said Keawe, and was gone out of the house.
Now, the money that Keawe had taken was only some of that store of centime pieces they had laid in at their arrival. It was very sure he had no mind to be drinking, His wife had given her soul for him, now he must give his for hers; no other thought was in the world with him.
At the corner, by the old calaboose, there was the boatswain waiting.
“My wife has the bottle,” said Keawe, “and, unless you help me to recover it, there can be no more money and no more liquor tonight.”
“You do not mean to say you are serious about that bottle?” cried the boatswain.
“There is the lamp,” said Keawe. “Do I look as if I was jesting?”
“That is so,” said the boatswain. “You look as serious as a ghost.”
“Well, then,” said Keawe, “here are two centimes; you must go to my wife in the house, and offer her these for the bottle, which (if I am not much mistaken) she will give you instantly. Bring it to me here, and I will buy it back from you for one; for that is the law with this bottle, that it still must be sold for a less sum. But whatever you do, never breathe a word to her that you have come from me.”
“Mate, I wonder are you making a fool of me?” asked the boatswain.
“It will do you no harm if I am,” returned Keawe.
“That is so, mate,” said the boatswain.
“And if you doubt me,” added Keawe, “you can try. As soon as you are clear of the house, wish to have your pocket full of money, or a bottle of the best rum, or what you please, and you will see the virtue of the thing.”
“Very well, Keawe,” says the boatswain. “I will try; but if you are having your fun out of me, I will take my fun out of you with a belaying pin.”
So the whaler man went off up the avenue; and Keawe stood and waited. It was near the same spot where Kokua had waited the night before; but Keawe was more resolved, and never faltered in his purpose; only his soul was bitter with despair.
It seemed a long time he had to wait before he heard a voice singing in the darkness of the avenue. He knew the voice to be the boatswain’s; but it was strange how drunken it appeared upon a sudden.