White Shadows in the South Seas Part 26

Steadily the pile of Swedish _toendstikkers_ grew behind him. All through the night the game raged beneath the light of the candlenuts, in a silence broken only by the hoa.r.s.e breathing of the crouching brown men, the sandy-sounding rustle of the palm-fronds overhead, and cries of "Ante uppy!" or "Comely center!" When dawn came grayly through the aisles of the grove, they halted briefly to eat a bowl of _popoi_ and to drink the milk of freshly gathered nuts. O Lalala, relaxing against the heap of his winnings, lifted a sh.e.l.l to his lips and over its rim gave me one enigmatic look.

Whistling softly, I went down to the House of the Golden Bed, breakfasted there without the aid of Exploding Eggs, and then sought the governor. He had gone by the whale-boat of Special Agent Bauda to an adjoining deserted island to shoot _kuku_. Hiva-oa was without a government.

All day the madness raged in the cocoanut-grove. In the afternoon the vicar apostolic of the Roman Catholic Church, supported by the faithful Deacon Fariuu, himself toiled up the slope to stop the game.

The bishop was received in sullen silence by regular communicants. A catechist whom he had found squat before the mat paid no attention to his objurgations, save to ask the bishop not to stand behind him, as O Lalala had said that was bad luck. The churchmen retired in a haughty silence that was unheeded by the absorbed players.

Later the deacon returned, bringing with him the very matches that had been kept in the church to light the lamps at night service.

These he stacked on the sugarcane mat. The vicar bishop followed him to call down the anathema maranatha of high heaven upon this renegade who had robbed the cathedral and the priests' house of every _toendstikker_ they had held, and when he had again retired, the deacon, dropping his last box on the woven table, elevated his hands toward the skies and fervently asked the Giver of All Good Things to aid his draw. But he received a third ace, only to see O Lalala put down four of the d.a.m.nable bits of paper with three spots on each one.

At three o'clock next morning the game lapsed because the Tahitian had all the counters. These he sent to his house, where they were guarded by a friend. For a day he sat waiting by the sugar-cane mat, and the Monte Carlo was not deserted. O Lalala would not budge to the demands of a hundred losers that he sell back packages of matches for cocoanuts or French francs or any other currency. Pigs, fish, canned goods, and all the contents of the stores he spurned as breaking faith with the kindly governor, who would recognize that while matches were not gambling stakes, all other commodities were.

On the fourth day the canoes that had paddled and sailed to every other island of the archipelago began to return. Some brought fifty packets, some less. Dealers had tossed their prices sky-ward when asked to sell their entire stocks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A chieftess in _tapa_ garments with _tapa_ parasol]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Launching the whale-boat]

Now the game began again with the fierceness of the typhoon after the center has pa.s.sed. Men and women stood in line for the chance to redeem their fortunes, to slake their rage, to gain applause. Once they thought they had conquered the Tahitian. He began to lose, and before his streak of trouble ended, he had sent more than thirty packages from his hut to the grove. But this was the merest breath of misfortune; his star rose again, and the contents of the canoes were his.

On the fifth day it became known that the Shan-Shan syndicate of Cantonese had a remaining case of _toendstikkers_. They claimed that until now they had overlooked this case. It held a hundred packages, or twelve hundred boxes. It was priceless as the sole possible barrier against the absolute ending of the game.

The Shan-Shan people were without heart. They demanded for the case five francs a packet. Many of the younger Marquesans counselled giving the Cantonese a taste of the ancient _u'u_, the war-club of a previous generation. Desperate as was the plight of the older gamesters, they dared not consent. The governor would return, the law would take its course, and they would go to Noumea to work out their lives for crime. No, they would buy the case for francs, but they would not risk dividing it among many, who would be devoured piecemeal by the diabolical O Lalala.

"Kivi, the Vagabond, the Drinker of _kava_, is the chief to lead our cause," said Great Fern. "He has never gone to the Christian church.

He believes still in the old G.o.ds of the High Place, and he is tattooed with the shark."

Kivi was the one man who had not played. He cared nothing for the pleasures of the _Farani_, the foolish whites. After palaver, his neighbors waited on him in a body. They reasoned with him, they begged him. He consented to their plan only after they had wept at their humbling. Then they began to instruct him.

They told him of the different kinds of combinations, of straights and of flushes, and of a certain occasional period when the Tahitian would introduce a mad novelty by which the cards with one fruit on them would "runnee wil'ee." They warned him against times when without reason the demon would put many matches on the mat, and after frightening out every one would in the end show that he had no cards of merit.

Immediately after sunset, when the _popoi_ and fish had been eaten, and all had bathed in the brook, when the women had perfumed their bodies and put the scarlet hibiscus in their hair, and after Kivi had drunk thrice of _kava_, the game began. The valley was deserted, the _paepaes_ empty. No fires twinkled from the mountainsides. Only in the cocoanut-grove the candlenuts were lit as the stars peeped through the roof of the world.

A throng surrounded the pair of combatants. The worn cards had been oiled and dried, and though the ominous faces of the _tiki_ upon them shone bravely, doubtless they were weary of strife. The pipe was made to smoke; Kivi puffed it and so did all who had joined in the purchase of the case from the thieves of Cantonese. Then the cards were dealt by Kivi, who had won the cut.

O Lalala and he eyed each other like j.a.panese wrestlers before the grapple. Their eyes were slits as they put up the ante of five packets each. O Lalala opened the pot for five packets and Kivi, nudged by his backers, feverishly balanced them. He took three cards, O Lalala but one. Standing behind the Tahitian, I saw that he had no cards of value, but coolly he threw thirty packets upon the mat. The others shuddered, for Kivi had drawn deuces to a pair of kings. They made the pipe glow again. They puffed it; they spat; they put their heads together, and he threw down his cards.

Then calmly the Tahitian laid down his own, and they saw that they could have beaten him. They shouted in dismay, and withdrew Kivi, who after some palaver went away with them into the darkness.

One or two candlenut torches dimly illumined the figures of the squatting women who remained. Upon the sugar-cane mat O Lalala stretched himself at ease, closing his eyes. A silence broken only by the stealthy noises of the forest closed upon us. Teata, her dark eyes wide, looked fearfully over her shoulder and crept close to me.

In a low voice she said that the absent players had thrown earth over their shoulders, stamped, and called upon Po, the Marquesan deity of darkness, yet it had not availed them. Now they went to make magic to those at whose very mention she shuddered, not naming them.

We waited, while the torches sputtered lower, and a dank breath of the forest crept between the trees. O Lalala appeared to sleep, though when Apporo attempted to withdraw a card he pinned it with his crutch.

It was half an hour before the players returned. Kivi crouched to his place without a word, and the others arranged themselves behind him in fixed array, as though they had a cabalistic number-formation in mind.

Fresh torches were made, and many disputed the privilege of holding them, as they controlled one's view of the mat. O Lalala sat imperturbable, waiting. At last all was ready. The light fell upon the giant limbs and huge torsos of the men, picking out arabesques of tattooing and catching ruddy gleams from red _pareus_. The women, in crimson gowns caught up to the waist, their luxuriant hair adorned with flowers and phosph.o.r.escent fungus, their necks hung with the pink peppers of Chile, squatted in a close ring about the players.

The lame man took up the pack, shuffled it, and handed it to Kivi to cut. Then Kivi solemnly stacked before him the eighty-five packets of matches, all that remained in the islands. Five packs went upon the mat for ante, and Kivi very slowly picked up his cards.

He surveyed them, and a grim smile of incredulity and delight spread over his ink-decorated countenance. He opened for ten packets. O Lalala quickly put down as many, and thirty more.

Kivi chuckled as one who has his enemy in his hand, but stifles his feelings to hide his triumph. He then carefully counted his remaining wealth, and with a gesture of invitation slid the entire seventy packets about his knees. They were a great bulk, quite 840 boxes of matches, and they almost obscured the curving palms of blue tattooed on his mighty thighs.

Again he chuckled and this time put his knuckles over his mouth.

"Patty!" said Great Fern for him, and made a gesture disdaining more cards.

O Lalala scrutinized his face as the sailor the heavens in a storm, and then studied the visages of all his backers. He closed his eyes a moment. Then, "My cally!" he said, as he pushed a great heap of _toendstikkers_ onto the cane mat. The _kava_-drinkers grew black with excitement.

Kivi hesitated, and then, amid the most frightful curses of his company, laid down only a pair of kings, a six, a nine, and a jack.

O Lalala, without a smile, disclosed a pair of aces and three meaningless companions.

The game was over. The men of Hiva-oa had thrown their last spear.

Magic had been unavailing; the demon foreigner could read through the cards. Kivi fell back helpless, grief and _kava_ prostrating him.

The torches died down as the winner picked up his spoils and prepared to retire.

At this moment a man dashed madly through the grove, displaying two boxes and a handful of separate matches. O Lalala at first refused to play for this trifling stake, but in a storm of menacing cries consented to cut the pack for double or nothing, and in a twinkling extinguished the last hope.

The last comer had looted the governor's palace. The ultimate match in the Marquesas had been lost to the Tahitian. He now had the absolute monopoly of light and of cooking.

Soberly the rest of the valley dwellers went home to unlighted huts.

Next morning, after a cold breakfast, I was early afoot in the valley.

On the way to the trader's store I beheld the complacent winner in his cabin. Through the open door I saw that every inch of the walls was covered with stacked boxes of matches, yellow fronts exposed. On his mat in the middle of this golden treasury O Lalala reclined, smoking at his leisure, and smiling the happy smile of Midas.

Outside a cold wind swept down from Calvary Peak, and a gray sky hid the sun.

I paused in the reek of those innumerable matches, which tainted the air a hundred feet away, and exchanged morning greetings with their owner, inquiring about his plans. He said that he would make a three days' vigil of thanks, and upon the fourth day he would sell matches at a franc a small box. I bade him farewell, and pa.s.sed on.

The valley people were coming and going about their affairs, but sadly and even morosely. There was no match to light the fire for roasting breadfruit, or to kindle the solacing tobacco. O Lalala would not give one away, or sell one at any price. Neither would he let a light be taken from his own fire or pipe.

The next schooner was not expected for two months, as the last was but a fortnight gone. Le Brunnec had not a match, nor Kriech. The governor had not returned. The only alternatives were to go lightless and smokeless or to a.s.sault the heartless oppressor. Many dark threats were muttered on the cheerless _paepaes_ and in the dark huts, but in variety of councils there was no unity, and none dared a.s.sault alone the yellow-walled hut in which O Lalala smiled among his gains.

On the second day there was a growing tension in the atmosphere of the valley. I observed that there were no young men to be seen on the beach or at the traders' stores. There were rumors, hints hardly spoken, of a meeting in the hills. The traders looked to their guns, whistling thoughtfully. There was not a spark of fire set in all Atuona, save by O Lalala, and that for himself alone.

So matters stood until the second night. Then old Kahuiti, that handsomest of cannibals, who lived in the valley of Taaoa, strolled into Atuona and made it known that he would hold a meeting in the High Place where of old many of his tribe had been eaten by Atuona men.

Exploding Eggs, Malicious Gossip, and I climbed the mountain early.

The population of the valley, eager for counsel, was gathered on the old stone benches where half a century earlier their sorcerers had sat. In the twilight Kahuiti stood before us, his long white beard tied in a Psyche knot on his broad, tattooed chest. His voice was stern.

We were fools, he said, to be denied food and smoke by the foreigner.

What of matches before the French came? Had he known matches in his youth? _Aue!_ The peoples of the islands must return to the ways of their fathers!

He leaped from the top of the Pekia, and seizing his long knife, he cut a five-foot piece of _parua_-wood and shaped it to four inches in width. With our fascinated gaze upon him, he whittled sharp a foot-long piece of the same wood, and straddled the longer stick.

Holding it firmly between his two bare knees he rubbed the shorter, pointed piece swiftly up and down a s.p.a.ce of six inches upon his mount. Gradually a groove formed, in which the dust collected at one end.

Soon the wood was smoking hot, and then the old man's hands moved so rapidly that for several moments I could not follow them with the eye.

The smoke became thicker, and suddenly a gleam of flame arose, caught the dust, and was fed with twigs and cocoanut-husks by scores of trembling brown hands. In a few minutes a roaring fire was blazing on the sward.

Pipes sprang from loin-cloths or from behind ears, and the incense of tobacco lifted on the still air of the evening.

Brands were improvised and hurried home to light the fires for breadfruit-roasting, while Kahuiti laughed scornfully.