O Lalala sat facing me, absorbed in the game. At his back the yellow boxes were piled high, his crutch propped against them, and continually he speeded the play by calling out, “Passy, calley or makum bigger!” “Comely center!” or, “Ante uppy!”
These were the sounds that had swept my memory back to civilization and drawn me from my Golden Bed. O Lalala had all the slang of poker—the poker of the waterfronts of San Francisco and of Shanghai—and evidently he had already taught his eager pupils that patois.
They crouched about the mat, bent forward in their eagerness, and the flickering light caught twisting mouths and eyes ringed with tattooing. Over their heads the torches flared, held by breathless onlookers. The candlenuts, threaded on long spines of cocoanut-leaves, blazed only a few seconds, but each dying one lit the one beneath as it sputtered out, and the scores of strings shed a continuous though wavering light upon the shining mat and the cards.
The midnight darkness of the enclosing grove and the vague columns of the palms, upholding the rustling canopy that hid the sky, hinted at some monstrous cathedral where heathen rites were celebrated.
I pushed through the fringe of onlookers, none of whom heeded me, and found Apporo and Exploding Eggs holding torches. The madness of play was upon them. The sad placidity of every day was gone; as in the throes of the dance they kept their gleaming eyes upon the fluctuations of fortune before them. Twice I spoke sharply before they heard me, and then in a frenzy of supplication Apporo threw herself upon me.
Would I not give her matches—the packets of matches that were under the Golden Bed? She and her husband, Great Fern, had spent but an hour in the magic circle ere they were denuded of their every match. Couriers were even now scouring the valley for more matches. Quick, hasten! Even now it might be that the packets under the Golden Bed were gone!
“Surely, then, come,” I said, struck by an incredible possibility. Could it be that the crafty O Lalala—absurd! But Apporo, hurrying before me down the lantern-lighted trail, confirmed my suspicions.
O Lalala had stated and put into effect the prohibition of any other stakes other than the innocent matches—mere counters—which he had mentioned to the governor. But swift messengers had heralded throughout the valley that there would be gambling—authorized par gouvernement—in Lam Kai Go's plantation, and already the cards had been shuffled for seven or eight hours. Throughout all Atuona matches had been given an extraordinary and superlative value. To the farthest huts on the rim of the valley the cry was “Matches!” And as fast as they arrived, O Lalala won them.
We hastened into my cabin, and Apporo was beneath the Golden Bed ere the rays of my lantern fell upon the floor. The packets had disappeared.
“Exploding Eggs!” cried Apporo, her dark eyes tolling in rage.