“But—he is honest,” I objected.
In such a crisis, she muttered, all standards were naught. Exploding Eggs had been one of the first squatters at the sugar-cane mat. “The Bishop himself would trade the holy-water fonts for matches, were he as thirsty to play as I am!”
There were no more matches in the valleys of Atuona or Taka-Uka, she said. Every dealer had sold out. Every house had been invaded. The losers had begged, borrowed, or given articles of great value for matches. The accursed Tahitian had them all but a few now being waged. Defeated players were even now racing over the mountains in the darkness, ransacking each hut for more.
The reputation of Hiva-oa, of the island itself, was at stake. A foreigner had dishonored their people, or would if they did not win back what he had gained from them. She was half Chinese; her father's soul was concerned. He had died in this very room. To save his face in death she would give back even her interest in the Golden Bed, she would pledge all that Great Fern possessed, if I would give her only a few matches.
Her pleas could only be hopeless. There was not a match in the cabin.
Together we returned to the cocoanut-grove. O Lalala still sat calmly winning the matches, the supply of which was from time to time replenished by panting newcomers. He swept the mat clean at every valuable pot.
His only apparent advantage was that he made the rules whenever questions arose. He was patient in all disputes, yielding in small matters, but he was as the granite rocks of the mountain above him when many matches were at stake. With solemnity he invoked the name of Hoy-lee, the mysterious person who had fixed immutably the tapus of pokaree. He made an occult sign with his thumb against his nose, and that settled it. If any one persisted in challenging this tiki he added his other thumb to the little finger of his first symbol, and said, “Got-am-to-hellee!” As a last recourse, he would raise his crutch and with public opinion supporting him would threaten to invoke the law against gambling and stop the game if disputation did not cease.
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 hoarse 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 shell 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.