White Shadows in the South Seas Part 25

Parables are commonly found in books. In a few words on a printed page one sees a universal problem made small and clear, freed from those large uncertainties and whimsies of chance that make life in the whole so confusing to the vision. It was my fortune to see, in the valley of Atuona on Hiva-oa, a series of incidents which were at the time a whirl of unbelievable merriment, yet which slowly clarified themselves into a parable, while I sat later considering them on the leaf-shaded _paepae_ of the House of the Golden Bed.

They began one afternoon when I dropped down to the palace to have a smoke with M. L'Hermier des Plantes, the governor. As I mounted the steps I beheld on the veranda the governor, stern, though perspiring, in his white ducks, confronting a yellowish stranger on crutches who pleaded in every tone of anguish for some boon denied him.

"_Non!_ No! _Ned!_" said the governor, poly-linguistically emphatic.

"It cannot be done!" He dropped into a chair and poured himself an inch of Pernod, as the defeated suitor turned to me in despair.

He was short and of a jaundiced hue, his soft brown eyes set slightly aslant. Although lame, he had an alertness and poise unusual in the sea's sp.a.w.n of these beaches. In Tahitian, Marquesan, and French, with now and then an English word, he explained that he, a Tahitian marooned on Hiva-oa from a schooner because of a broken leg, wished to pa.s.s the tedium of his exile in an innocent game of cards.

"I desire a mere permission to buy two packs of cards at the Chinaman's," he begged. "I would teach my neighbors here the _jeu de_ pokaree. I have learned it on a voyage to San Francisco. It is Americaine. It is like life, not altogether luck. One must think well to play it. I doubt not that you know that game."

Now gambling is forbidden in these isles. It is told that throughout the southern oceans such a madness possessed the people to play the white men's games of chance that in order to prevent constant bloodshed in quarrels a strict interdiction was made by the conquerors. Of course whites here are always excepted from such sin-stopping rules, and merchants keep a small stock of cards for their indulgence.

"But why two packs?" I asked the agitated Tahitian.

"_Mais, Monsieur_, that is the way I was taught. We played with ten or fourteen in the circle, and as it is merely _pour pa.s.ser le temps_, more of my poor brother Kanakas can enjoy it with two packs."

He was positively abased, for no Tahitian says "_Kanaka_" of himself.

It is a term of contempt. He might call his fellow so, but only as an American negro says "n.i.g.g.e.r."

I looked at him closely. Some gesture, the suggested slant of his brows, the thin lips, reminded me of a certain "son of Ah c.u.m" who guided me into disaster in Canton, saying, "Mis'r Rud Kippeling he go one time befo'."

"Your name?" I asked in hope of confirmation.

"O Lalala," he replied, while the smile that started in his eyes was killed by his tightening lips. "I am French, for my grandfather was of Annam under the tri-color, and my mother of Tahiti-iti."

Now fourteen-handed poker, with O Lalala as instructor to those ignorant of the game, the code of which was written by a United States diplomat, appealed to me as more than a pa.s.sing of the time.

It would be an episode in the valley. My patriotism was stimulated.

I called the governor aside.

"This poker," I said, "is not like ecarte or baccarat. It is a study of character, a matching of minds, a thing we call bluff, we Americans. These poor Marquesans must have some fun. Let him do it!

No harm can come of it. It is far to Paris, where the laws are made."

The governor turned to O Lalala.

"No stakes!" he said.

"_Mais, non!_ Not a _sou_!" the lame man promised. "We will use only matches for counters. _Merci, merci, Monsieur l'Administrateur!_ You are very good. Please, will you give me now the note to Ah You?"

As he limped away with it, the governor poured me an inch of absinthe.

"_Sapristi!_" he exclaimed. "O Lalala! O, la, la, la!" He burst into laughter. "He will play ze bloff?"

I spent that evening with Kriech, the German trader of Taka-Uka.

Over our h.e.l.laby beef and Munich beer we talked of copra and the beautiful girls of Buda-Pesth, of the contemplated effort of the French government to monopolize the island trade by subsidizing a corporation, and of the incident of the afternoon.

"The _Herr Doktor_ is new," said Kriech, with a wag of his head.

"That O Lalala! I have heard that that poker iss very dansherous.

That Prince Hanoi of Papeite lose his tam headt to a Chinaman.

Something comes of this foolishnesses!"

At midnight I had again gained the House of the Golden Bed and had lain down to sleep when on the breeze from up the valley there came a strangely familiar sound to my upper ear. I sat up, listening. In the dark silence, with no wind to rustle the breadfruit and cocoanut-trees, and only the brook faintly murmuring below, I heard a low babble of voices. No word was distinguishable, not even the language, yet curiously the sound had a rhythm that I knew.

I have heard from a distance preaching in many languages. Though only the cadences, the pauses, and rhythm reached me, I had no difficulty in knowing their origin and meaning. Thought casts the mold of all speech. Now my drowsy mind harked back to American days, to scenes in homes and clubs.

I rose, and wrapping the loin-cloth about me, set out with a lantern in search of that sound. It led me down the trail, across the brook, and up the slope into the dense green growth of the mountain-side.

Beyond I saw lights in the cocoanut-grove of Lam Kai Oo.

My bare feet made no noise, and through the undergrowth I peered upon as odd a sight as ever pleased a lover of the bizarre. A blaze of torches lighted a cleared s.p.a.ce among the tall palm columns, and in the flickering red glow a score of naked, tattooed figures crouched about a shining mat of sugar-cane. About them great piles of yellow-boxed Swedish matches caught the light, and on the cane mat shone the red and white and black of the cards.

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, "Pa.s.sy, calley or mak.u.m 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.

"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-h.e.l.lee!" 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.