ikkers_. 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 gods 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 th