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 space 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.

"A hundred of this tribe I have eaten, and no wonder!" he said as he
strode away toward Taaoa.

The monopoly of O Lalala was no more. Atuona Valley had turned back
the clock of time a hundred years, to destroy the perfect world in
which he sat alone. He heard the news with amazement and
consternation. For a day he sat disconsolate, unable to credit the
disaster that had befallen his carefully made plans. Then he offered
the matches at usual traders' prices, and the people mocked him. All
over the island the fire-ploughs, oldest of fire-making tools in the
world, were being driven to heat the stones for the _mei_. Atuona
had no need of matches.

The governor on his return heard the roars of derision, gathered the
story from a score of mirthful tongues, seized and sold the matches,
and appropriated the funds for a barrel of Bordeaux. And for many
weeks the unhappy O Lalala sat mournfully on the beach, gazing at
the empty sea and longing for a schooner to carry him away.

CHAPTER XXIII

Mademoiselle N----.

The _Jeanne d'Arc_, a beautiful, long, curving craft manned by
twelve oarsmen, came like a white bird over the blue waters of the
Bay of Traitors