e. There was a moment when
it seemed touch and go between the devil and Joan. But, oh, how she
came to our rescue! I reproached the whites, locked up the rum, and
Joan did the rest. It was a three-days' feast of innocence."

"But there are not many whites here?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "There are one hundred and twenty people in
Tai-o-hae now, and but a few are whites. Alas, _mon ami_, they do
not set a good example. They mean well; they are brave men, but they
do not keep the commandments. Here is a chart I drew showing the
rise of the church since Peter. It is divided into twenty periods,
and I have allotted the fifteenth to Joan. She well merits a period."

My mind continually harked back to the prompting of Pere Victorien
concerning the horse and the girl of the jubilee.

"There were signs at the commemoration?" I interposed.

Pere Simeon glanced at me eagerly. His naivete was not of ignorance
of men and their motives. He had confessed royalty, cannibals,
pirates, and nuns. The souls of men were naked under his scrutiny.
But his faith burned like a lambent flame, and to win to the
standard of the Maid of Orleans one who would listen was a duty owed
her, and a rare chance to aid a fellow mortal.

He rose and brushed the cigarette ashes down the front of his frayed
cassock as an old native woman responded to his call and brought
another bottle of Bordeaux. The _nonos_ were incessantly active. I
slapped at them constantly and sucked at the wounds they made. But
he paid no attention to them at all except when they attacked him
under his soutane; then he struck convulsively at the spot.

"God sends us such trials to brighten our crown," he said
comfortingly. "I have seen white men dead from the _nonos_. They
were not here in the old days, but since the jungle has overrun us
because of depopulation, they are frightful. During the mass, when
the priest cannot defend himself, they are worst, as if sent by the
devil who hates the holy sacrifice. But, _mon vieux_, you were
asking about those signs. _Alors_, I will give the facts to you, and
you can judge."

He poured me a goblet of the wine; I removed my cotton coat, covered
my hands with it, against the gadflies, and prepared to listen.

"Seven years before the great anniversary," said Pere Simeon,
sipping his wine, "I thought out my plan. There would be masses,
vespers, benedictions, litanies, and choirs. But my mind was set
upon a representation of the Maid