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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."

A feast to the men of Motopu; the making of kava, and its drinking; the story of the Girl Who Lost Her Strength. The Vagabond, Kivi, who lived near the High Place, came down to my paepae one evening to bid me come to a feast given in Atuona Valley to the men of Motopu, who had been marvelously favored by the god of the sea.

O Lalala opened the pot for five packets and Kivi, nudged by his backers, feverishly balanced them. He took three cards, O Lalala but one. Standing behind the Tahitian, I saw that he had no cards of value, but coolly he threw thirty packets upon the mat. The others shuddered, for Kivi had drawn deuces to a pair of kings. They made the pipe glow again.

The women, in crimson gowns caught up to the waist, their luxuriant hair adorned with flowers and phosphorescent fungus, their necks hung with the pink peppers of Chile, squatted in a close ring about the players. The lame man took up the pack, shuffled it, and handed it to Kivi to cut. Then Kivi solemnly stacked before him the eighty-five packets of matches, all that remained in the islands.

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.

The business of eating proceeded rapidly, in silence, save for the night-rustling of the palms and the soft sound of the women's hastening bare feet. Only, as he saw any slackening, Kivi repeated vigorously, "Kai! Kai!" I sat with my back against the wall of the house of Broken Plate, as I ate quickly at the mandate of my host, and soon I felt the need of this support.

Five packs went upon the mat for ante, and Kivi very slowly picked up his cards. He surveyed them, and a grim smile of incredulity and delight spread over his ink-decorated countenance. He opened for ten packets. O Lalala quickly put down as many, and thirty more. Kivi chuckled as one who has his enemy in his hand, but stifles his feelings to hide his triumph.

Kivi shouted then. The women hurried forward with the food, and we fell to with a will. Pig and popoi, shark sweetbreads, roasted breadfruit and sweet potatoes, fruits and cocoanut-milk leaped from the broad leaf platters to wide-open mouths. Hardly a word was spoken.

Kivi hesitated, and then, amid the most frightful curses of his company, laid down only a pair of kings, a six, a nine, and a jack. O Lalala, without a smile, disclosed a pair of aces and three meaningless companions. The game was over. The men of Hiva-oa had thrown their last spear. Magic had been unavailing; the demon foreigner could read through the cards.

He dipped a shell in the trough, tossed a few drops over his shoulder to propitiate the god of the kava-drinking, and placed the shell in my hands. Ugh! The liquor tasted like earth and water, sweetish for a moment and then acrid and pungent. It was hard to get down, but all the men took theirs at a gulp, and when Kivi gave me another shellful, I followed their pattern. "Kai! Kai. Eat! Eat!"