“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 passer 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 “nigger.”

I looked at him closely.  Some gesture, the suggested slant of his brows, the thin lips, reminded me of a certain “son of Ah Cum” 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 passing 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 Hellaby 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.