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.  He then carefully counted his remaining wealth, and with a gesture of invitation slid the entire seventy packets about his knees.  They were a great bulk, quite 840 boxes of matches, and they almost obscured the curving palms of blue tattooed on his mighty thighs.

Again he chuckled and this time put his knuckles over his mouth.  “Patty!” said Great Fern for him, and made a gesture disdaining more cards.

O Lalala scrutinized his face as the sailor the heavens in a storm, and then studied the visages of all his backers.  He closed his eyes a moment.  Then, “My cally!” he said, as he pushed a great heap of toendstikkers onto the cane mat.  The kava-drinkers grew black with excitement.

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.  Kivi fell back helpless, grief and kava prostrating him.  The torches died down as the winner picked up his spoils and prepared to retire.

At this moment a man dashed madly through the grove, displaying two boxes and a handful of separate matches.  O Lalala at first refused to play for this trifling stake, but in a storm of menacing cries consented to cut the pack for double or nothing, and in a twinkling extinguished the last hope.

The last comer had looted the governor’s palace.  The ultimate match in the Marquesas had been lost to the Tahitian.  He now had the absolute monopoly of light and of cooking.

Soberly the rest of the valley dwellers went home to unlighted huts.

Next morning, after a cold breakfast, I was early afoot in the valley.  On the way to the trader’s store I beheld the complacent winner in his cabin.  Through the open door I saw that every inch of the walls was covered with stacked boxes of matches, yellow fronts exposed.  On his mat in the middle of this golden treasury O Lalala reclined, smoking at his leisure, and smiling the happy smile of Midas.  Outside a cold wind swept down from Calvary Peak, and a gray sky hid the sun.

I paused in the reek of those innumerable matches, which tainted the air a hundred feet away, and exchanged morning greetings with their owner, inquiring about his plans.  He said that he would make a three days’ vigil of thanks, and upon the fourth day he would sell matches at a franc a small box.  I bade him farewell, and passed on.

The valley people were coming and going about their affairs, but sadly and even morosely.  There was no match to light the fire for roasting breadfruit, or to kindle the solacing tobacco.  O Lalala would not give one away, or sell one at any price.  Neither would he let a light be taken from his own fire or pipe.