absinthe and rum to those who had the price. 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 Père Victorien
concerning the horse and the girl of the jubilee.

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

Père 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