in the midst of a game of patience. She explained the game as well

as she was able, and wound up jocularly by telling him this was her

devil-work, and if she won, the Equator would arrive next day.

Tembinok' must have drawn a long breath; we were not so high-and-

dry after all; he need no longer dissemble, and he plunged at once

into confessions. He made devil-work every day, he told us, to

know if ships were coming in; and thereafter brought us regular

reports of the results. It was surprising how regularly he was

wrong; but he always had an explanation ready. There had been some

schooner in the offing out of view; but either she was not bound

for Apemama, or had changed her course, or lay becalmed. I used to

regard the king with veneration as he thus publicly deceived

himself. I saw behind him all the fathers of the Church, all the

philosophers and men of science of the past; before him, all those

that are to come; himself in the midst; the whole visionary series

bowed over the same task of welding incongruities. To the end

Tembinok' spoke reluctantly of the island gods and their worship,

and I learned but little. Taburik is the god of thunder, and deals

in wind and weather. A while since there were wizards who could

call him down in the form of lightning. 'My patha he tell me he

see: you think he lie?' Tienti--pronounced something like

'Chench,' and identified by his majesty with the devil--sends and

removes bodily sickness. He is whistled for in the Paumotuan

manner, and is said to appear; but the king has never seen him.

The doctors treat disease by the aid of Chench: eclectic Tembinok'

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