300 MYSTIC ISLES 



faces of the players at every crisis, quick to detect a 

 weakness, to interpret rightly a gesture or counting of 

 losses and gains, remorselessly hammering home his 

 victories, and always suave and generous in action. 



Llewellyn would withdraw his attention to listen to 

 the himene of the musicians thirty feet away, which con- 

 sisted mostly of familiar American airs, interpolated 

 with bizarre staves and dissonances. One caught a be- 

 loved strain, and then it wandered away queerly as if 

 the musician had forgotten the score and had done his 

 best otherwise. I never heard in Tahiti one air of Eu- 

 rope or America played through as composed, without 

 variation or omission, except the national anthem of 

 France. 



"They are happy, those boys," mused Llewellyn. 

 "They get more out of life than we do. Why should we 

 fool with these cards here when we might sing?" 



Llewellyn was only a quarter Tahitian, but at times 

 the island blood was the only pulse he felt. One noticed 

 it especially during the himenes, when he seemed to wan- 

 der far from the business in hand. That business being 

 poker, and Landers all attention to the cards and the 

 psychology of his antagonists, every time Llewellyn 

 harked to the himene he lost a Httle, and when he became 

 entangled in a jackpot of size, and drew too many cards 

 on account of his abstraction, he was mulcted of fifty 

 francs and failed of winning the two hundred he might 

 have won. 



"Unlucky at cards, lucky in something else," said he, 

 self -consolingly. 



"Ye want to drop that other thing when ye 're play- 



