conflagration, or a tidal
wave or cyclone. At the Cercle Militaire many of the bureaucrats,
and especially the doctor who had treated the cow-boy, were for
martial law, anyway. Napoleon knew, said the fierce medecin. "A
whiff of grapeshot, and the reef would be again gleaming with lights,
and the diligences would pour in with loads of fish."

Doctor Cassiou, a very old resident, and not at all fierce, asked
his confrere against whom would the grapeshot be directed. Would he
gather the fishermen from all over Tahiti, and decimate them, the
way the Little Corporal purged mutiny out of his regiments? Lontane
was sent out again. In the Cerele Bougainville he took a rum punch
before starting on his bicycle, and he swore by his patron saint,
Bacchus, that he would solve the problem even if denied the remedy
of force majeure.

Within three hours of his return from Patutoa, a meeting was called
of the council of state, the governor, the doctors, the druggist,
a merchant or two, and a lawyer, and before it M. Lontane disclosed
that the natives were possessed by a new devil that he feared was a
recrudescence of the ancient struggle for independence.

Each fisherman he had examined refused to answer his interrogations,
saying only, "I dobbebelly dobbebelly."

The governor scratched his ear, and the mayor wiggled his hands behind,
as he had on the wharf after the battle of the limes, coal, and
potatoes. The lawyer said it must be an incantation, but that it was
not Tahitian, for that language had no "d" in its alphabet. M. Lontane
and all his squad were given peremptory orders to unriddle the enigma.

Meanwhile the fishless market continued. It was not entirely fishless,
for before the bell rang we would see over the railings a few handfuls
of varos, crayfish, and shrimps and perhaps a dozen small baskets of
oysters. A policeman prevented a riot, but could not stay the rush
when the bell rang and the gate was opened. The lovers of shellfish
and the servants of the well-to-do snatched madly at the small supply,
and paid whatever extravagant price was demanded. The scales were
never touched, and any insistence upon the new legal plan and price
was laughed at. With these delicacies beyond their means, the natives
stormed the two pork butchers, the Tinitos. They grabbed the chops and
lumps of pig, poking and kneading them, shouting for their weight,
and in some instances making off without paying. There was such a
howdy-do that e