rushed after them, wildly. "Oh, Felix, Felix, come back," she cried,
bursting into wild floods of hot, fierce tears. "Come back and let me die
with you! Let me die! Let me die with you!"

Felix crossed the white line without one word of reply, and went forth
into the night, half unmanned by this effort. Muriel sank, where she
stood, into Mali's arms. The girl caught her and supported her. But
before she had fainted quite away, Muriel had time vaguely to see and
note one significant fact. The Eyes of Tu-Kila-Kila, who stood watching
the huts with lynx-like care, nodded twice to Toko, the Shadow, as he
passed between them; then they stealthily turned and dogged the two men's
footsteps afar off in the jungle.

Muriel was left by herself in the hut, face to face with Mali.

"Let us pray, Mali," she cried, seizing her Shadow's arm.

And Mali, moved suddenly by some half-obliterated impulse, exclaimed in
concert, in a terrified voice, "Let us pray to Methodist God in heaven!"

For her life, too, hung on the issue of that rash endeavor.




CHAPTER XXVII.

A STRANGE ALLY.


In Tu-Kila-Kila's temple-hut, meanwhile, the jealous, revengeful god,
enshrined among his skeletons, was having in his turn an anxious and
doubtful time of it. Ever since his sacred blood had stained the dust of
earth by the Frenchman's cottage and in his own temple, Tu-Kila-Kila,
for all his bluster, had been deeply stirred and terrified in his inmost
soul by that unlucky portent. A savage, even if he be a god, is always
superstitious. Could it be that his own time was, indeed, drawing nigh?
That he, who had remorselessly killed and eaten so many hundreds of human
victims, was himself to fall a prey to some more successful competitor?
Had the white-faced stranger, the King of the Rain, really learned the
secrets of the Great Taboo from the Soul of all dead parrots? Did that
mysterious bird speak the tongue of these new fire-bearing Korongs,
whose doom was fixed for the approaching solstice? Tu-Kila-Kila wondered
and doubted. His suspicions were keen, and deeply aroused. Late that
night he still lurked by the sacred banyan-tree, and when at last he
retired to his own inner temple, white with the grinning skulls of the
victims he had devoured, it was with strict injunctions to Fire and
Water, and to his Eyes that watched there, to bring him word at once of
any projected aggression on the part of the stranger.

Within the temple-hut, however, Ula awaited him. That was a pleasant
change. The beautiful, supple, satin-skinned Polynesian looked more
beautiful and more treacherous than ever that fateful evening. Her great
brown limbs, smooth and glossy as pearl, were set off by a narrow girdle
or waistband of green and scarlet leaves, twined spirally around her.
Armlets of nautilus shell threw up the dainty plumpness of her soft,
round forearm. A garland hung festooned across one shapely shoulder;
her bosom was bare or but half hidden by the crimson hibiscus that
nestled voluptuously upon it. As Tu-Kila-Kila entered, she lifted her
large eyes, and, smiling, showed two even rows of pearly white teeth. "My
master has come!" she cried, holding up both lissome arms with a gesture
to welcome him. "The great god relaxes his care of the world for a while.
All goes on well. He leaves his sun to sleep and his stars to shine, and
he retires to rest on the unworthy bosom of her, his mate, his meat, that
is honored to love him."

Tu-Kila-Kila was scarcely just then in a mood for dalliance. "The Queen
of the Clouds comes hither to-morrow," he answered, casting a somewhat
contemptuous glance at Ula's more dusky and solid charms. "I go to
seek her with the wedding gifts early in the morning. For a week she
shall be mine. And after that--" he lifted his tomahawk and brought it
down on a huge block of wood significantly.

Ula smiled once more, that deep, treacherous smile of hers, and showed
her white teeth even deeper than ever. "If my lord, the great god, rises
so early to-morrow," she said, sidling up toward him voluptuously, "to
seek one more bride for his sacred temple, all the more reason he should
take his rest and sleep soundly to-night. Is he not a god? Are not his
limbs tired? Does he not need divine silence and slumber?"

Tu-Kila-Kila pouted. "I could sleep more soundly," he said, with a snort,
"if I knew what my enemy, the Korong, is doing. I have set my Eyes to
watch him, yet I do not feel secure. They are not to be trusted. I shall
be happier far when I have killed and eaten him." He passed his hand
across his bosom with a reflective air. You have a great sense of
security toward your enemy, no doubt, when you know that he slumbers,
well digested, within you.

Ula raised herself on her elbow, and gazed snake-like into his face, "My
lord's Eyes are everywhere," she said, reverently, with every mark of
respect. "He sees and knows all things. Who can hide anything on earth
from his face? Even when he is asleep, his Eyes watch well for him. Then
why should the great god, the Measurer of Heaven and Earth, the King of
Men, fear a white-faced stranger? To-morrow the Queen of the Clouds will
be yours, and the stranger will be abased: ha, ha, he will grieve at it!
To-night, Fire and Water keep guard and watch over you. Whoever would
hurt you must pass through Fire and Water before he reach your door. Fire
would burn, Water would drown. This is a Great Taboo. No stranger dare
face it."

Tu-Kila-Kila lifted himself up in his thrasonic mood. "If he did," he
cried, swelling himself, "I would shrivel him to ashes with one flash of
my eyes. I would scorch him to a cinder with one stroke of my lightning."

Ula smiled again, a well-satisfied smile. She was working her man up.
"Tu-Kila-Kila is great," she repeated, slowly. "All earth obeys him. All
heaven fears him."

The savage took her hand with a doubtful air. "And yet," he said, toying
with it, half irresolute, "when I went to the white-faced stranger's hut
this morning, he did not speak fair; he answered me insolently. His words
were bold. He talked to me as one talks to a man, not to a great god.
Ula, I wonder if he knows my secret?"

Ula started back in well-affected horror. "A white-faced stranger from
the sun know your secret, O great king!" she cried, hiding her face in a
square of cloth. "See me beat my breast! Impossible! Impossible! No
one of your subjects would dare to tell him so great a taboo. It would be
rank blasphemy. If they did, your anger would utterly consume them!"

"That is true," Tu-Kila-Kila said, practically, "but I might not discover
it. I am a very great god. My Eyes are everywhere. No corner of the world
is hid from my gaze. All the concerns of heaven and earth are my care,
And, therefore; sometimes, I overlook some detail."

"No man alive would dare to tell the Great Taboo!" Ula repeated,
confidently. "Why, even I myself, who am the most favored of your
wives, and who am permitted to bask in the light of your presence--even
I, Ula--I do not know it. How much less, then, the spirit from the sun,
the sailing god, the white-faced stranger!"

Tu-Kila-Kila pursed up his brow and looked preternaturally wise, as the
savage loves to do. "But the parrot," he cried, "the Soul of all dead
parrots! _He_ knew the secret, they say:--I taught it him myself in an
ancient day, many, many years ago--when no man now living was born, save
only I--in another incarnation--and _he_ may have told it. For the
strangers, they say, speak the language of birds; and in the language of
birds did I tell the Great Taboo to him."

Ula pooh-poohed the mighty man-god's fears. "No, no," she cried, with
confidence; "he can never have told them. If he had, would not your Eyes
that watch ever for all that happens on heaven or earth, have straightway
reported it to you? The parrot died without yielding up the tale. Were it
otherwise, Toko, who loves and worships you, would surely have told me."

The man-god puckered his brows slightly, as if he liked not the security.
"Well, somehow, Ula," he said, feeling her soft brown arms with his
divine hand, slowly, "I have always had my doubts since that day the Soul
of all dead parrots bit me. A vicious bird! What did he mean by his
bite?" He lowered his voice and looked at her fixedly. "Did not his
spilling my blood portend," he asked, with a shudder of fear, "that
through that ill-omened bird I, who was once Lavita, should cease to be
Tu-Kila-Kila?"

Ula smiled contentedly again. To say the truth, that was precisely the
interpretation she herself had put on that terrific omen. The parrot had
spilled Tu-Kila-Kila's sacred blood upon the soil of earth. According to
her simple natural philosophy, that was a certain sign that through the
parrot's instrumentality Tu-Kila-Kila's life would be forfeited to the
great eternal earth-spirit. Or, rather, the earth-spirit would claim the
blood of the man Lavita, in whose body it dwelt, and would itself migrate
to some new earthly tabernacle.

But for all that, she dissembled. "Great god," she cried, smiling, a
benign smile, "you are tired! You are thirsty! Care for heaven and
earth has wearied you out. You feel the fatigue of upholding the sun in
heaven. Your arms must ache. Your thews must give under you. Drink of the
soul-inspiring juice of the kava! My hands have prepared the divine cup.
For Tu-Kila-Kila did I make it--fresh, pure, invigorating!"

She held the bowl to his lips with an enticing smile. Tu-Kila-Kila
hesitated and glanced around him suspiciously. "What if the white-faced
stranger should come to-night?" he whispered, hoarsely. "He may have
discovered the Great Taboo, after all. Who can tell the ways of the
world, how they come about? My people are so treacherous. Some traitor
may have betrayed it to him."

"Impossible," the beautiful, snake-like woman answered, with a strong
gesture of natural dissent. "And even if he came, would not kava, the
divine, inspiriting drink of the gods, in which dwell the embodied souls
of our fathers--would not kava make you more vigorous, strong for the
fight? Would it not course through your limbs like fire? Would it not
pour into your soul the divine, abiding strength of your mighty mother,
the eternal earth-spirit?"

"A little," Tu-Kila-Kila said, yielding, "but not too much. Too much
would stupefy me. When the spirits, that the kava-tree sucks up from the
earth, are too strong within us, they overpower our own strength, so that
even I, the high god--even I can do nothing."

Ula held the bowl to his lips, and enticed him to drink with her
beautiful eyes. "A deep draught, O supporter of the sun in heaven," she
cried, pressing his arm tenderly. "Am I not Ula? Did I not brew it for
you? Am I not the chief and most favored among your women? I will sit at
the door. I will watch all night. I will not close an eye. Not a footfall
on the ground but my ear shall hear it."

"Do." Tu-Kila-Kila said, laconically. "I fear Fire and Water. Those gods
love me not. Fain would they make me migrate into some other body. But I
myself like it not. This one suits me admirably. Ula, that kava is
stronger than you are used to make it."

"No, no," Ula cried, pressing it to his lips a second time, passionately.
"You are a very great god. You are tired; it overcomes you. And if you
sleep, I will watch. Fire and Water dare not disobey your commands. Are
you not great? Your Eyes are everywhere. And I, even I, will be as one of
them."

The savage gulped down a few more mouthfuls of the intoxicating liquid.
Then he glanced up again suddenly with a quick, suspicious look. The
cunning of his race gave him wisdom in spite of the deadly strength of
the kava Ula had brewed too deep for him. With a sudden resolve, he rose
and staggered out. "You are a serpent, woman!" he cried angrily, seeing
the smile that lurked upon Ula's face. "To-morrow I will kill you. I will
take the white woman for my bride, and she and I will feast off your
carrion body. You have tried to betray me, but you are not cunning
enough, not strong enough. No woman shall kill me. I am a very great god.
I will not yield. I will wait by the tree. This is a trap you have set,
but I do not fall into it. If the King of the Rain comes, I shall be
there to meet him."

He seized his spear and hatchet and walked forth, erect, without one sign
of drunkenness. Ula trembled to herself as she saw him go. She was
playing a deep game. Had she given him only just enough kava to
strengthen and inspire him?




CHAPTER XXVIII.

WAGER OF BATTLE.


Felix wound his way painfully through the deep fern-brake of the jungle,
by no regular path, so as to avoid exciting the alarm of the natives, and
to take Tu-Kila-Kila's palace-temple from the rear, where the big tree,
which overshadowed it with its drooping branches, was most easily
approachable. As he and Toko crept on, bending low, through that dense
tropical scrub, in deathly silence, they were aware all the time of a
low, crackling sound that rang ever some paces in the rear on their trail
through the forest. It was Tu-Kila-Kila's Eyes, following them stealthily
from afar, footstep for footstep, through the dense undergrowth of bush,
and the crisp fallen leaves and twigs that snapped light beneath their
footfall. What hope of success with those watchful spies, keen as beagles
and cruel as bloodhounds, following ever on their track? What chance of
escape for Felix and Muriel, with the cannibal man-gods toils laid round
on every side to insure their destruction?

Silently and cautiously the two men groped their way on through the dark
gloom of the woods, in spite of their mute pursuers. The moonlight
flickered down athwart the trackless soil as they went; the hum of
insects innumerable droned deep along the underbrush. Now and then the
startled scream of a night jar broke the monotony of the buzz that was
worse than silence; owls boomed from the hollow trees, and fireflies
darted dim through the open spaces. At last they emerged upon the cleared
area of the temple. There Felix, without one moment's hesitation, with a
firm and resolute tread, stepped over the white coral line that marked
the taboo of the great god's precincts. That was a declaration of open
war; he had crossed the Rubicon of Tu-Kila-Kila's empire. Toko stood
trembling on the far side; none might pass that mystic line unbidden and
live, save the Korong alone who could succeed in breaking off the bough
"with yellow leaves, resembling a mistletoe," of which Methuselah, the
parrot, had told Felix and Muriel, and so earn the right to fight for his
life with the redoubted and redoubtable Tu-Kila-Kila.

As he stepped over the taboo-line, Felix was aware of many native eyes
fixed stonily upon him from the surrounding precinct. Clearly they were
awaiting him. Yet not a soul gave the alarm; that in itself would have
been to break taboo. Every man or woman among the temple attendants
within that charmed circle stood on gaze curiously. Close by, Ula, the
favorite wife of the man-god, crouched low by the hut, with one finger
on her treacherous lips, bending eagerly forward, in silent expectation
of what next might happen. Once, and once only, she glanced at Toko
with a mute sign of triumph; then she fixed her big eyes on Felix in
tremulous anxiety; for to her as to him, life and death now hung
absolutely on the issue of his enterprise. A little farther back the King
of Fire and the King of Water, in full sacrificial robes, stood smiling
sardonically. For them it was merely a question of one master more or
less, one Tu-Kila-Kila in place of another. They had no special interest
in the upshot of the contest, save in so far as they always hated most
the man who for the moment held by his own strong arm the superior
godship over them. Around, Tu-Kila-Kila's Eyes kept watch and ward in
sinister silence. Taboo was stronger than even the commands of the high
god himself. When once a Korong had crossed that fatal line, unbidden and
unwelcomed by Tu-Kila-Kila, he came as Tu-Kila-Kila's foe and would-be
successor; the duty of every guardian of the temple was then to see fair
play between the god that was and the god that might be--the Tu-Kila-Kila
of the hour and the Tu-Kila-Kila who might possibly supplant him.

"Let the great spirit itself choose which body it will inhabit," the King
of Fire murmured in a soft, low voice, glancing toward a dark spot at the
foot of the big tree. The moonlight fell dim through the branches on the
place where he looked. The glibbering bones of dead victims rattled
lightly in the wind. Felix's eyes followed the King of Fire's, and saw,
lying asleep upon the ground, Tu-Kila-Kila himself, with his spear and
tomahawk.

He lay there, huddled up by the very roots of the tree, breathing deep
and regularly. Right over his head projected the branch, in one part of
whose boughs grew the fateful parasite. By the dim light of the moon,
straggling through the dense foliage, Felix could see its yellow leaves
distinctly. Beneath it hung a skeleton, suspended by invisible cords,
head downward from the branches. It was the skeleton of a previous Korong
who had tried in vain to reach the bough, and perished. Tu-Kila-Kila had
made high feast on the victim's flesh; his bones, now collected together
and cunningly fastened with native rope, served at once as a warning and
as a trap or pitfall for all who might rashly venture to follow him.

Felix stood for one moment, alone and awe-struck, a solitary civilized
man, among those hideous surroundings. Above, the cold moon; all about,
the grim, stolid, half-hostile natives; close by, that strange,
serpentine, savage wife, guarding, cat-like, the sleep of her cannibal
husband; behind, the watchful Eyes of Tu-Kila-Kila, waiting ever in the
background, ready to raise a loud shout of alarm and warning the moment
the fatal branch was actually broken, but mute, by their vows, till that
moment was accomplished. Then a sudden wild impulse urged him on to the
attempt. The banyan had dropped down rooting offsets to the ground, after
the fashion of its kind, from its main branches. Felix seized one of
these and swung himself lightly up, till he reached the very limb on
which the sacred parasite itself was growing.

To get to the parasite, however, he must pass directly above
Tu-Kila-Kila's head, and over the point where that ghastly grinning
skeleton was suspended, as by an unseen hair, from the fork that bore it.

He walked along, balancing himself, and clutching, as he went, at the
neighboring boughs, while Tu-Kila-Kila, overcome with the kava, slept
stolidly and heavily on beneath him. At last he was almost within grasp
of the parasite. Could he lunge out and clutch it? One try--one effort!
No, no; he almost lost footing and fell over in the attempt. He couldn't
keep his balance so. He must try farther on. Come what might, he must go
past the skeleton.

The grisly mass swung again, clanking its bones as it swung, and groaned
in the wind ominously. The breeze whistled audibly through its hollow
skull and vacant eye-sockets. Tu-Kila-Kila turned uneasily in his sleep
below. Felix saw there was not one instant of time to be lost now. He
passed on boldly; and as he passed, a dozen thin cords of paper mulberry,
stretched every way in an invisible network among the boughs, too small
to be seen in the dim moonlight, caught him with their toils and almost
overthrew him. They broke with his weight, and Felix himself, tumbling
blindly, fell forward. At the cost of a sprained wrist and a great jerk
on his bruised fingers, he caught at a bough by his side, but wrenched it
away suddenly. It was touch and go. At the very same moment, the skeleton
fell heavily, and rattled on the ground beside Tu-Kila-Kila.

Before Felix could discover what had actually happened, a very great
shout went up all round below, and made him stagger with excitement.
Tu-Kila-Kila was awake, and had started up, all intent, mad with wrath
and kava. Glaring about him wildly, and brandishing his great spear in
his stalwart hands, he screamed aloud, in a perfect frenzy of passion and
despair: "Where is he, the Korong? Bring him on, my meat! Let me devour
his heart! Let me tear him to pieces. Let me drink of his blood! Let me
kill him and eat him!"

Sick and desperate at the accident, Felix, in turn, clinging hard to his
bough with one hand, gazed wildly about him to look for the parasite. But
it had gone as if by magic. He glanced around in despair, vaguely
conscious that nothing was left for it now but to drop to the ground
and let himself be killed at leisure by that frantic savage. Yet even as
he did so, he was aware of that great cry--a cry as of triumph--still
rending the air. Fire and Water had rushed forward, and were holding back
Tu-Kila-Kila, now black in the face from rage, with all their might. Ula
was smiling a malicious joy. The Eyes were all agog with interest and
excitement. And from one and all that wild scream rose unanimous to the
startled sky: "He has it! He has it! The Soul of the Tree! The Spirit of
the World! The great god's abode. Hold off your hands, Lavita, son of
Sami! Your trial has come. He has it! He has it!"

Felix looked about him with a whirling brain. His eye fell suddenly.
There, in his own hand, lay the fateful bough. In his efforts to steady
himself, he had clutched at it by pure accident, and broken it off
unawares with the force of his clutching. As fortune would have it, he
grasped it still. His senses reeled. He was almost dead with excitement,
suspense, and uncertainty, mingled with pain of his wrenched wrist. But
for Muriel's sake he pulled himself together. Gazing down and trying hard
to take it all in--that strange savage scene--he saw that Tu-Kila-Kila
was making frantic attempts to lunge at him with the spear, while the
King of Fire and the King of Water, stern and relentless, were holding
him off by main force, and striving their best to appease and quiet him.

There was an awful pause. Then a voice broke the stillness from beyond
the taboo-line:

"The Shadow of the King of the Rain speaks," it said, in very solemn,
conventional accents. "Korong! Korong! The Great Taboo is broken. Fire
and Water, hold him in whom dwells the god till my master comes. He has
the Soul of all the spirits of the wood in his hands. He will fight for
his right. Taboo! Taboo! I, Toko, have said it."

He clapped his hands thrice.

Tu-Kila-Kila made a wild effort to break away once more. But the King of
Fire, standing opposite him, spoke still louder and clearer. "If you
touch the Korong before the line is drawn," he said, with a voice of
authority, "you are no Tu-Kila-Kila, but an outcast and a criminal. All
the people will hold you with forked sticks, while the Korong burns you
alive slowly, limb by limb, with me, who am Fire, the fierce, the
consuming. I will scorch you and bake you till you are as a bamboo in the
flame. Taboo! Taboo! Taboo! I, Fire, have said it."

The King of Water, with three attendants, forced Tu-Kila-Kila on one
side for a moment. Ula stood by and smiled pleased compliance. A temple
slave, trembling all over at this conflict of the gods, brought out a
calabash full of white coral-sand. The King of Water spat on it and
blessed it. By this time a dozen natives, at least, had assembled outside
the taboo-line, and stood eagerly watching the result of the combat. The
temple slave made a long white mark with the coral-sand on one side of
the cleared area. Then he handed the calabash solemnly to Toko. Toko
crossed the sacred precinct with a few inaudible words of muttered charm,
to save the Taboo, as prescribed in the mysteries. Then he drew a similar
line on the ground on his side, some twenty yards off. "Descend, O my
lord!" he cried to Felix; and Felix, still holding the bough tight in his
hand, swung himself blindly from the tree, and took his place by Toko.

"Toe the line!" Toko cried, and Felix toed it.

"Bring up your god!" the Shadow called out aloud to the King of Water.
And the King of Water, using no special ceremony with so great a duty,
dragged Tu-Kila-Kila helplessly along with him to the farther taboo-line.

The King of Water brought a spear and tomahawk. He handed them to Felix.
"With these weapons," he said, "fight, and merit heaven. I hold the bough
meanwhile--the victor takes it."

The King of Fire stood out between the lists. "Korongs and gods," he
said, "the King of the Rain has plucked the sacred bough, according to
our fathers' rites, and claims trial which of you two shall henceforth
hold the sacred soul of the world, the great Tu-Kila-Kila. Wager of
Battle decides the day. Keep toe to line. At the end of my words, forth,
forward, and fight for it. The great god knows his own, and will choose
his abode. Taboo, Taboo, Taboo! I, Fire, have spoken it."

Scarcely were the words well out of his mouth, when, with a wild whoop of
rage, Tu-Kila-Kila, who had the advantage of knowing the rules of the
game, so to speak, dashed madly forward, drunk with passion and kava, and
gave one lunge with his spear full tilt at the breast of the startled and
unprepared white man. His aim, though frantic, was not at fault. The
spear struck Felix high up on the left side. He felt a dull thud of pain;
a faint gurgle of blood. Even in the pale moonlight his eye told him at
once a red stream was trickling--out over his flannel shirt. He was
pricked, at least. The great god had wounded him.




CHAPTER XXIX.

VICTORY--AND AFTER?


The great god had wounded him. But not to the heart. Felix, as good luck
would have it, happened to be wearing buckled braces. He had worn them on
board, and, like the rest of his costume, had, of course, never since
been able to discard them. They stood him in good stead now. The buckle
caught the very point of the bone-tipped spear, and broke the force of
the blow, as the great god lunged forward. The wound was but a graze, and
Tu-Kila-Kila's light shaft snapped short in the middle.

Madder and wilder than ever, the savage pitched it away, yelling, rushed
forward with a fierce curse on his angry tongue, and flung himself, tooth
and nail, on his astonished opponent.

The suddenness of the onslaught almost took the Englishman's breath away.
By this time, however, Felix had pulled together his ideas and taken in
the situation. Tu-Kila-Kila was attacking him now with his heavy stone
axe. He must parry those deadly blows. He must be alert, but watchful. He
must put himself in a posture of defence at once. Above all, he must keep
cool and have his wits about him.

If he could but have drawn his knife, he would have stood a better chance
in that hand-to-hand conflict. But there was no time now for such tactics
as those. Besides, even in close fight with a bloodthirsty savage, an
English gentleman's sense of fair play never for one moment deserts him.
Felix felt, if they were to fight it out face to face for their lives,
they should fight at least on a perfect equality. Steel against stone was
a mean advantage. Parrying Tu-Kila-Kila's first desperate blow with the
haft of his own hatchet, he leaped aside half a second to gain breath and
strength. Then he rushed on, and dealt one deadly downstroke with the
ponderous weapon.

For a minute or two they closed, in perfectly savage single combat.
Fire and Water, observant and impartial, stood by like seconds to see
the god himself decide the issue, which of the two combatants should be
his living representative. The contest was brief but very hard-fought.
Tu-Kila-Kila, inspired with the last frenzy of despair, rushed wildly
on his opponent with hands and fists, and teeth and nails, dealing his
blows in blind fury, right and left, and seeking only to sell his life
as dearly as possible. In this last extremity, his very superstitions
told against him. Everything seemed to show his hour had come. The
parrot's bite--the omen of his own blood that stained the dust of
earth--Ula's treachery--the chance by which the Korong had learned the
Great Taboo--Felix's accidental or providential success in breaking off
the bough--the length of time he himself had held the divine honors--the
probability that the god would by this time begin to prefer a new and
stronger representative--all these things alike combined to fire the
drunk and maddened savage with the energy of despair. He fell upon his
enemy like a tiger upon an elephant. He fought with his tomahawk and his
feet and his whole lithe body; he foamed at the mouth with impotent rage;
he spent his force on the air in the extremity of his passion.

Felix, on the other hand, sobered by pain, and nerved by the fixed
consciousness that Muriel's safety now depended absolutely on his perfect
coolness, fought with the calm skill of a practised fencer. Happily he
had learned the gentle art of thrust and parry years before in England;
and though both weapon and opponent were here so different, the lesson of
quickness and calm watchfulness he had gained in that civilized school
stood him in good stead, even now, under such adverse circumstances.
Tu-Kila-Kila, getting spent, drew back for a second at last, and panted
for breath. That faint breathing-space of a moment's duration sealed his
fate. Seizing his chance with consummate skill, Felix closed upon the
breathless monster, and brought down the heavy stone hammer point blank
upon the centre of his crashing skull. The weapon drove home. It cleft a
great red gash in the cannibal's head. Tu-Kila-Kila reeled and fell.
There was an infinitesimal pause of silence and suspense. Then a great
shout went up from all round to heaven, "He has killed him! He has
killed him! We have a new-made god! Tu-Kila-Kila is dead! Long live
Tu-Kila-Kila!"

Felix drew back for a moment, panting and breathless, and wiped his wet
brow with his sleeve, his brain all whirling. At his feet, the savage lay
stretched, like a log. Felix gazed at the blood-bespattered face
remorsefully. It is an awful thing, even in a just quarrel, to feel that
you have really taken a human life! The responsibility is enough to
appall the bravest of us. He stooped down and examined the prostrate body
with solemn reverence. Blood was flowing in torrents from the wounded
head. But Tu-Kila-Kila was dead--stone-dead forever.

Hot tears of relief welled up into Felix's eyes. He touched the body
cautiously with a reverent hand. No life. No motion.

Just as he did so, the woman Ula came forward, bare-limbed and beautiful,
all triumph in her walk, a proud, insensitive savage. One second she
gazed at the great corpse disdainfully. Then she lifted her dainty foot,
and gave it a contemptuous kick. "The body of Lavita, the son of Sami,"
she said, with a gesture of hatred. "He had a bad heart. We will cook it
and eat it." Next turning to Felix, "Oh, Tu-Kila-Kila," she cried,
clapping her hands three times and bowing low to the ground, "you are a
very great god. We will serve you and salute you. Am not I, Ula, one of
your wives, your meat? Do with me as you will. Toko, you are henceforth
the great god's Shadow!"

Felix gazed at the beautiful, heartless creature, all horrified. Even on
Boupari, that cannibal island, he was hardly prepared for quite so low a
depth of savage insensibility. But all the people around, now a hundred
or more, standing naked before their new god, took up the shout in
concert. "The body of Lavita, the son of Sami," they cried. "A carrion
corpse! The god has deserted it. The great soul of the world has entered
the heart of the white-faced stranger from the disk of the sun; the King
of the Rain; the great Tu-Kila-Kila. We will cook and eat the body of
Lavita, the son of Sami. He was a bad man. He is a worn-out shell.
Nothing remains of him now. The great god has left him."

They clapped their hands in a set measure as they recited this hymn.
The King of Fire retreated into the temple. Ula stood by, and whispered
low with Toko. There was a ceremonial pause of some fifteen minutes.
Presently, from the inner recesses of the temple itself, a low noise
issued forth as of a rising wind. For some seconds it buzzed and hummed,
droningly. But at the very first note of that holy sound Ula dropped her
lover's hand, as one drops a red-hot coal, and darted wildly off at
full speed, like some frightened wild beast, into the thick jungle. Every
other woman near began to rush away with equally instantaneous signs of
haste and fear. The men, on the other hand, erect and naked, with their
hands on their foreheads, crossed the taboo-line at once. It was the
summons to all who had been initiated at the mysteries--the sacred
bull-roarer was calling the assembly of the men of Boupari.

For several minutes it buzzed and droned, that mystic implement, growing
louder and louder, till it roared like thunder. One after another, the
men of the island rushed in as if mad or in flight for their lives before
some fierce beast pursuing them. They ran up, panting, and dripping with
sweat; their hands clapped to their foreheads; their eyes starting wildly
from their staring sockets; torn and bleeding and lacerated by the thorns
and branches of the jungle, for each man ran straight across country from
the spot where he lay asleep, in the direction of the sound, and never
paused or drew breath, for dear life's sake, till he stood beside the
corpse of the dead Tu-Kila-Kila.

And every moment the cry pealed louder and louder still. "Lavita, the son
of Sami, is dead, praise Heaven! The King of the Rain has slain him, and
is now the true Tu-Kila-Kila!"

Felix bent irresolute over the fallen savage's bloodstained corpse. What
next was expected of him he hardly knew or cared. His one desire now was
to return to Muriel--to Muriel, whom he had rescued from something worse
than death at the hateful hands of that accursed creature who lay
breathless forever on the ground beside him.

Somebody came up just then, and seized his hand warmly. Felix looked up
with a start. It was their friend, the Frenchman. "Ah, my captain, you
have done well," M. Peyron cried, admiring him. "What courage! What
coolness! What pluck! What soldiership! I couldn't see all. But I was in
at the death! And oh, _mon Dieu_, how I admired and envied you!"

By this time the bull-roarer had ceased to bellow among the rocks. The
King of Fire stood forth. In his hands he held a length of bamboo-stick
with a lighted coal in it. "Bring wood and palm-leaves," he said, in a
tone of command. "Let me light myself up, that I may blaze before
Tu-Kila-Kila."

He turned and bowed thrice very low before Felix. "The accepted of
Heaven," he cried, holding his hands above him. "The very high god! The
King of all Things! He sends down his showers upon our crops and our
fields. He causes his sun to shine brightly over us. He makes our pigs
and our slaves bring forth their increase. All we are but his meat. We,
his people, praise him."

And all the men of Boupari, naked and bleeding, bent low in response.
"Tu-Kila-Kila is great," they chanted, as they clapped their hands. "We
thank him that he has chosen a fresh incarnation. The sun will not fade
in the heavens overhead, nor the bread-fruits wither and cease to bear
fruit on earth. Tu-Kila-Kila, our god, is great. He springs ever young
and fresh, like the herbs of the field. He is a most high god. We, his
people, praise him."

Four temple attendants brought sticks and leaves, while Felix stood
still, half dazed with the newness of these strange preparations. The
King of Fire, with his torch, set light to the pile. It blazed merrily on
high. "I, Fire, salute you," he cried, bending over it toward Felix.

"Now cut up the body of Lavita, the son of Sami," he went on, turning
toward it contemptuously. "I will cook it in my flame, that Tu-Kila-Kila
the great may eat of it."

Felix drew back with a face all aglow with horror and disgust. "Don't
touch that body!" he cried, authoritatively, putting his foot down firm.
"Leave it alone at once. I refuse to allow you." Then he turned to
M. Peyron. "The King of the Birds and I," he said, with calm resolve, "we
two will bury it."

The King of Fire drew back at these strange words, nonplussed. This
was, indeed, an ill-omened break in the ceremony of initiation of a new
Tu-Kila-Kila, to which he had never before in his life been accustomed.
He hardly knew how to comport himself under such singular circumstances.
It was as though the sovereign of England, on coronation-day, should
refuse to be crowned, and intimate to the archbishop, in his full
canonicals, a confirmed preference for the republican form of Government.
It was a contingency that law and custom in Boupari had neither, in their
wisdom, foreseen nor provided for.

The King of Water whispered low in the new god's ear. "You must eat of
his body, my lord," he said. "That is absolutely necessary. Every one of
us must eat of the flesh of the god; but you, above all, must eat his
heart, his divine nature. Otherwise you can never be full Tu-Kila-Kila."

"I don't care a straw for that," Felix cried, now aroused to a full sense
of the break in Methuselah's story and trembling with apprehension. "You
may kill me if you like; we can die only once; but human flesh I can
never taste; nor will I, while I live, allow you to touch this dead man's
body. We will bury it ourselves, the King of the Birds and I. You may
tell your people so. That is my last word." He raised his voice to the
customary ceremonial pitch. "I, the new Tu-Kila-Kila," he said, "have
spoken it."

The King of Fire and the King of Water, taken aback at his boldness,
conferred together for some seconds privately. The people meanwhile
looked on and wondered. What could this strange hitch in the divine
proceedings mean? Was the god himself recalcitrant? Never in their lives
had the oldest men among them known anything like it.

And as they whispered and debated, awe-struck but discordant, a shout
arose once more from the outer circle--a mighty shout of mingled
surprise, alarm, and terror. "Taboo! Taboo! Fence the mysteries. Beware!
Oh, great god, we warn you. The mysteries are in danger! Cut her down!
Kill her! A woman! A woman!"

At the words, Felix was aware of somebody bursting through the dense
crowd and rushing wildly toward him. Next moment, Muriel hung and sobbed
on his shoulder, while Mali, just behind her, stood crying and moaning.

Felix held the poor startled girl in his arms and soothed her. And
all around another great cry arose from five hundred lips: "Two women
have profaned the mysteries of the god. They are Tu-Kila-Kila's
trespass-offering. Let us kill them and eat them!"




CHAPTER XXX.

SUSPENSE.


In a moment, Felix's mind was fully made up. There was no time to think;
it was the hour for action. He saw how he must comport himself toward
this strange wild people. Seating Muriel gently on the ground, Mali
beside her, and stepping forward himself, with Peyron's hand in his, he
beckoned to the vast and surging crowd to bespeak respectful silence.

A mighty hush fell at once upon the people. The King of Fire and the King
of Water stood back, obedient to his nod. They waited for the upshot of
this strange new development.