Throughout that day the natives brought them, from time to time, numerous presents of yam, bananas, and bread-fruit, neatly arranged in little palm-leaf baskets. A few of them brought eggs as well, and one offering even included a live chicken. But the people who brought them, and who were mostly young girls just entering upon womanhood, did not venture to cross the white line of coral-sand that surrounded the huts; they laid down their presents, with many salaams, on the ground outside, and then waited with a half-startled, half-reverent air for one or other of the two Shadows to come out and fetch them. As soon as the baskets were carried well within the marked line, the young girls exhibited every sign of pleasure, and calling aloud, “Korong! Korong!”—that mysterious Polynesian word of whose import Felix was ignorant—they retired once more by tortuous paths through the surrounding jungle.
“Why do they bring us presents?” Felix asked at last of his Shadow, after this curious pantomime had been performed some three or four times. “Are they always going to keep us in such plenty?”
The Shadow looked back at him with an air of considerable surprise. “They bring presents, of course,” he said, in his own tongue, “because they are badly in want of rain. We have had much drought of late in Boupari; we need water from heaven. The banana-bushes wither; the flowers on the bread-fruit tree do not swell to breadfruit; the yams are thirsty. Therefore the fathers send their daughters with presents, maidens of the villages, all marriageable girls, to ask for rainfall. But they will always provide for you, and also for the Queen, however you behave; for you are both Korong. Tu-Kila-Kila has said so, and Heaven has accepted you.”
“What do you mean by Korong?” Felix asked, with some trepidation.
The Shadow merely looked back at him with a sort of blank surprise that anybody should be ignorant of so simple a conception. “Why, Korong is Korong,” he answered, aghast. “You are Korong yourself. The Queen of the Clouds is Korong, too. You are both Korong; that is why they all treat you with such respect and reverence.”
And that was as much as Felix could elicit by his subtlest questions from his taciturn Shadow.
In fact, it was clear that in the open, at least, the Shadow was averse to being observed in familiar conversation with Felix. During the heat of the day, however, when they sat alone within the hut, he was much more communicative. Then he launched forth pretty freely into talk about the island and its life, which would no doubt have largely enlightened Felix, had it not been for two drawbacks to their means of inter-communication. In the first place, the Boupari dialect, though agreeing in all essentials with the Polynesian of Fiji, nevertheless contained a great many words and colloquial expressions unknown to the Fijians; this being particularly the case, as Felix soon remarked, in the whole vocabulary of religious rites and ceremonies. And in the second place, the Shadow was so rigidly bound by his own narrow and insular set of ideas, that he couldn’t understand the difficulty Felix felt in throwing himself into them. Over and over again, when Felix asked him to explain some word or custom, he would repeat, with naïve impatience, “Why, Korong is Korong,” or “Tula is just Tula; even a child must surely know what Tula is; much more yourself, who are indeed Korong, and who have come from the sun to bring fresh fire to us.”
In the adjoining hut, Muriel, who was now beginning in some small degree to get rid of her most pressing fear for the immediate future, and whom the obvious reality of the taboo had reassured for the moment, sat with Mali, her own particular Shadow, unravelling the mystery of the girl’s knowledge of English.
Mali, indeed, like the other Shadow, showed every disposition to indulge in abundant conversation, as soon as she found herself well within the hut, alone with her mistress, and secluded from the prying eyes of all the other islanders.
“Don’t you be afraid, missy,” she said, with genuine kindliness in her tone, as soon as the gifts of yam and bread-fruit had all been duly housed and garnered. “No harm come to you. You Korong, you know. You very great Taboo. Tu-Kila-Kila send King of Fire and King of Water to make taboo over you, so nobody hurt you.”
Muriel burst into tears at the sound of her own language from those dusky lips, and exclaimed through her sobs, clinging to the girl’s hand for comfort as she spoke, “Why, how did you ever come to speak English?—tell me.”
Mali looked up at her with a half-astonished air. “Oh, I servant in Queensland, of course, missy,” she answered, with great composure. “Labor vessel come to my island, far away, four, five years ago, steal boy, steal woman. My papa just kill my mamma, because he angry with her, so no want daughters. So my papa sell me and my sister for plenty rum, plenty tobacco, to gentlemen in labor vessel. Gentlemen in labor vessel take Jani and me away, away, to Queensland. Big sea; long voyage. We stop there three yam—three years—do service; then great chief in Queensland send us back to my island. My island too faraway; gentleman on ship not find it out; so he land us in little boat on Boupari. Boupari people make temple slave of us.” And that was all; to her quite a commonplace, everyday history.
“I see,” Muriel cried. “Then you’ve been for three years in Australia! And there you learned English. Why, what did you do there?”
Mali looked back at her with the same matter-of-fact air of composure as before. “Oh, me nurse at first,” she said, shortly. “Then after, me housemaid, live three year in gentleman’s house, good gentleman that buy me. Take care of little girl; clean rooms; do everything. Me know how to make English lady quite comfortable. Me tell that to chief; that make him say, ‘Mali, you be Queenie’s Shadow.’”
To Muriel in her loneliness even such companionship as that was indeed a consolation. “Oh, I’m so glad you told him,” she cried. “If we have to stop here long, before a ship takes us off, it’ll be so nice to have you here all the time with me. You won’t go away from me ever, will you? You’ll always stop with me!”
The girl’s surprise showed more profoundly than ever. “Me can’t go away,” she answered, with emphasis. “Me your Shadow. That great Taboo. Tu-Kila-Kila great god. If me go away, Tu-Kila-Kila kill me and eat me.”
Muriel started back in horror. “But, Mali,” she said, looking hard at the girl’s pleasant brown face, “if you were three years in Australia, you’re a Christian, surely!”
The girl nodded her head in passive acquiescence. “Me Christian in Australia,” she answered. “Of course me Christian. All folks make Christian when him go to Queensland. That what for me call Mali, and my sister Jani. We have other names on my own island; but when we go to Queensland, gentleman baptize us, call us Mali and Jani. Me Methodist in Queensland. Methodist very good. But Methodist god no live in Boupari. Not any good be Methodist here any longer. Tu-Kila-Kila god here. Him very powerful.”
“What! Not that dreadful creature that they took us to see this morning!” Muriel exclaimed, in horror. “Oh, Mali, you can’t mean to say they think he’s agod, that awful man there!”
Mali nodded her assent with profound conviction. “Yes, yes; him god,” she repeated, confidently. “Him very powerful. My sister Jani go too near him temple, against taboo—because her not belong-a Tu-Kila-Kila temple; and last night, when it great feast, plenty men catch Jani, and tie him up in rope; and Tu-Kila-Kila kill him, and plenty Boupari men help Tu-Kila-Kila eat up Jani.”
She said it in the same simple, matter-of-fact way as she had said that she was a nurse for three years in Queensland. To her it was a common incident of everyday life. Such accidentswillhappen, if you break taboo and go too near forbidden temples.
But Muriel drew back, and let the pleasant-looking brown girl’s hand drop suddenly. “You can’t mean it,” she cried. “You can’t mean he’s a god! Such a wicked man as that! Oh, his very look’s too horrible.”
Mali drew back in her turn with a somewhat terrified air, and peeped suspiciously around her, as if to make sure whether any one was listening. “Oh, hush,” she said, anxiously. “Don’t must talk like that. If Tu-Kila-Kila hear, him scorch us up to ashes. Him very great god! Him good! Him powerful!”
“How can he be good if he does such awful things?” Muriel exclaimed, energetically.
Mali peered around her once more with terrified eyes in the same uneasy way. “Take care,” she said again. “Him god! Him powerful! Him can do no wrong. Him King of the Trees! Him King of Heaven! On Boupari island, Methodist god not much; no god so great like Tu-Kila-Kila.”
“But amancan’t be a god!” Muriel exclaimed, contemptuously. “He’s nothing but a man! a savage! A cannibal!”
Mali looked back at her in wondering surprise. “Not in Queensland,” she answered, calmly—to her, all the world naturally divided itself into Queensland and Polynesia—“no god in Queensland. Governor, him very great chief; but him no god like Tu-Kila-Kila. Methodist god in sky, him only god that live in Queensland. But no use worship Methodist god over here in Boupari. Him no live here. Tu-Kila-Kila live here. All god here make out of man. Live in man. Korong! What for you say a man can’t be a god! You god yourself! White gentleman there, god! Korong, Korong. Chief put you in Heaven, so make you a god. People pray to you now. People bring you presents.”
“You don’t mean to say,” Muriel cried, “they bring me these things because they think me a goddess?”
Mali nodded a grave assent. “Same like people give money in church in Queensland,” she answered, promptly. “Ask you make rain, make plenty crop, make bread-fruit grow, make banana, make plantain. You Korong now. While your time last, Queenie, people give you plenty of present.”
“While my time last?” Muriel repeated, with a curious sense of discomfort creeping over her slowly.
The girl nodded an easy assent. “Yes, while your time last,” she answered, laying a small bundle of palm-leaves at Muriel’s back by way of a cushion. “For now you Korong. By and by, Korong pass to somebody else. This year, you Korong. So people worship you.”
But nothing that Muriel could say would induce the girl further to explain her meaning. She shook her head and looked very wise. “When a god come into somebody,” she said, nodding toward Muriel in a mysterious way, “then him god himself; him Korong. When the god go away from him, him Korong no longer; somebody else Korong. Queenie Korong now; so people worship him. While him time last, people plenty kind to him.”
The day passed away, and night came on. As it approached, heavy clouds drifted up from eastward. Mali busied herself with laying out a rough bed in the hut for Muriel, and making her a pillow of soft moss and the curious lichen-like material that hangs parasitic from the trees, and is commonly known as “old man’s beard.” As both Mali and Felix assured her confidently no harm would come to her within so strict a Taboo, Muriel, worn out with fatigue and terror, lay down at last and slept soundly on this native substitute for a bedstead. She slept without dreaming, while Mali lay at her feet, ready at a moment’s call. It was all so strange; and yet she was too utterly wearied to do otherwise than sleep, in spite of her strange and terrible surroundings.
Felix slept, too, for some hours, but woke with a start in the night. It was raining heavily. He could hear the loud patter of a fierce tropical shower on the roof of his hut. His Shadow, at his feet, slept still unmoved; but when Felix rose on his elbow, the Shadow rose on a sudden, too, and confronted him curiously. The young man heard the rain; then he bowed down his face with an awed air, not visible, but audible, in the still darkness. “It has come!” he said, with superstitious terror. “It has come at last! my lord has brought it!”
After that, Felix lay awake for some hours, hearing the rain on the roof, and puzzled in his own head by a half-uncertain memory. What was it in his school reading that that ceremony with the water indefinitely reminded him of? Wasn’t there some Greek or Roman superstition about shaking your head when water was poured upon it? What could that superstition be, and what light might it cast on that mysterious ceremony? He wished he could remember; but it was so long since he’d read it, and he never cared much at school for Greek or Roman antiquities.
Suddenly, in a lull of the rain, the whole context at once came back with a rush to him. He remembered now he had read it, some time or other, in some classical dictionary. It was a custom connected with Greek sacrifices. The officiating priest poured water or wine on the head of the sheep, bullock, or other victim. If the victim shook its head and knocked off the drops, that was a sign that it was fit for the sacrifice, and that the god accepted it. If the victim trembled visibly, that was a most favorable omen. If it stood quite still and didn’t move its neck, then the god rejected it as unfit for his purpose. Couldn’tthatbe the meaning of the ceremony performed on Muriel and himself in “Heaven” that morning? Were they merely intended as human sacrifices? Were they to be kept meanwhile and, as it were, fed up for the slaughter? It was too horrible to believe; yet it almost looked like it.
He wished he knew the meaning of that strange word, “Korong.” Clearly, it contained the true key to the mystery.
Anyhow, he had always his trusty knife. If the worst came to the worst—those wretches should never harm his spotless Muriel.
For he loved her to-night; he would watch over and protect her. He would save her at least from the deadliest of insults.
All night long, without intermission, the heavy tropical rain descended in torrents; at sunrise it ceased, and a bright blue vault of sky stood in a spotless dome over the island of Boupari.
As soon as the sun was well risen, and the rain had ceased, one shy native girl after another came straggling up timidly to the white line that marked the taboo round Felix and Muriel’s huts. They came with more baskets of fruit and eggs. Humbly saluting three times as they drew near, they laid down their gifts modestly just outside the line, with many loud ejaculations of praise and gratitude to the gods in their own language.
“What do they say?” Muriel asked, in a dazed and frightened way, looking out of the hut door, and turning in wonder to Mali.
“They say, ‘Thank you, Queenie, for rain and fruits,’” Mali answered, unconcerned, bustling about in the hut. “Missy want to wash him face and hands this morning? Lady always wash every day over yonder in Queensland.”
Muriel nodded assent. It was all so strange to her. But Mali went to the door and beckoned carelessly to one of the native girls just outside, who drew near the line at the summons, with a somewhat frightened air, putting one finger to her mouth in coyly uncertain savage fashion.
“Fetch me water from the spring!” Mali said, authoritatively, in Polynesian. Without a moment’s delay the girl darted off at the top of her speed, and soon returned with a large calabash full of fresh cool water, which she lay down respectfully by the taboo line, not daring to cross it.
“Why didn’t you get it yourself?” Muriel asked of her Shadow, rather relieved than otherwise that Mali hadn’t left her. It was something in these dire straits to have somebody always near who could at least speak a little English.
Mali started back in surprise. “Oh, that would never do,” she answered, catching a colloquial phrase she had often heard long before in Queensland. “Me missy’s Shadow. That great Taboo. If me go away out of missy’s sight, very big sin—very big danger. Man-a-Boupari catch me and kill me like Jani, for no me stop and wait all the time on missy.”
It was clear that human life was held very cheap on the island of Boupari.
Muriel made her scanty toilet in the hut as well as she was able, with the calabash and water, aided by a rough shell comb which Mali had provided for her. Then she breakfasted, not ill, off eggs and fruit, which Mali cooked with some rude native skill over the open-air fire without in the precincts.
After breakfast, Felix came in to inquire how she had passed the night in her new quarters. Already Muriel felt how odd was the contrast between the quiet politeness of his manner as an English gentleman and the strange savage surroundings in which they both now found themselves. Civilization is an attribute of communities; we necessarily leave it behind when we find ourselves isolated among barbarians or savages. But culture is a purely personal and individual possession; we carry it with us wherever we go; and no circumstances of life can ever deprive us of it.
As they sat there talking, with a deep and abiding sense of awe at the change (Muriel more conscious than ever now of how deep was her interest in Felix Thurstan, who represented for her all that was dearest and best in England), a curious noise, as of a discordant drum or tom-tom, beaten in a sort of recurrent tune, was heard toward the hills; and at its very first sound both the Shadows, flinging themselves upon their faces with every sign of terror, endeavored to hide themselves under the native mats with which the bare little hut was roughly carpeted.
“What’s the matter?” Felix cried, in English, to Mali; for Muriel had already explained to him how the girl had picked up some knowledge of our tongue in Queensland.
Mali trembled in every limb, so that she could hardly speak. “Tu-Kila-Kila come,” she answered, all breathless. “No blackfellow look at him. Burn blackfellow up. You and Missy Korong. All right for you. Go out to meet him!”
“Tu-Kila-Kila is coming,” the young man-Shadow said, in Polynesian, almost in the same breath, and no less tremulously. “We dare not look upon his face lest he burn us to ashes. He is a very great Taboo. His face is fire. But you two are gods. Step forth to receive him.”
Felix took Muriel’s hand in his, somewhat trembling himself, and led her forth on to the open space in front of the huts to meet the man-god. She followed him like a child. She was woman enough for that. She had implicit trust in him.
As they emerged, a strange procession met their eyes unawares, coming down the zig-zag path that led from the hills to the shore of the lagoon, where their huts were situated. At its head marched two men—tall, straight, and supple—wearing huge feather masks over their faces, and beating tom-toms, decorated with long strings of shiny cowries. After them, in order, came a sort of hollow square of chiefs or warriors, surrounding with fan-palms a central object all shrouded from the view with the utmost precaution. This central object was covered with a huge regal umbrella, from whose edge hung rows of small nautilus and other shells, so as to form a kind of screen, like the Japanese portières now so common in English doorways. Two supporters held it up, one on either side, in long cloaks of feathers. Under the umbrella, a man seemed to move; and as he approached, the natives, to right and left, fled precipitately to their huts, snatching up their naked little ones from the ground as they went, and crying aloud, “Taboo, Taboo! He comes! he comes. Tu-Kila-Kila! Tu-Kila-Kila!”
The procession wound slowly on, unheeding these common creatures, till it reached the huts. Then the chiefs who formed the hollow square fell back one by one, and the man under the umbrella, with his two supporters, came forward boldly. Felix noticed that they crossed without scruple the thick white line of sand which all the other natives so carefully respected. The man within the umbrella drew aside the curtain of hanging nautilus shells. His face was covered with a thin mask of paper mulberry bark; but Felix knew he was the self-same person whom they had seen the day before in the central temple.
Tu-Kila-Kila’s air was more insolent and arrogant than even before. He was clearly in high spirits. “You have done well, O King of the Rain,” he said, turning gayly to Felix; “and you too, O Queen of the Clouds; you have done right bravely. We have all acquitted ourselves as our people would wish. We have made our showers to descend abundantly from heaven; we have caused the crops to grow; we have wetted the plantain bushes. See; Tu-Kila-Kila, who is so great a god, has come from his own home on the hills to greet you.”
“It has certainly rained in the night,” Felix answered, dryly.
But Tu-Kila-Kila was not to be put off thus. Adjusting his thin mask or veil of bark, so as to hide his face more thoroughly from the inferior god, he turned round once more to the chiefs, who even so hardly dared to look openly upon him. Then he struck an attitude. The man was clearly bursting with spiritual pride. He knew himself to be a god, and was filled with the insolence of his supernatural power. “See, my people,” he cried, holding up his hands, palm outward, in his accustomed god-like way; “I am indeed a great deity—Lord of Heaven, Lord of Earth, Life of the World, Master of Time, Measurer of the Sun’s Course, Spirit of Growth, Creator of the Harvest, Master of Mortals, Bestower of Breath upon Men, Chief Pillar of Heaven!”
The warriors bowed down before their bloated master with unquestioning assent. “Giver of Life to all the host of the gods,” they cried, “you are indeed a mighty one. Weigher of the equipoise of Heaven and Earth, we acknowledge your might; we give you thanks eternally.”
Tu-Kila-Kila swelled with visible importance. “Did I not tell you, my meat,” he exclaimed, “I would bring you new gods, great spirits from the sun, fetchers of fire from my bright home in the heavens? And have they not come? Are they not here to-day? Have they not brought the precious gift of fresh fire with them?”
“Tu-Kila-Kila speaks true,” the chiefs echoed, submissively, with bent heads.
“Did I not make one of them King of the Rain?” Tu-Kila-Kila asked once more, stretching one hand toward the sky with theatrical magnificence. “Did I not declare the other Queen of the Clouds in Heaven? And have I not caused them to bring down showers this night upon our crops? Has not the dry earth drunk? Am I not the great god, the Saviour of Boupari?”
“Tu-Kila-Kila says well,” the chiefs responded, once more, in unanimous chorus.
Tu-Kila-Kila struck another attitude with childish self-satisfaction. “I go into the hut to speak with my ministers,” he said, grandiloquently. “Fire and Water, wait you here outside while I enter and speak with my friends from the sun, whom I have brought for the salvation of the crops to Boupari.”
The King of Fire and the King of Water, supporting the umbrella, bowed assent to his words. Tu-Kila-Kila motioned Felix and Muriel into the nearest hut. It was the one where the two Shadows lay crouching in terror among the native mats. As the god tried to enter, the two cowering wretches set up a loud shout, “Taboo! Taboo! Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!” Tu-Kila-Kila retreated with a contemptuous smile. “I want to see you alone,” he said, in Polynesian, to Felix. “Is the other hut empty? If not, go in and cut their throats who sit there, and make the place a solitude for Tu-Kila-Kila.”
“There is no one in the hut,” Felix answered, with a nod, concealing his disgust at the command as far as he was able.
“That is well,” Tu-Kila-Kila answered, and walked into it carelessly. Felix followed him close and deemed it best to make Muriel enter also.
As soon-as they were alone, Tu-Kila-Kila’s manner altered greatly. “Come, now,” he said, quite genially, yet with a curious under-current of hate in his steely gray eye; “we three are all gods. We who are in heaven need have no secrets from one another. Tell me the truth; did you really come to us direct from the sun, or are you sailing gods, dropped from a great canoe belonging to the warriors who seek laborers for the white men in the distant country?”
Felix told him briefly, in as few words as possible, the story of their arrival.
Tu-Kila-Kila listened with lively interest, then he said, very decisively, with great bravado, “It wasIwho made the big wave wash your sister overboard. I sent it to your ship. I wanted a Korong just now in Boupari. It wasIwho brought you.”
“You are mistaken,” Felix said, simply, not thinking it worth while to contradict him further. “It was a purely natural accident.”
“Well, tell me,” the savage god went on once more, eying him close and sharp, “they say you have brought fresh fire from the sun with you, and that you know how to make it burst out like lightning at will. My people have seen it. They tell me the wonder. I wish to see it too. We are all gods here; we need have no secrets. Only, I didn’t want to let those common people outside see I asked you to show me. Make fire leap forth. I desire to behold it.”
Felix took out the match-box from his pocket, and struck a vesta carefully. Tu-Kila-Kila looked on with profound interest. “It is wonderful,” he said, taking the vesta in his own hand as it burned, and examining it closely. “I have heard of this before, but I have never seen it. You are indeed gods, you white men, you sailors of the sea.” He glanced at Muriel. “And the woman, too,” he said, with a horrible leer, “the woman is pretty.”
Felix took the measure of his man at once. He opened his knife, and held it up threateningly. “See here, fellow,” he said, in a low, slow tone, but with great decision, “if you dare to speak or look like that at that lady—god or no god, I’ll drive this knife straight up to the handle in your heart, though your people kill me for it afterward ten thousand times over. I am not afraid of you. These savages may be afraid, and may think you are a god; but if you are, then I am a god ten thousand times stronger than you. One more word—one more look like that, I say—and I plunge this knife remorselessly into you.”
Tu-Kila-Kila drew back, and smiled benignly. Stalwart ruffian as he was, and absolute master of his own people’s lives, he was yet afraid in a way of the strange new-comer. Vague stories of the men with white faces—the “sailing gods”—had reached him from time to time; and though only twice within his memory had European boats landed on his island, he yet knew enough of the race to know that they were at least very powerful deities—more powerful with their weapons than even he was. Besides, a man who could draw down fire from heaven with a piece of wax and a little metal box might surely wither him to ashes, if he would, as he stood before him. The very fact that Felix bearded him thus openly to his face astonished and somewhat terrified the superstitious savage. Everybody else on the island was afraid of him; then certainly a man who was not afraid must be the possessor of some most efficacious and magical medicine. His one fear now was lest his followers should hear and discover his discomfiture. He peered about him cautiously, with that careful gleam shining bright in his eye; then he said with a leer, in a very low voice, “We two need not quarrel. We are both of us gods. Neither of us is the stronger. We are equal, that’s all. Let us live like brothers, not like enemies, on the island.”
“I don’t want to be your brother,” Felix answered, unable to conceal his loathing any more. “I hate and detest you.”
“What does he say?” Muriel asked, in an agony of fear at the savage’s black looks. “Is he going to kill us?”
“No,” Felix answered, boldly. “I think he’s afraid of us. He’s going to do nothing. You needn’t fear him.”
“Can she not speak?” the savage asked, pointing with his finger somewhat rudely toward Muriel. “Has she no voice but this, the chatter of birds? Does she not know the human language?”
“She can speak,” Felix replied, placing himself like a shield between Muriel and the astonished savage. “She can speak the language of the people of our distant country—a beautiful language which is as far superior to the speech of the brown men of Polynesia as the sun in the heavens is superior to the light of a candlenut. But she can’t speak the wretched tongue of you Boupari cannibals. I thank Heaven she can’t, for it saves her from understanding the hateful things your people would say of her. Now go! I have seen already enough of you. I am not afraid. Remember, I am as powerful a god as you. I need not fear. You cannot hurt me.”
A baleful light gleamed in the cannibal’s eye. But he thought it best to temporize. Powerful as he was on his island, there was one thing yet more powerful by far than he; and that was Taboo—the custom and superstition handed down from his ancestors, These strangers were Korong; he dare not touch them, except in the way and manner and time appointed by custom. If he did, god as he was, his people themselves would turn and rend him. He was a god, but he was bound on every side by the strictest taboos. He dare not himself offer violence to Felix.
So he turned with a smile and bided his time. He knew it would come. He could afford to laugh. Then, going to the door, he said, with his grand affable manner to his chiefs around, “I have spoken with the gods, my ministers, within. They have kissed my hands. My rain has fallen. All is well in the land. Arise, let us go away hence to my temple.”
The savages put themselves in marching order at once. “It is the voice of a god,” they said, reverently. “Let us take back Tu-Kila-Kila to his temple home. Let us escort the lord of the divine umbrella. Wherever he is, there trees and plants put forth green leaves and flourish. At his bidding flowers bloom and springs of water rise up in fountains. His presence diffuses heavenly blessings.”
“I think,” Felix said, turning to poor, terrified Muriel, “I’ve sent the wretch away with a bee in his bonnet.”
Human nature cannot always keep on the full stretch of excitement. It was wonderful to both Felix and Muriel how soon they settled down into a quiet routine of life on the island of Boupari. A week passed away—two weeks—three weeks—and the chances of release seemed to grow slenderer and slenderer. All they could do now was to wait for the stray accident of a passing ship, and then try, if possible, to signal it, or to put out to it in a canoe, if the natives would allow them.
Meanwhile, their lives for the moment seemed fairly safe. Though for the first few days they lived in constant alarm, this feeling, after a time, gave way to one of comparative security. The strange institution of Taboo protected them more efficiently in their wattled huts than the whole police force of London could have done in a Belgravian mansion. There thieves break through and steal, in spite of bolts and bars and metropolitan constables; but at Boupari no native, however daring or however wicked, would ever venture to transgress the narrow line of white coral sand which protected the castaways like an intangible wall from all outer interference. Within this impalpable ring-fence they were absolutely safe from all rude intrusion, save that of the two Shadows, who waited upon them, day and night, with unfailing willingness.
In other respects, considering the circumstances, their life was an easy one. The natives brought them freely of their simple store—yam, taro, bread-fruit, and cocoanut, with plenty of fish, crabs, and lobsters, as well as eggs by the basketful, and even sometimes chickens. They required no pay beyond a nod and a smile, and went away happy at those slender recognitions. Felix discovered, in fact, that they had got into a region where the arid generalizations of political economy do not apply; where Adam Smith is unread, and Mill neglected; where the medium of exchange is an unknown quantity, and where supply and demand readjust themselves continuously by simpler and more generous principles than the familiar European one of “the higgling of the market.”
The people, too, though utter savages, were not in their own way altogether unpleasing. It was their customs and superstitions, rather than themselves, that were so cruel and horrible. Personally, they seemed for the most part simple-minded and good natured creatures. At first, indeed, Muriel was afraid to venture for a step beyond the precincts of their own huts; and it was long before she could make up her mind to go alone through the jungle paths with Mali, unaccompanied by Felix. But by degrees she learned that she could walk by herself (of course, with the inevitable Shadow ever by her side) over the whole island, and meet everywhere with nothing from men, women, and children but the utmost respect and gracious courtesy. The young lads, as she passed, would stand aside from the path, with downcast eyes, and let her go by with all the politeness of chivalrous English gentlemen. The old men would raise their eyes, but cross their hands on their breasts, and stand motionless for a few minutes till she got almost out of sight. The women would bring their pretty brown babies for the fair English lady to admire or to pat on the head; and when Muriel now and again stooped down to caress some fat little naked child, lolling in the dust outside the hut, with true tropical laziness, the mothers would run up at the sight with delight and joy, and throw themselves down in ecstacies of gratitude for the notice she had taken of their favored little ones. “The gods of Heaven,” they would say, with every sign of pleasure, “have looked graciously upon our Unaloa.”
At first Felix and Muriel were mainly struck with the politeness and deference which the natives displayed toward them. But after a time Felix at least began to observe, behind it all, that a certain amount of affection, and even of something like commiseration as well, seemed to be mingled with the respect and reverence showered upon them by their hosts. The women, especially, were often evidently touched by Muriel’s innocence and beauty. As she walked past their huts with her light, girlish tread, they would come forth shyly, bowing many times as they approached, and offer her a long spray of the flowering hibiscus, or a pretty garland of crimson ti-leaves, saying at the same time, many times over, in their own tongue, “Receive it, Korong; receive it, Queen of the Clouds! You are good. You are kind. You are a daughter of the Sun. We are glad you have come to us.”
A young girl soon makes herself at home anywhere; and Muriel, protected alike by her native innocence and by the invisible cloak of Polynesian taboo, quickly learned to understand and to sympathize with these poor dusky mothers. One morning, some weeks after their arrival, she passed down the main street of the village, accompanied by Felix and their two attendants, and reached themarae—the open forum or place of public assembly—which stood in its midst; a circular platform, surrounded by bread-fruit trees, under whose broad, cool shade the people were sitting in little groups and talking together. They were dressed in the regular old-time festive costume of Polynesia; for Boupari, being a small and remote island, too insignificant to be visited by European ships, retained still all its aboriginal heathen manners and customs. The sight was, indeed, a curious and picturesque one. The girls, large-limbed, soft-skinned, and with delicately rounded figures, sat on the ground, laughing and talking, with their knees crossed under them; their wrists were encinctured with girdles of dark-red dracæna leaves, their swelling bosoms half concealed, half accentuated by hanging necklets of flowers. Their beautiful brown arms and shoulders were bare throughout; their long, black hair was gracefully twined and knotted with bright scarlet flowers. The men, strong and stalwart, sat behind on short stools or lounged on the buttressed roots of the bread-fruit trees, clad like the women in narrow waist-belts of the long red dracæna leaves, with necklets of sharks’ teeth, pendent chain of pearly shells, a warrior’s cap on their well-shaped heads, and an armlet of native beans, arranged below the shoulder, around their powerful arms. Altogether, it was a striking and beautiful picture. Muriel, now almost released from her early sense of fear, stood still to look at it.
The men and girls were laughing and chatting merrily together. Most of them were engaged in holding up before them fine mats; and a row of mulberry cloth, spread along on the ground, led to a hut near one side of themarae. Toward this the eyes of the spectators were turned. “What is it, Mali?” Muriel whispered, her woman’s instinct leading her at once to expect that something special was going on in the way of local festivities.
And Mali answered at once, with many nods and smiles, “All right, Missy Queenie. Him a wedding, a marriage.”
The words had hardly escaped her lips when a very pretty young girl, half smothered in flowers, and decked out in beads and fancy shells, emerged slowly from the hut, and took her way with stately tread along the path carpeted with native cloth. She was girt round the waist with rich-colored mats, which formed a long train, like a court dress, trailing on the ground five or six feet behind her.
“That’s the bride, I suppose,” Muriel whispered, now really interested—for what woman on earth, wherever she may be, can resist the seductive delights of a wedding?
“Yes, her a bride,” Mali answered; “and ladies what follow, them her bridesmaids.”
At the word, six other girls, similarly dressed, though without the train, and demure as nuns, emerged from the hut in slow order, two and two, behind her.
Muriel and Felix moved forward with natural curiosity toward the scene. The natives, now ranged in a row along the path, with mats turned inward, made way for them gladly. All seem pleased that Heaven should thus auspiciously honor the occasion; and the bride herself, as well as the bridegroom, who, decked in shells and teeth, advanced from the opposite side along the path to meet her, looked up with grateful smiles at the two Europeans. Muriel, in return, smiled her most gracious and girlish recognition. As the bride drew near, she couldn’t refrain from bending forward a little to look at the girl’s really graceful costume. As she did so, the skirt of her own European dress brushed for a second against the bride’s train, trailed carelessly many yards on the ground behind her.
Almost before they could know what had happened, a wild commotion arose, as if by magic, in the crowd around them. Loud cries of “Taboo! Taboo!” mixed with inarticulate screams, burst on every side from the assembled natives. In the twinkling of an eye they were surrounded by an angry, threatening throng, who didn’t dare to draw near, but, standing a yard or two off, drew stone knives freely and shook their fists, scowling, in the strangers’ faces. The change was appalling in its electric suddenness. Muriel drew back horrified, in an agony of alarm. “Oh, what have I done!” she cried, piteously, clinging to Felix for support. “Why on earth are they angry with us?”
“I don’t know,” Felix answered, taken aback himself. “I can’t say exactly in what you’ve transgressed. But you must, unconsciously, in some way have offended their prejudices. I hope it’s not much. At any rate they’re clearly afraid to touch us.”
“Missy Queenie break taboo,” Mali explained at once, with Polynesian frankness. “That make people angry. So him want to kill you. Missy Queenie touch bride with end of her dress. Korong may smile on bride—that very good luck; but Korong taboo; no must touch him.”
The crowd gathered around them, still very threatening in attitude, yet clearly afraid to approach within arm’s-length of the strangers. Muriel was much frightened at their noise and at their frantic gestures. “Come away,” she cried, catching Felix by the arm once more. “Oh, what are they going to do to us? Will they kill us for this? I’m so horribly afraid! Oh, why did I ever do it!”
The poor little bride, meanwhile, left alone on the carpet, and unnoticed by everybody, sank suddenly down on the mats where she stood, buried her face in her hands, and began to sob as if her heart would break. Evidently, something very untoward of some sort had happened to the dusky lady on her wedding morning.
The final touch was too much for poor Muriel’s overwrought nerves. She, too, gave way in a tempest of sobs, and, subsiding on one of the native stools hard by, burst into tears herself with half-hysterical violence.
Instantly, as she did so, the whole assembly seemed to change its mind again as if by contagious magic. A loud shout of “She cries; the Queen of the Clouds cries!” went up from all the assembled mob to heaven. “It is a good omen,” Toko, the Shadow, whispered in Polynesian to Felix, seeing his puzzled look. “We shall have plenty of rain now; the clouds will break; our crops will flourish.” Almost before she understood it, Muriel was surrounded by an eager and friendly crowd, still afraid to draw near, but evidently anxious to see and to comfort and console her. Many of the women eagerly held forward their native mats, which Mali took from them, and, pressing them for a second against Muriel’s eyes, handed them back with just a suspicion of wet tears left glistening in the corner. The happy recipients leaped and shouted with joy. “No more drought!” they cried merrily, with loud shouts and gesticulations. “The Queen of the Clouds is good: she will weep well from heaven upon my yam and taro plots!”
Muriel looked up, all dazed, and saw, to her intense surprise, the crowd was now nothing but affection and sympathy. Slowly they gathered in closer and closer, till they almost touched the hem of her robe; then the men stood by respectfully, laying their fingers on whatever she had wetted with her tears, while the women and girls took her hand in theirs and pressed it sympathetically. Mali explained their meaning with ready interpretation. “No cry too much, them say,” she observed, nodding her head sagely. “Not good for Missy Queenie to cry too much. Them say, kind lady, be comforted.”
There was genuine good-nature in the way they consoled her; and Felix was touched by the tenderness of those savage hearts; but the additional explanation, given him in Polynesian by his own Shadow, tended somewhat to detract from the disinterestedness of their sympathy. “They say, ‘It is good for the Queen of the Clouds to weep,’” Toko said, with frank bluntness; “‘but not too much—for fear the rain should wash away all our yam and taro plants.’”
By this time the little bride had roused herself from her stupor, and, smiling away as if nothing had happened, said a few words in a very low voice to Felix’s Shadow. The Shadow turned most respectfully to his master, and, touching his sleeve-link, which was of bright gold, said, in a very doubtful voice, “She asks you, oh king, will you allow her, just for to-day, to wear this ornament?”
Felix unbuttoned the shining bauble at once, and was about to hand it to the bride with polite gallantry. “She may wear it forever, for the matter of that, if she likes,” he said, good-humoredly. “I make her a present of it.”
But the bride drew back as before in speechless terror, as he held out his hand, and seemed just on the point of bursting out into tears again at this untoward incident. The Shadow intervened with fortunate perception of the cause of the misunderstanding. “Korong must not touch or give anything to a bride,” he said, quietly; “not with his own hand. He must not lay his finger on her; that would be unlucky. But he may hand it by his Shadow.” Then he turned to his fellow-tribesmen. “These gods,” he said, in an explanatory voice, like one bespeaking forgiveness, “though they are divine, and Korong, and very powerful—see, they have come from the sun, and they are but strangers in Boupari—they do not yet know the ways of our island. They have not eaten of human flesh. They do not understand Taboo. But they will soon be wiser. They mean very well, but they do not know. Behold, he gives her this divine shining ornament from the sun as a present!” And, taking it in his hand, he held it up for a moment to public admiration. Then he passed on the trinket ostentatiously to the bride, who, smiling and delighted, hung it low on her breast among her other decorations.
The whole party seemed so surprised and gratified at this proof of condescension on the part of the divine stranger that they crowded round Felix once more, praising and thanking him volubly. Muriel, anxious to remove the bad impression she had created by touching the bride’s dress, hastily withdrew her own little brooch and offered it in turn to the Shadow as an additional present. But Toko, shaking his head vigorously, pointed with his forefinger many times to Mali. “Toko say him no can take it,” Mali explained hastily, in her broken English. “Him no your Shadow; me your Shadow; me do everything for you; me give it to the lady.” And, taking the brooch in her hand, she passed it over in turn amid loud cries of delight and shouts of approval.
Thereupon, the ceremony began all over again. They seemed by their intervention to have interrupted some set formula. At its close the women crowded around Muriel and took her hand in theirs, kissing it many times over, with tears in their eyes, and betraying an immense amount of genuine feeling. One phrase in Polynesian they repeated again and again; a phrase that made Felix’s cheek turn white, as he leaned over the poor English girl with a profound emotion.
“What does it mean that they say?” Muriel asked at last, perceiving it was all one phrase, many times repeated.
Felix was about to give some evasive explanation, when Mali interposed with her simple, unthinking translation. “Them say, Missy Queenie very good and kind. Make them sad to think. Make them cry to see her. Make them cry to see Missy Queenie Korong. Too good. Too pretty.”
“Why so?” Muriel exclaimed, drawing back with some faint presentiment of unspeakable horror.
Felix tried to stop her; but the girl would not be stopped. “Because, when Korong time up,” she answered, blurting it out, “Korong must—”
Felix clapped his hand to her mouth in wild haste, and silenced her. He knew the worst now. He had divined the truth. But Muriel, at least, must be spared that knowledge.