The Great Taboo

CHAPTER XI.

AF­TER THE STORM.

Next morn­ing the day broke bright and calm, as if the tem­pest had been but an evil dream of the night, now past for­ev­er. The birds sang loud; the lizards came forth from their holes in the wall, and basked, green and gold, in the warm, dry sun­shine. But though the sky over­head was blue and the air clear, as usu­al­ly hap­pen af­ter these alarm­ing trop­ical cy­clones and rain­storms, the memo­ri­als of the great wind that had raged all night long among the forests of the is­land were nei­ther few nor far be­tween. Ev­ery­where the ground was strewn with leaves and branch­es and huge stems of co­coa-​palms. All na­ture was drag­gled. Many of the trees were stripped clean of their fo­liage, as com­plete­ly as oaks in an En­glish win­ter; on oth­ers, big strands of twist­ed fi­bres marked the scars and joints where mighty boughs had been torn away by main force; while, else­where, bare stumps alone re­mained to mark the for­mer pres­ence of some no­ble dra­cae­na or some gi­gan­tic banyan. Bread-​fruits and co­coanuts lay tossed in the wildest con­fu­sion on the ground; the ba­nana and plan­tain-​patch­es were beat­en lev­el with the soil or buried deep in the mud; many of the huts had giv­en way en­tire­ly; abun­dant wreck­age strewed ev­ery cor­ner of the is­land. It was an aw­ful sight. Muriel shud­dered to her­self to see how much the two that night had passed through.

What the out­er fring­ing reef had suf­fered from the storm they hard­ly knew as yet; but from the door of the hut Fe­lix could see for him­self how even the calm wa­ters of the in­ner la­goon had been lashed in­to wild fury by the fierce swoop of the tem­pest. Round the en­tire atoll the sol­id con­glom­er­ate coral floor was scooped un­der, bro­ken up, chewed fine by the waves, or thrown in vast frag­ments on the beach of the is­land. By the east­ern shore, in par­tic­ular, just op­po­site their hut, Fe­lix ob­served a reg­ular wall of many feet in height, piled up by the waves like the fa­mil­iar Chesil Beach near his old home in Dorset­shire. It was the shel­ter of that tem­po­rary bar­ri­er alone, no doubt, that had pre­served their huts last night from the full fury of the gale, and that had al­lowed the na­tives to con­gre­gate in such num­bers prone on their faces in the mud and rain, up­on the un­con­se­crat­ed ground out­side their taboo-​line.

But now not an is­lander was to be seen with­in ear-​shot. All had gone away to look af­ter their ru­ined huts or their beat­en-​down plan­tain-​patch­es, leav­ing the cru­el gods, who, as they thought, had wrought all the mis­chief out of pure wan­ton­ness, to re­pent at leisure the harm done dur­ing the night to their obe­di­ent votaries.

Fe­lix was just about to cross the taboo-​line and walk down to the shore to ex­am­ine the bar­ri­er, when Toko, his Shad­ow, lay­ing his hand on his shoul­der with more gen­uine in­ter­est and af­fec­tion than he had ev­er yet shown, ex­claimed, with some hor­ror, “Oh, no! Not that! Don't dare to go out­side! It would be very dan­ger­ous for you. If my peo­ple were to catch you on pro­fane soil just now, there's no say­ing what harm they might do to you.”

“Why so?” Fe­lix ex­claimed, in sur­prise. “Last night, sure­ly, they were all prayers and promis­es and vows and en­treaties.”

The young man nod­ded his head in ac­qui­es­cence. “Ah, yes; last night,” he an­swered. “That was very well then. Vows were sore need­ed. The storm was rag­ing, and you were with­in your taboo. How could they dare to touch you, a mighty god of the tem­pest, at the very mo­ment when you were rend­ing their banyan-​trees and snap­ping their co­coanut stems with your mighty arms like so many lit­tle chick­en-​bones? Even Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la him­self, I ex­pect, the very high god, lay fright­ened in his tem­ple, cow­er­ing by his tree, an­noyed at your wrath; he sent Fire and Wa­ter among the wor­ship­pers, no doubt, to of­fer up vows and to ap­pease your anger.”

Then Fe­lix re­mem­bered, as his Shad­ow spoke, that, as a mat­ter of fact, he had ob­served the men who usu­al­ly wore the red and white feath­er cloaks among the mot­ley crowd of grov­el­ling na­tives who lay flat on their faces in the mud of the cleared space the night be­fore, and prayed hard for mer­cy. On­ly they were not wear­ing their robes of of­fice at the mo­ment, in ac­cor­dance with a well-​known sav­age cus­tom; they had come naked and in dis­grace, as be­fits all sup­pli­ants. They had left be­hind them the in­signia of their rank in their own shak­en huts, and bowed down their bare backs to the rain and the light­ning.

“Yes, I saw them among the oth­er is­landers,” Fe­lix an­swered, half-​smil­ing, but pru­dent­ly re­main­ing with­in the taboo-​line, as his Shad­ow ad­vised him.

Toko kept his hand still on his mas­ter's shoul­der. “Oh, king,” he said, be­seech­ing­ly, and with great solem­ni­ty, “I am do­ing wrong to warn you; I am break­ing a very great Taboo. I don't know what harm may come to me for telling you. Per­haps Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la will burn me to ash­es with one glance of his eyes. He may know this minute what I'm say­ing here alone to you.”

It is hard for a white man to meet scru­ples like this; but Fe­lix was bold enough to an­swer out­right: “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la knows noth­ing of the sort, and can nev­er find out. Take my word for it, Toko, noth­ing that you say to me will ev­er reach Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la.”

The Shad­ow looked at him doubt­ful­ly, and trem­bled as he spoke. “I like you, Ko­rong,” he said, with a gen­uine­ly truth­ful ring in his voice. “You seem to me so kind and good--so dif­fer­ent from oth­er gods, who are very cru­el. You nev­er beat me. No­body I ev­er served treat­ed me as well or as kind­ly as you have done. And for _your_ sake I will even dare to break taboo--if you're quite, quite sure Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la will nev­er dis­cov­er it.”

“I'm quite sure,” Fe­lix an­swered, with per­fect con­fi­dence. “I know it for cer­tain. I swear a great oath to it.”

“You swear by Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la him­self?” the young sav­age asked, anx­ious­ly.

“I swear by Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la him­self,” Fe­lix replied at once. “I swear, with­out doubt. He can nev­er know it.”

“That is a great Taboo,” the Shad­ow went on, med­ita­tive­ly, stroking Fe­lix's arm. “A very great Taboo in­deed. A ter­ri­ble medicine. And you are a god; I can trust you. Well, then, you see, the se­cret is this: you are Ko­rong, but you are a stranger, and you don't un­der­stand the ways of Boupari. If for three days af­ter the end of this storm, which Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la has sent Fire and Wa­ter to pray and vow against, you or the Queen of the Clouds show your­selves out­side your own taboo-​line--why, then, the peo­ple are clear of sin; who­ev­er takes you may rend you alive; they will tear you limb from limb and cut you in­to pieces.”

“Why so?” Fe­lix asked, aghast at this dis­cov­ery. They seemed to live on a per­pet­ual vol­cano in this won­der­ful is­land; and a vol­cano ev­er break­ing out in fresh places. They could nev­er get to the bot­tom of its hor­ri­ble su­per­sti­tions.

“Be­cause you ate the storm-​ap­ple,” the Shad­ow an­swered, con­fi­dent­ly. “That was very wrong. You brought the tem­pest up­on us your­selves by your own tres­pass; there­fore, by the cus­tom of Boupari, which we learn in the mys­ter­ies, you be­come full Ko­rong for the sac­ri­fice at once. That makes the term for you. The peo­ple will give you all your dues; then they will say, 'We are free; we have bought you with a price; we have brought your co­coanuts. No sin at­tach­es to us; we are righ­teous; we are righ­teous.' And then they will kill you, and Fire and Wa­ter will roast you and boil you.”

“But on­ly if we go out­side the taboo-​line?” Fe­lix asked, anx­ious­ly.

“On­ly if you go out­side the taboo-​line,” the Shad­ow replied, nod­ding a hasty as­sent. “In­side it, till your term comes, even Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la him­self, the very high god, whose meat we all are, dare nev­er hurt you.”

“Till our term comes?” Fe­lix in­quired, once more as­ton­ished and per­plexed. “What do you mean by that, my Shad­ow?”

But the Shad­ow was ei­ther bound by some su­per­sti­tious fear, or else in­ca­pable of putting him­self in­to Fe­lix's point of view. “Why, till you are full Ko­rong,” he an­swered, like one who speaks of some fa­mil­iar fact, as who should say, till you are forty years old, or, till your beard grows white. “Of course, by and by, you will be full Ko­rong. I can­not help you then; but, till that time comes, I would like to do my best by you. You have been very kind to me. I tell you much. More than this, it would not be law­ful for me to men­tion.”

And that was the most that, by dex­ter­ous ques­tion­ing, Fe­lix could ev­er man­age to get out of his mys­te­ri­ous Shad­ow.

“At the end of three days we will be safe, though?” he in­quired at last, af­ter all oth­er ques­tions failed to pro­duce an an­swer.

“Oh, yes, at the end of three days the storm will have blown over,” the young man an­swered, eas­ily. “All will then be well. You may ven­ture out once more. The rain will have dried over all the is­land. Fire and Wa­ter will have no more pow­er over you.”

Fe­lix went back to the hut to in­form Muriel of this new per­il thus sud­den­ly sprung up­on them. Poor Muriel, now al­most worn out with end­less ter­rors, re­ceived it calm­ly. “I'm grow­ing ac­cus­tomed to it all, Fe­lix,” she an­swered, re­signed­ly. “If on­ly I know that you will keep your promise, and nev­er let me fall alive in­to these wretch­es' hands, I shall feel quite safe. Oh, Fe­lix, do you know when you took me in your arms like that last night, in spite of ev­ery­thing, I felt pos­itive­ly hap­py.”

About ten o'clock they were sud­den­ly roused by a sound of many na­tives, com­ing in quick suc­ces­sion, sin­gle file, to the huts, and shout­ing aloud, “Oh, King of the Rain, oh, Queen of the Clouds, come forth for our vows! Re­ceive your presents!”

Fe­lix went forth to the door to look. With a warn­ing look in his eyes, his Shad­ow fol­lowed him. The na­tives were now com­ing up by dozens at a time, bring­ing with them, in great arm-​loads, fall­en co­coanuts and bread­fruits, and branch­es of ba­nanas, and large drag­gled clus­ters of half-​ripe plan­tains.

“Why, what are all these?” Fe­lix ex­claimed in sur­prise.

His Shad­ow looked up at him, as if amused at the ab­surd sim­plic­ity of the ques­tion. “These are yours, of course,” he said; “yours and the Queen's; they are the wind­falls you made. Did you not knock them all off the trees for your­selves when you were com­ing down in such sheets from the sky last evening?”

Fe­lix wrung his hands in pos­itive de­spair. It was clear, in­deed, that to the minds of the na­tives there was no dis­tin­guish­ing per­son­al­ly be­tween him­self and Muriel, and the rain or the cy­clone.

“Will they bring them all in?” he asked, gaz­ing in alarm at the huge pile of fruits the na­tives were mak­ing out­side the huts.

“Yes, all,” the Shad­ow an­swered; “they are vows; they are god­sends; but if you like, you can give some of them back. If you give much back, of course it will make my peo­ple less an­gry with you.”

Fe­lix ad­vanced near the line, hold­ing his hand up be­fore him to com­mand si­lence. As he did so, he was ab­so­lute­ly ap­palled him­self at the per­fect storm of ex­ecra­tion and abuse which his ap­pear­ance ex­cit­ed. The fore­most na­tives, bran­dish­ing their clubs and stone-​tipped spears, or shak­ing their fists by the line, poured forth up­on his de­vot­ed head at once all the most fright­ful curs­es of the Poly­ne­sian vo­cab­ulary. “Oh, evil god,” they cried aloud with an­gry faces, “oh, wicked spir­it! you have a bad heart. See what a wrong you have pur­pose­ly done us. If your heart were not bad, would you treat us like this? If you are in­deed a god, come out across the line, and let us try is­sues to­geth­er. Don't skulk like a cow­ard in your hut and with­in your taboo, but come out and fight us. _We_ are not afraid, who are on­ly men. Why are _you_ afraid of us?”

Fe­lix tried to speak once more, but the din drowned his voice. As he paused, the peo­ple set up their loud shouts again. “Oh, you wicked god! You eat the storm-​ap­ple! You have wrought us much harm. You have spoiled our har­vest. How you came down in great sheets last night! It was piti­ful, piti­ful! We would like to kill you. You might have tak­en our bread-​fruits and our ba­nanas, if you would; we give you them freely; they are yours; here, take them. We feed you well; we make you many of­fer­ings. But why did you wish to have our huts al­so? Why did you beat down our young plan­ta­tions and break our ca­noes against the beach of the is­land? That shows a bad heart! You are an evil god! You dare not de­fend your­self. Come out and meet us.”