The Great Taboo

CHAPTER XIV.

“MR. THURSTAN, I PRE­SUME.”

Nat­ural­ly enough, it was some time be­fore Fe­lix and Muriel could re­cov­er from the shock of their dead­ly per­il. Yet, strange to say, the na­tives at the end of three days seemed pos­itive­ly to have for­got­ten all about it. Their loves and their hates were as short­lived as chil­dren's. As soon as the pe­ri­od of seclu­sion was over, their at­ten­tions to the two strangers re­dou­bled in in­ten­si­ty. They were ev­ident­ly most anx­ious, af­ter this brief dis­agree­ment, to re­as­sure the new gods, who came from the sun, of their grat­itude and de­vo­tion. The men who had wound­ed Fe­lix, in par­tic­ular, now came dai­ly in the morn­ing with ex­cep­tion­al gifts of fish, fruit, and flow­ers; they would bring a crab from the sea, or a joint of tur­tle-​meat. “For­give us, O king,” they cried, pros­trat­ing them­selves humbly. “We did not mean to hurt you; we thought your time had re­al­ly come. You are a Ko­rong. We would not of­fend you. Do not refuse us your show­ers be­cause of our sin. We are very pen­itent. We will do what you ask of us. Your look is poi­son. See, here is wood; here are leaves and fire; we are but your meat; choose and cook which you will of us!”

It was use­less Fe­lix's try­ing to ex­plain to them that he want­ed no vic­tims, and no pro­pi­ti­ation. The more he protest­ed, the more they brought gifts. “He is a very great god,” they ex­claimed. “He wants noth­ing from us. What can we give him that will be an ac­cept­able gift? Shall we of­fer him our­selves, our wives, our chil­dren?”

As for the wom­en, when they saw how thor­ough­ly fright­ened of them Muriel now was, they couldn't find means to ex­press their re­gret and de­vo­tion. Moth­ers brought their lit­tle chil­dren, whom she had pat­ted on the head, and of­fered them, just out­side the line, as presents for her ac­cep­tance. They ex­plained to her Shad­ow that they nev­er meant to hurt her, and that, if on­ly she would ven­ture with­out the line, as of old, all should be well, and they would love and adore her. Mali trans­lat­ed to her mis­tress these speech­es and prayers. “Them say, 'You come back, Quee­nie,'” she ex­plained in her bro­ken Queens­land En­glish. “'Boupari wom­en love you very much. Boupari wom­en glad you come. You kind; you beau­ti­ful! All Boupari men and wom­en very much pleased with you and the gen­tle­man, be­cause you give back him co­coanut and fruit that you pick in the storm, and be­cause you bring down fresh fire from heav­en.'”

Grad­ual­ly, af­ter sev­er­al days, Fe­lix's con­fi­dence was so far re­stored that he ven­tured to stroll be­yond the line again; and he found him­self, in­deed, most pop­ular among the peo­ple. In var­ious ways he picked up grad­ual­ly the idea that the is­landers gen­er­al­ly dis­liked Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, and liked him­self; and that they some­how re­gard­ed him as Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's nat­ural en­emy. What it could all mean he did not yet un­der­stand, though some inklings of an ex­pla­na­tion oc­ca­sion­al­ly oc­curred to him. Oh, how he longed now for the Month of Birds to end, in or­der that he might pay his long-​de­ferred vis­it to the mys­te­ri­ous French­man, from whose voice his Shad­ow had fled on that fate­ful evening with such sud­den pre­cip­itan­cy. The French­man, he judged, must have been long on the is­land, and could prob­ably give him some sat­is­fac­to­ry so­lu­tion of this ab­struse prob­lem.

So he was glad, in­deed, when one evening, some weeks lat­er, his Shad­ow, ob­serv­ing the sky nar­row­ly, re­marked to him in a low voice, “New moon to-​mor­row! The Month of Birds will then be up. In the morn­ing you can go and see your broth­er god at the Abode of Birds with­out break­ing taboo. The Month of Tur­tles be­gins at sun­rise. My fam­ily god is a tur­tle, so I know the day for it.”

So great was Fe­lix's im­pa­tience to set­tle this ques­tion, that al­most be­fore the sun was up next day he had set forth from his hut, ac­com­pa­nied as usu­al by his faith­ful Shad­ow. Their way lay past Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's tem­ple. As they went by the en­trance with the bam­boo posts, Fe­lix hap­pened to glance aside through the gate to the sa­cred en­clo­sure. Ear­ly as it was, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la was afoot al­ready; and, to Fe­lix's great sur­prise, was pac­ing up and down, with that stealthy, wary look up­on his cun­ning face that Muriel had so par­tic­ular­ly not­ed on the day of their first ar­rival. His spear stood in his hand, and his tom­ahawk hung by his left side; he peered about him sus­pi­cious­ly, with a cau­tious glance, as he walked round and round the sa­cred tree he guard­ed so con­tin­ual­ly. There was some­thing weird and aw­ful in the sight of that sav­age god, thus con­demned by his own su­per­sti­tion and the cus­tom of his peo­ple to tramp cease­less­ly up and down be­fore the sa­cred banyan.

At sight of Fe­lix, how­ev­er, a sud­den burst of fren­zy seemed to pos­sess at once all Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's limbs. He bran­dished his spear vi­olent­ly, and set him­self spas­mod­ical­ly in a pos­ture of de­fence. His brow grew black, and his eyes dart­ed out eter­nal hate and sus­pi­cion. It was ev­ident he ex­pect­ed an in­stant at­tack, and was pre­pared with all his might and main to re­sist ag­gres­sion. Yet he nev­er of­fered to desert his post by the tree or to as­sume the of­fen­sive. Clear­ly, he was guard­ing the sa­cred grove it­self with jeal­ous care, and was as ea­ger for its safe­ty as for his own life and hon­or.

Fe­lix passed on, won­der­ing what it all could mean, and turned with an in­quir­ing glance to his trem­bling Shad­ow. As for Toko, he had held his face avert­ed mean­while, lest he should be­hold the great god, and be scorched to a cin­der; but in an­swer to Fe­lix's mute in­quiry he mur­mured low: “Was Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la there? Were all things right? Was he on guard at his post by the tree al­ready?”

“Yes,” Fe­lix replied, with that weird sense of mys­tery creep­ing over him now more pro­found­ly than ev­er. “He was on guard by the tree and he looked at me an­gri­ly.”

“Ah,” the Shad­ow re­marked, with a sigh of re­gret, “he keeps watch well. It will be hard work to as­sail him. No god in Boupari ev­er held his place so tight. Who wish­es to take Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's di­vin­ity must get up ear­ly.”

They went on in si­lence to the lit­tle vol­canic knoll near the cen­tre of the is­land. There, in the neat gar­den plot they had ob­served be­fore, a man, in the last relics of a very tat­tered Eu­ro­pean cos­tume, much cov­ered with a short cape of na­tive cloth, was tend­ing his flow­ers and singing to him­self mer­ri­ly. His back was turned to them as they came up. Fe­lix paused a mo­ment, un­seen, and caught the words the stranger was singing:

“Tres jolie, Peu polie, Possedant un gros magot; Fort en gueule, Pas be­gueule; Telle etait--”

The stranger looked up, and paused in the midst of his lines, open-​mouthed. For a mo­ment he stood and stared as­ton­ished. Then, rais­ing his na­tive cap with a grace­ful air, and bow­ing low, as he would have bowed to a la­dy on the Boule­vard, he ad­vanced to greet a broth­er Eu­ro­pean with the fa­mil­iar words, in good ed­ucat­ed French, “Mon­sieur, I salute you!”

To Fe­lix, the sound of a civ­ilized voice in the midst of so much strange and prim­itive bar­barism, was like a sud­den re­turn to some for­got­ten world, so deeply and pro­found­ly did it move and im­press him. He grasped the sun­burnt French­man's rugged hand in his. “Who are you?” he cried, in the very best Parisian he could muster up on the spur of the mo­ment. “And how did you come here?”

“Mon­sieur,” the French­man an­swered, no less pro­found­ly moved than him­self, “this is, in­deed, won­der­ful! Do I hear once more that beau­ti­ful lan­guage spo­ken? Do I find my­self once more in the pres­ence of a civ­ilized per­son? What for­tune! What hap­pi­ness! Ah, it is glo­ri­ous, glo­ri­ous.”

For some sec­onds they stood and looked at one an­oth­er in si­lence, grasp­ing their hands hard again and again with in­tense emo­tion; then Fe­lix re­peat­ed his ques­tion a sec­ond time: “Who are you, mon­sieur? and where do you come from?”

“Your name, sur­name, age, oc­cu­pa­tion?” the French­man re­peat­ed, burst­ing forth at last in­to na­tion­al lev­ity. “Ah, mon­sieur, what a joy to hear those well-​known in­quiries in my ear once more. I has­ten to grat­ify your le­git­imate cu­rios­ity. Name: Pey­ron; Chris­tian name: Jules; age: forty-​one; oc­cu­pa­tion: con­vict, es­caped from New Cale­do­nia.”

Un­der any oth­er cir­cum­stances that last qual­ifi­ca­tion might pos­si­bly have been held an un­de­sir­able one in a new ac­quain­tance. But on the is­land of Boupari, among so many hea­then can­ni­bals, prej­udices pale be­fore com­mu­ni­ty of blood; even a New Cale­do­nian con­vict is at least a Chris­tian Eu­ro­pean. Fe­lix re­ceived the strange an­nounce­ment with­out the faintest shock of sur­prise or dis­gust. He would glad­ly have shak­en hands then and there with M. Jules Pey­ron, in­deed, had he in­tro­duced him­self in even less equiv­ocal lan­guage as a forg­er, a pick­pock­et, or an es­caped house-​break­er.

“And you, mon­sieur?” the ex-​con­vict in­quired, po­lite­ly.

Fe­lix told him in a few words the his­to­ry of their ac­ci­dent and their ar­rival on the is­land.

“_Com­ment_?” the French­man ex­claimed, with sur­prise and de­light. “A la­dy as well; a charm­ing En­glish la­dy! What an ac­qui­si­tion to the so­ci­ety of Boupari! _Quelle chance! Quel bon­heur!_ Mon­sieur, you are wel­come, and made­moi­selle too! And in what qual­ity do you live here? You are a god, I see; oth­er­wise you would not have dared to transgress my taboo, nor would this young man--your Shad­ow, I sup­pose--have per­mit­ted you to do so. But which sort of god, pray? Ko­rong--or Tu­la?”

“They call me Ko­rong,” Fe­lix an­swered, all tremu­lous, feel­ing him­self now on the very verge of solv­ing this pro­found mys­tery.

“And made­moi­selle as well?” the French­man ex­claimed, in a tone of dis­may.

“And made­moi­selle as well,” Fe­lix replied. “At least, so I make out. We are both Ko­rong. I have many times heard the na­tives call us so.”

His new ac­quain­tance seized his hand with ev­ery ap­pear­ance of gen­uine alarm and re­gret. “My poor friend,” he ex­claimed, with a hor­ri­fied face, “this is ter­ri­ble, ter­ri­ble! Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la is a very hard man. What can we do to save your life and made­moi­selle's! We are pow­er­less! Pow­er­less! I have on­ly that much to say. I con­dole with you! I com­mis­er­ate you!”

“Why, what does Ko­rong mean?” Fe­lix asked, with blanched lips. “Is it then some­thing so very ter­ri­ble?”

“Ter­ri­ble! Ah, ter­ri­ble!” the French­man an­swered, hold­ing up his hands in hor­ror and alarm. “I hard­ly know how we can avert your fate. Step with­in my poor hut, or un­der the shade of my Tree of Lib­er­ty here, and I will tell you all the lit­tle I know about it.”