The Great Taboo

CHAPTER XVII.

FAC­ING THE WORST.

Muriel, mean­while, sat alone in her hut, fright­ened at Fe­lix's un­ex­pect­ed dis­ap­pear­ance so ear­ly in the morn­ing, and anx­ious­ly await­ing her lover's re­turn, for she made no pre­tences now to her­self that she did not re­al­ly love Fe­lix. Though the two might nev­er re­turn to Eu­rope to be hus­band and wife, she did not doubt that be­fore the eye of Heav­en they were al­ready be­trothed to one an­oth­er as tru­ly as though they had plight­ed their troth in solemn fash­ion. Fe­lix had risked his life for her, and had brought all this mis­ery up­on him­self in the at­tempt to save her. Fe­lix was now all the world that was left her. With Fe­lix, she was hap­py, even on this hor­ri­ble is­land; with­out him, she was mis­er­able and ter­ri­fied, no mat­ter what hap­pened.

“Mali,” she cried to her faith­ful at­ten­dant, as soon as she found Fe­lix was miss­ing from his tent, “what's be­come of Mr. Thurstan? Where can he be gone, I won­der, this morn­ing?”

“You no fear, Mis­sy Quee­nie,” Mali an­swered, with the child­ish con­fi­dence of the na­tive Poly­ne­sian. “Mis­tah Thurstan, him gone to see man-​a-​oui-​oui, the King of the Birds. Month of Birds fin­ish last night; man-​a-​oui-​oui no taboo any longer. King of the Birds keep very old par­rot, Boupari folk tell me; and old par­rot very wise, know how to make Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la. Mis­tah Thurstan, him gone to find man-​a-​oui-​oui. Par­rot tell him plen­ty wise thing. Par­rot wis­er than Boupari peo­ple; know very good medicine; wise like Queens­land la­dy and gen­tle­man.” And Mali set her­self vig­or­ous­ly to work to wash the wood­en plat­ter on which she served up her mis­tress's yam for break­fast.

It was cu­ri­ous to Muriel to see how read­ily Mali had slipped from sav­agery to civ­iliza­tion in Queens­land, and how eas­ily she had slipped back again from civ­iliza­tion to sav­agery in Boupari. In wait­ing on her mis­tress she was just the or­di­nary trained na­tive Aus­tralian ser­vant; in ev­ery oth­er re­spect she was the sim­ple unadul­ter­at­ed hea­then Poly­ne­sian. She rec­og­nized in Muriel a white la­dy of the En­glish sort, and treat­ed her with­in the hut as white ladies were in­vari­ably treat­ed in Queens­land; but she con­sid­ered that at Boupari one must do as Boupari does, and it nev­er for a mo­ment oc­curred to her sim­ple mind to doubt the om­nipo­tence of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la in his is­land realm any more than she had doubt­ed the om­nipo­tence of the white man and his lo­cal re­li­gion in their prop­er place (as she thought it) in Queens­land.

An hour or two passed be­fore Fe­lix re­turned. At last he ar­rived, very white and pale, and Muriel saw at once by the mere look on his face that he had learned some ter­ri­ble news at the French­man's.

“Well, you found him?” she cried, tak­ing his hand in hers, but hard­ly dar­ing to ask the fa­tal ques­tion at once.

And Fe­lix, sit­ting down, as pale as a ghost, an­swered faint­ly, “Yes, Muriel, I found him!”

“And he told you ev­ery­thing?”

“Ev­ery­thing he knew, my poor child. Oh, Muriel, Muriel, don't ask me what it is. It's too ter­ri­ble to tell you.”

Muriel clasped her white hands to­geth­er, held blood­less down­ward, and looked at him fixed­ly. “Mali, you can go,” she said. And the Shad­ow, ris­ing up with child­ish con­fi­dence, glid­ed from the hut, and left them, for the first time since their ar­rival on the cen­tral is­land, alone to­geth­er.

Muriel looked at him once more with the same dead­ly fixed look. “With you, Fe­lix,” she said, slow­ly, “I can bear or dare any­thing. I feel as if the bit­ter­ness of death were past long ago. I know it must come. I on­ly want to be quite sure when.... And be­sides, you must re­mem­ber, I have your promise.”

Fe­lix clasped his own hands de­spon­dent­ly in re­turn, and gazed across at her from his seat a few feet off in un­speak­able mis­ery.

“Muriel,” he cried, “I couldn't. I haven't the heart. I daren't.”

Muriel rose and laid her hand solemn­ly on his arm. “You will!” she an­swered, bold­ly. “You can! You must! I know I can trust your promise for that. This mo­ment, if you like. I would not shrink. But you will nev­er let me fall alive in­to the hands of those wretch­es. Fe­lix, from _your_ hand I could stand any­thing. I'm not afraid to die. I love you too dear­ly.”

Fe­lix held her white lit­tle wrist in his grasp and sobbed like a child. Her very brav­ery and con­fi­dence seemed to un­man him, ut­ter­ly.

She looked at him once more. “When?” she asked, qui­et­ly, but with lips as pale as death.

“In about four months from now,” Fe­lix an­swered, en­deav­or­ing to be calm.

“And they will kill us both?”

“Yes, both. I think so.”

“To­geth­er?”

“To­geth­er.”

Muriel drew a deep sigh.

“Will you know the day be­fore­hand?” she asked.

“Yes. The French­man told me it. He has known oth­ers killed in the self-​same fash­ion.”

“Then, Fe­lix---the night be­fore it comes, you will promise me, will you?”

“Muriel, Muriel, I could nev­er dare to kill you.”

She laid her hand sooth­ing­ly on his. She stroked him gen­tly. “You are a man,” she said, look­ing up in­to his eyes with con­fi­dence. “I trust you. I be­lieve in you. I know you will nev­er let these sav­ages hurt me.... Fe­lix, in spite of ev­ery­thing, I've been hap­pi­er since we came to this is­land to­geth­er than ev­er I have been in my life be­fore. I've had my wish. I didn't want to miss in life the one thing that life has best worth giv­ing. I haven't missed it now. I know I haven't; for I love you, and you love me. Af­ter that, I can die, and die glad­ly. If I die with _you_, that's all I ask. These sev­en or eight ter­ri­ble weeks have made me feel some­how un­nat­ural­ly calm. When I came here first I lived all the time in an agony of ter­ror. I've got over the agony of ter­ror now. I'm quite re­signed and hap­py. All I ask is to be saved--by you--from the cru­el hands of these hate­ful can­ni­bals.”

Fe­lix raised her white hand just once to his lips. It was the first time he had ev­er ven­tured to kiss her. He kissed it fer­vent­ly. She let it drop as if dead by her side.

“Now tell me all that hap­pened,” she said. “I'm strong enough to bear it. I feel such a wom­an now--so wise and calm. These few weeks have made me grow from a girl in­to a wom­an all at once. There's noth­ing I daren't hear, if you'll tell me it, Fe­lix.”

Fe­lix took up her hand again and held it in his, as he nar­rat­ed the whole sto­ry of his vis­it to the French­man. When Muriel had heard it, she said once more, slow­ly, “I don't think there's any hope in all these wild plans of play­ing off su­per­sti­tion against su­per­sti­tion. To my mind there are on­ly two chances left for us now. One is to con­coct with the French­man some means of get­ting away by ca­noe from the is­land--I'd rather trust the sea than the ten­der mer­cy of these dread­ful peo­ple; the oth­er is to keep a clos­er look­out than ev­er for the mer­est chance of a pass­ing steam­er.”

Fe­lix drew a deep sigh. “I'm afraid nei­ther's much use,” he said. “If we tried to get away, dogged as we are, day and night, by our Shad­ows, the na­tives would fol­low us with their war-​ca­noes in bat­tle ar­ray and hack us to pieces; for Pey­ron says that, re­gard­ing us as gods, they think the rain would van­ish from their is­land for­ev­er if once they al­lowed us to get away alive and car­ry the luck with us. And as to the steam­ers, we haven't seen a trace of one since we left the Aus­tralasian. Prob­ably it was on­ly by the purest ac­ci­dent that even she ev­er came so close in to Boupari.”

“At any rate,” Muriel cried, still clasp­ing his hand tight, and let­ting the tears now trick­le slow­ly down her pale white cheeks, “we can talk it all over some day with M. Pey­ron.”

“We can talk it over to-​day,” Fe­lix an­swered, “if it comes to that; for Pey­ron means to step round, he says, a lit­tle lat­er in the af­ter­noon, to pay his re­spects to the first white la­dy he has ev­er seen since he left New Cale­do­nia.”