The Great Taboo

CHAPTER XXIII.

A MES­SAGE FROM THE DEAD.

Ear­ly next morn­ing, as Fe­lix lay still in his hut, doz­ing, and just vague­ly con­scious of a buzz of a mosquito close to his ear, he was aroused by a sud­den loud cry out­side--a cry that called his na­tive name three times, run­ning: “O King of the Rain, King of the Rain, King of the Rain, awake! High time to be up! The King of the Birds sends you health and greet­ing!”

Fe­lix rose at once; and his Shad­ow, ris­ing be­fore him, and un­bolt­ing the loose wood­en fas­ten­er of the door, went out in haste to see who called be­yond the white taboo-​line of their sa­cred precincts.

A na­tive wom­an, tall, lithe, and hand­some, stood there in the full light of morn­ing, beck­on­ing. A strange glow of ha­tred gleamed in her large gray eyes. Her shape­ly brown bo­som heaved and pant­ed heav­ily. Big beads glis­tened moistly on her smooth, high brow. It was clear she had run all the way in haste. She was deeply ex­cit­ed and full of ea­ger anx­iety.

“Why, what do you want here so ear­ly, Ula?” the Shad­ow asked, in sur­prise--for it was in­deed she. “How have you slipped away, as soon as the sun is risen, from the sa­cred hut of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la?”

Ula's gray eyes flashed an­gry fire as she an­swered. “He has beat­en me again,” she cried, in re­venge­ful tones; “see the weals on my back! See my arms and shoul­ders! He has drawn blood from my wounds. He is the most hate­ful of gods. I should love to kill him. There­fore I slipped away from him with the ear­ly dawn and came to con­sult with his en­emy, the King of the Birds, be­cause I heard the words that the Eyes of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, who per­vade the world, re­port to their mas­ter. The Eyes have told him that the King of the Rain, the Queen of the Clouds, and the King of the Birds are plot­ting to­geth­er in se­cret against Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la. When I heard that, I was glad; I went to the King of the Birds to warn him of his dan­ger; and the King of the Birds, con­cerned for your safe­ty, has sent me in haste to ask his broth­er gods to go at once to him.”

In a minute Fe­lix was up and had called out Mali from the neigh­bor­ing hut. “Tell Mis­sy Quee­nie,” he cried, “to come with me to see the man-​a-​oui-​oui! The man-​a-​oui-​oui has sent me for us to come. She must make great haste. He wants us im­me­di­ate­ly.”

With a word and a sign to Toko, Ula glid­ed away stealthi­ly, with the cat-​like tread of the na­tive Poly­ne­sian wom­an, back to her hat­ed hus­band.

Fe­lix went out to the door and he­li­ographed with his bright met­al plate, turned on the French­man's hill, “What is it?”

In a mo­ment the an­swer flashed back, word by word, “Come quick, if you want to hear. Methuse­lah is recit­ing!”

A few sec­onds lat­er Muriel emerged from her hut, and the two Eu­ro­peans, close­ly fol­lowed, as al­ways, by their in­sep­ara­ble Shad­ows, took the wind­ing side-​path that led through the jun­gle by a de­vi­ous way, avoid­ing the front of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's tem­ple, to the French­man's cot­tage.

They found M. Pey­ron very much ex­cit­ed, part­ly by Ula's news of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's at­ti­tude, but more still by Methuse­lah's ag­itat­ed con­di­tion. “The whole night through, my dear friends,” he cried, seiz­ing their hands, “that bird has been chat­ter­ing, chat­ter­ing, chat­ter­ing. _Oh, mon Dieu, quel oiseau!_ It seems as though the words heard yes­ter­day from made­moi­selle had struck some lost chord in the crea­ture's mem­ory. But he is al­so very fee­ble. I can see that well. His gar­ruli­ty is the gar­ruli­ty of old age in its last flick­er­ing mo­ments. He mum­bles and mut­ters. He chuck­les to him­self. If you don't hear his mes­sage now and at once, it's my solemn con­vic­tion you will nev­er hear it.”

He led them out to the aviary, where Methuse­lah, in ef­fect, was sit­ting on his perch, most tremu­lous and woe­be­gone. His feath­ers shud­dered vis­ibly; he could no longer preen him­self. “Lis­ten to what he says,” the French­man ex­claimed, in a very se­ri­ous voice. “It is your last, last chance. If the se­cret is ev­er to be un­rav­elled at all, by Methuse­lah's aid, now is, with­out doubt, the prop­er mo­ment to un­rav­el it.”

Muriel put out her hand and stroked the bird gen­tly. “Pret­ty Poll,” she said, sooth­ing­ly, in a sym­pa­thet­ic voice. “Pret­ty Poll! Poor Poll! Was he ill! Was he suf­fer­ing?”

At the sound of those fa­mil­iar words, un­heard so long till yes­ter­day, the par­rot took her fin­ger in his beak once more, and bit it with the ten­der­ness of his kind in their soft­er mo­ments. Then he threw back his head with a sort of me­chan­ical twist, and screamed out at the top of his voice, for the last time on earth, his mys­te­ri­ous mes­sage:

"Pret­ty Poll! Pret­ty Poll! God save the king! Con­found the Duke of York! Death to all ar­rant knaves and round­heads!

“In the nine­teenth year of the reign of his most gra­cious majesty, King Charles the Sec­ond, I, Nathaniel Cross, of the bor­ough of Sun­der­land, in the coun­ty of Doorham, in Eng­land, an able-​bod­ied mariner, then sail­ing the South Seas in the good bark Mar­tyr Prince, of the Port of Great Grims­by, where­of one Thomas Wells, gent., un­der God, was mas­ter, was, by stress of weath­er, wrecked and cast away on the shores of this is­land, called by its gen­tile in­hab­itants by the name of Boo Par­ry. In which wreck, as it be­fell, Thomas Wells, gent., and his equip­ment were, by di­vine dis­po­si­tion, killed and drowned, save and ex­cept three mariners, where­of I am one, who in God's good prov­idence swam safe­ly through an ex­ceed­ing great flood of waves and land­ed at last on this is­land. There my two com­pan­ions, Owen Williams, of Swansea, in the parts of Wales, and Lewis le Pickard, a French Hewgenott refugee, were at once, by the said gen­tiles, cru­el­ly en­treat­ed, and af­ter great tor­ture cooked and eat­en at the tem­ple of their chief god, Too-​Keela-​Keela. But I, my­self, hav­ing through God's grace found fa­vor in their eyes, was pro­mot­ed to the post which in their speech is called Ko­rong, the na­ture of which this bird, my mouth­piece, will here­after, to your ears, more ful­ly dis­cov­er.”

Hav­ing said so much, in a very jerky way, Methuse­lah paused, and blinked his eyes weari­ly.

“What does he say?” the French­man be­gan, ea­ger to know the truth. But Fe­lix, fear­ful lest any in­ter­rup­tion might break the thread of the bird's dis­course and cheat them of the se­quel, held up a warn­ing fin­ger, and then laid it on his lips in mute in­junc­tion. Methuse­lah threw back his head at that and laughed aloud. “God save the king!” he cried again, in a still fee­bler way, “and to hell with all pa­pists!”

It was strange how they all hung on the words of that un­con­scious mes­sen­ger from a dead and gone age, who him­self knew noth­ing of the im­port of the words he was ut­ter­ing. Methuse­lah laughed at their earnest­ness, shook his head once or twice, and seemed to think to him­self. Then he re­mem­bered afresh the point he had bro­ken off at.

"More ful­ly dis­cov­er. For sev­en years have I now lived on this is­land, nev­er hav­ing seen or h'ard Chris­tian face or voice; and at the end of that time, feel­ing my health feail, and be­ing ap­pre­hen­sive lest any of my fel­low-​coun­try­men should here­after suf­fer the same fate as I have done, I be­gan to teach this par­rot his mes­sage, a few words at a time, im­press­ing it du­ly and ful­ly on his mem­ory.

"Larn, then, O way­far­er, that the peo­ple of Boo Par­ry are most ar­rant gen­tiles, hea­thens, and car­rib­als. And this, as I dis­cov­er, is the na­ture and method of their vile faith. They hold that the gods are each and sev­er­al in­car­nate in some one par­tic­ular hu­man be­ing. This hu­man be­ing they wor­ship and rev­er­ence with all ghost­ly re­spect as his in­car­na­tion. And chiefly, above all, do they re­vere the great god Too-​Keela-​Keela, whose rep­re­sen­ta­tive (may the Lord in Heav­en for­give me for the same) I my­self am at this present speak­ing. Hav­ing thus, for my sins, at­tained to that im­pi­ous hon­or.

"God save the king! Con­found the Duke of York! To hell with all pa­pists!

"It is the fash­ion of this peo­ple to hold that their gods must al­ways be strong and lusty. For they ar­gue to them­selves thus: that the con­tin­uance of the rain must needs de­pend up­on the vig­or and sub­tle­ty of its Soul, the rain-​god. So the con­tin­uance and fruit­ful­ness of the trees and plants which yield them food must needs de­pend up­on the health of the tree-​god. And the life of the world, and the light of the sun, and the well-​be­ing of all things that in them are, must de­pend up­on the strength and cun­ning of the high god of all, Too-​Keela-​Keela. Hence they take great care and woor­ship of their gods, sur­round­ing them with many rules which they call Taboo, and re­strict­ing them as to what they shall eat, and what drink, and where­with­al they shall seem­ly clothe them­selves. For they think that if the King of the Rain at' any­thing that might cause the col­ick, or like hu­mor or dis­tem­per, the weath­er will there­after be stormy and tem­pes­tu­ous; but so long as the King of the Rain fares well and re­tains his health, so long will the weath­er over their is­land of Boo Par­ry be clear and pros­per­ous.

"Fur­ther­more, as I have larned from their the­olo­gians, be­ing my­self, in­deed, the great­est of their gods, it is ev­ident that they may not let any god die, lest that de­part­ment of na­ture over which he presideth should with­er away and feail, as it were, with him. But rea­son­ably no care that mor­tal man can ex­er­cise will pre­vent the pos­si­bil­ity of their god--see­ing he is but one of them­selves--grow­ing old and fee­ble and dy­ing at last. To pre­vent which calami­ty, these gen­tile folk have in­vent­ed (as I be­lieve by the aid and de­vice of Sathan) this hor­rid and most un­nat­ural prac­tice. The man-​god must be killed so soon as he showeth in body or mind that his na­tive pow­ers are be­gin­ning to feail. And it is nec­es­sary that he be killed, ac­cord­ing to their faith, in this en­su­ing fash­ion.

“If the man-​god were to die slow­ly by a death in the course of na­ture, the ways of the world might be stopped al­to­geth­er. Hence these sav­ages catch the soul of their god, as it were, ere it grow old and fee­ble, and trans­fer it be­times, by a mag­ic de­vice, to a suit­able suc­ces­sor. And sure­ly, they say, this suit­able suc­ces­sor can be none oth­er than him that is able to take it from him. This, then, is their hor­rid coun­sel and de­vice--that each one of their gods should kill his an­te­ces­sor. In do­ing thus, he taketh the old god's life and soul, which there­upon mi­grates and dwells with­in him. And by this tenure--may Heav­en be mer­ci­ful to me, a sin­ner--do I, Nathaniel Cross, of the coun­ty of Doorham, now hold this dig­ni­ty of Too-​Keela-​Keela, hav­ing slain, there­for, in just quar­rel, my an­te­ces­sor in the high god­ship.”

As he reached these words Methuse­lah paused, and choked in his throat slight­ly. The mere me­chan­ical ef­fort of con­tin­uing the speech he had learned by heart two hun­dred years be­fore, and re­peat­ed so of­ten since that it had be­come part of his be­ing, was now al­most too much for him. The French­man was right. They were on­ly just in time. A few days lat­er, and the se­cret would have died with the bird that pre­served it.