The Great Taboo

CHAPTER XXIV.

AN UN­FIN­ISHED TALE.

For a minute or two Methuse­lah mum­bled inar­tic­ulate­ly to him­self. Then, to their in­tense dis­com­fi­ture, he be­gan once more: “In the nine­teenth year of the reign of his most gra­cious majesty, King Charles the Sec­ond, I, Nathaniel Cross--”

“Oh, this will nev­er do,” Fe­lix cried. “We haven't got yet to the se­cret at all. Muriel, do try to set him right. He must waste no breath. We can't af­ford now to let him go all over it.”

Muriel stretched out her hand and soothed the bird gen­tly as be­fore. “Hav­ing slain, there­fore, my pre­de­ces­sor in the high god­ship,” she sug­gest­ed, in the same singsong voice as the par­rot's.

To her im­mense re­lief, Methuse­lah took the hint with charm­ing docil­ity.

“In the high god­ship,” he went on, me­chan­ical­ly, where he had stopped. "And this here is the man­ner where­by I ob­tained it. The Too-​Keela-​Keela from time to time doth gen­er­al­ly ap­point any cast­away stranger that comes to the is­land to the post of Ko­rong--that is to say, an an­nu­al god or vic­tim. For, as the year doth re­new it­self at each change of sea­sons, so do these car­rib­als in their gen­til­isme be­lieve and hold that the gods of the sea­sons--to wit, the King of the Rain, the Queen of the Clouds, the Lord of Green Leaves, the King of Fruits, and oth­ers--must needs be sleain and re­newed at the di­verse sol­stices. Now, it so hap­pened that I, on my ar­rival in the is­land, was ap­point­ed Ko­rong, and pro­mot­ed to the post of King of the Rain, hav­ing a na­tive wom­an as­signed me as Queen of the Clouds, with whom I might keep com­pa­ny. This wom­an be­ing, af­ter her kind, en­am­ored of me, and anx­ious to es­cape her own fate, to be sleain by my side, did be­tray to me that se­cret which they call in their tongue the Great Taboo, and which had been be­trayed to her­self in turn by a na­tive man, her for­mer lover. For the men are in­struct­ed in these things in the mys­ter­ies when they coom of age, but not the wom­en.

"And the Great Taboo is this: No man can be­coom a Too-​Keela-​Keela un­less he first sleay the man in whom the high god is in­car­nate for the mo­ment. But in or­der that he may sleay him, he must al­so him­self be a full Ko­rong, on­ly those per­sons who are al­ready gods be­ing ca­pa­ble for the high­est post in their hi­er­ar­chy; even as with our­selves, none but he that is a dea­con may be­come a priest, and none but he that is a priest may be made a bish­op. For this rea­son, then, the Too-​Keela-​Keela prefers to ad­vance a stranger to the post of Ko­rong, see­ing that such a per­son will not have been ini­ti­at­ed in the mys­ter­ies of the is­land, and there­fore will not be aware of those sundry steps which must needs be tak­en of him that would in­her­it the god­ship.

"Fur­ther­more, even a Ko­rong can on­ly ob­tain the high­est rank of Too-​Keela-​Keela if he or­der all things ac­cord­ing to the forms and cer­emonies of the Taboo par­fect­ly. For these gen­tiles are very care­ful of the levit­ical parts of their re­li­gion, de­riv­ing the same, as it seems to me, from the poli­ty of the He­brews, the fame of whose taber­na­cle must sure have gone forth through the ends of the woorld, and the knowl­edge of whose tem­ple must have been yet more wide dis­persed by Solomon, his ships, when they came in­to these parts to fetch gold from Ophir. And the cer­emo­ny is, that be­fore any man may sleay the 'arth­ly ten­ement of Too-​Keela-​Keela and in­her­it his soul, which is in very truth, as they do think the god him­self, he must needs fight with the per­son in whom Too-​Keela-​Keela doth then dwell, and for this rea­son: If the hold­er of the soul can de­fend him­self in fight, then it is clear that his strength is not one whit de­cayed, nor is his vig­or feail­ing; nor yet has his as­sailant been able to take his soul from him. But if the Ko­rong in open fight do sleay the per­son in whom Too-​Keela-​Keela dwells, he be­cometh at once a Too-​Keela-​Keela him­self--that is to say, in their tongue, the Lord of Lords, be­cause he hath tak­en the life of him that pre­ced­ed him.

"Yet so in­tri­cate is the the­ol­ogy and prac­tice of these loath­some sav­ages, that not even now have I ex­plained it in full to you, O ship­wrecked mariner, for your aid and pro­tec­tion. For a Ko­rong, though it be a part of his priv­ilege to con­tend, if he will, with Too-​Keela-​Keela for the high god­ship and prince­dom of this isle, may on­ly do so at cer­tain ap­point­ed times, places, and sea­sons. Above all things, it is nec­es­sary that he should first find out the hid­ing-​place of the soul of Too-​Keela-​Keela. For though the Too-​Keela-​Keela for the time that is, be an­imat­ed by the god, yet, for greater se­cu­ri­ty, he doth not keep his soul in his own body, but, be­ing above all things the god of fruit­ful­ness and gen­er­ation, who caus­es wom­en to bear chil­dren, and the plant called taro to bring forth its in­crease, he keep­eth his soul in the great sa­cred tree be­hind his tem­ple, which is thus the Fa­ther of All Trees, and the chiefest abode of the great god Too-​Keela-​Keela.

“Nor does Too-​Keela-​Keela's soul abide equal­ly in ev­ery part of this afore­said tree; but in a cer­tain bough of it, re­sem­bling a mistle­toe, which hath yel­low leaves, and, be­ing bro­ken off, groweth ev­er green and yel­low afresh; which is the cen­tral mys­tery of all their Sathanic re­li­gion. For in this very bough--easy to be dis­cerned by the eye among the green leaves of the tree--” the bird paused and fal­tered.

Muriel leaned for­ward in an agony of ex­cite­ment. “Among the green leaves of the tree--” she went on sooth­ing him.

Her voice seemed to give the par­rot a fresh im­pulse to speak. “--Is con­tained, as it were,” he con­tin­ued, fee­bly, “the di­vine essence it­self, the soul and life of Too-​Keela-​Keela. Who­ev­er, then, be­ing a full Ko­rong, breaks this off, hath thus pos­sessed him­self of the very god in per­son. This, how­ev­er, he must do by ex­ceed­ing stealth; for Too-​Keela-​Keela, or rather the man that bears that name, be­ing the guardian and de­fend­er of the great god, walks ev­er up and down, by day and by night, in ex­ceed­ing great cun­ning, armed with a spear and with a hatch­et of stone, around the root of the tree, watch­ing jeal­ous­ly over the branch which is, as he be­lieves, his own soul and be­ing. I, there­fore, be­ing warned of the Taboo by the wom­an that was my con­sort, did crafti­ly, near the ap­point­ed time for my own death, creep out of my hut, and my con­sort, hav­ing in­duced one of the wives of Too-​Keela-​Keela to make him drunk­en with too much of that in­tox­icat­ing drink which they do call ka­va, did pro­ceed--did pro­ceed--did pro­ceed--In the nine­teenth year of the reign of his most gra­cious majesty, King Charles the Sec­ond--”

Muriel bent for­ward once more in an agony of sus­pense. “Oh, go on, good Poll!” she cried. “Go on. Re­mem­ber it. Did pro­ceed to--”

The sin­gle syl­la­ble helped Methuse­lah's mem­ory. “--Did pro­ceed to stealthi­ly pluck the bough, and, hav­ing shown the same to Fire and Wa­ter, the guardians of the Taboo, did bold­ly chal­lenge to sin­gle com­bat the bod­ily ten­ement of the god, with spear and hatch­et, pro­vid­ed for me in ac­cor­dance with an­cient cus­tom by Fire and Wa­ter. In which com­bat, Heav­en mer­ci­ful­ly be­friend­ing me against my en­emy, I did coom out con­queror; and was there­upon pro­claimed Too-​Keela-​Keela my­self, with cer­emonies too many and bar­barous to men­tion, lest I raise your gorge at them. But that which is most im­por­tant to tell you for your own guid­ance and safe­ty, O mariner, is this--that be­ing the sole and on­ly end I have in im­part­ing this his­to­ry to so strange a mes­sen­ger--that af­ter you have by craft plucked the sa­cred branch, and by force of arms over-​cootn Too-​Keela-​Keela, it is by all means need­ful, whether you will or not, that sub­mit­ting to the hate­ful and gen­tile cus­tom of this peo­ple--of this peo­ple--Pret­ty Poll! Pret­ty Poll! God save--God save the king! Death to the nine­teenth year of the reign of all ar­rant knaves and round­heads.”

He dropped his head on his breast, and blinked his white eye­lids more fee­bly than ev­er. His strength was fail­ing him fast. The Soul of all dead par­rots was wear­ing out. M. Pey­ron, who had stood by all this time, not know­ing in any way what might be the val­ue of the bird's dis­clo­sures, came for­ward and stroked poor Methuse­lah with his ca­ress­ing hand. But Methuse­lah was in­ca­pable now of any fur­ther ef­fort. He opened his blind eyes sleep­ily for the last, last time, and stared around him with a blank stare at the fad­ing uni­verse. “God save the king!” he screamed aloud with a ter­ri­ble gasp, true to his col­ors still. “God save the king, and to hell with all pa­pists!”

Then he fell off his perch, stone dead, on the ground. They were nev­er to hear the con­clu­sion of that strange, quaint mes­sage from a for­got­ten age to our more scep­ti­cal cen­tu­ry.

Fe­lix looked at Muriel, and Muriel looked at Fe­lix. They could hard­ly con­tain them­selves with awe and sur­prise. The par­rot's words were so hu­man, its speech was so re­al to them, that they felt as though the En­glish Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la of two hun­dred years back had re­al­ly and tru­ly been speak­ing to them from that perch; it was a hu­man crea­ture in­deed that lay dead be­fore them. Fe­lix raised the warm body from the ground with pos­itive rev­er­ence. “We will bury it de­cent­ly,” he said in French, turn­ing to M. Pey­ron. “He was a plucky bird, in­deed, and he has car­ried out his mas­ter's in­ten­tions nobly.”

As they spoke, a lit­tle rustling in the jun­gle hard by at­tract­ed their at­ten­tion. Fe­lix turned to look. A stealthy brown fig­ure glid­ed away in si­lence through the tan­gled brush­wood. M. Pey­ron start­ed. “We are ob­served, mon­sieur,” he said. “We must look out for squalls! It is one of the Eyes of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la!”

“Let him do his worst!” Fe­lix an­swered. “We know his se­cret now, and can pro­tect our­selves against him. Let us re­turn to the shade, mon­sieur, and talk this all over. Methuse­lah has in­deed giv­en us some­thing to-​day very se­ri­ous to think about.”