The Great Taboo

CHAPTER II.

THE TEM­PLE OF THE DE­ITY.

While these things were hap­pen­ing on the sea close by, a very dif­fer­ent scene in­deed was be­ing en­act­ed mean­while, be­neath those wav­ing palms, on the is­land of Boupari. It was strange, to be sure, as Fe­lix Thurstan had said, that such un­speak­able hea­then or­gies should be tak­ing place with­in sight of a pass­ing Chris­tian En­glish steam­er. But if on­ly he had known or re­flect­ed to what sort of land he was try­ing now to strug­gle ashore with Muriel, he might well have doubt­ed whether it were not bet­ter to let her per­ish where she was, in the pure clear ocean, rather than to sub­mit an En­glish girl to the pos­si­bil­ity of un­der­go­ing such hor­ri­ble hea­then rites and cer­emonies.

For on the is­land of Boupari it was high feast with the wor­ship­pers of their god that night. The sun had turned on the Trop­ic of Capri­corn at noon, and was mak­ing his way north­ward, to­ward the equa­tor once more; and his votaries, as was their wont, had all come forth to do him hon­or in due sea­son, and to pay their re­spects, in the in­most and sa­cre­dest grove on the is­land, to his in­car­nate rep­re­sen­ta­tive, the liv­ing spir­it of trees and fruits and veg­eta­tion, the very high god, the di­vine Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la!

Ear­ly in the evening, as soon as the sun's rim had dis­ap­peared be­neath the ocean, a strange noise boomed forth from the cen­tral shrine of Boupari. Those who heard it clapped their hands to their ears and ran hasti­ly for­ward. It was a noise like dis­tant rum­bling thun­der, or the whir of some great En­glish mill or fac­to­ry; and at its sound ev­ery wom­an on the is­land threw her­self on the ground pros­trate, with her face in the dust, and wait­ed there rev­er­ent­ly till the au­di­ble voice of the god had once more sub­sid­ed. For no wom­an knew how that sound was pro­duced. On­ly the grown men, ini­ti­at­ed in­to the mys­ter­ies of the shrine when they came of age at the tat­too­ing cer­emo­ny, were aware that the strange, buzzing, whirring noise was noth­ing more or less than the cry of the bull-​roar­er.

A bull-​roar­er, as many En­glish school­boys know, is mere­ly a piece of ob­long wood, point­ed at ei­ther end, and fas­tened by a leather thong at one cor­ner. But when whirled round the head by prac­tised priest­ly hands, it pro­duces a low rum­bling noise like the wheels of a dis­tant car­riage, grow­ing grad­ual­ly loud­er and clear­er, from mo­ment to mo­ment, till at last it wax­es it­self in­to a fright­ful din, or bursts in­to per­fect peals of im­ita­tion thun­der. Then it de­creas­es again once more, as grad­ual­ly as it rose, be­com­ing fainter and ev­er fainter, like thun­der as it re­cedes, till the hor­ri­ble bel­low­ing, as of su­per­nat­ural bulls, dies away in the end, by slow de­grees, in­to low and soft and im­per­cep­ti­ble mur­murs.

But when the sav­age hears the dis­tant hum­ming of the bull-​roar­er, at what­ev­er dis­tance, he knows that the mys­ter­ies of his god are in full swing, and he hur­ries for­ward in haste, leav­ing his work or his plea­sure, and run­ning, naked as he stands, to take his share in the wor­ship, lest the anger of heav­en should burst forth in de­vour­ing flames to con­sume him. But the wom­en, know­ing them­selves un­wor­thy to face the dread pres­ence of the high god in his wrath, rush wild­ly from the spot, and, fling­ing them­selves down at full length, with their mouths to the dust, wait pa­tient­ly till the voice of their de­ity is no longer au­di­ble.

And as the bull-​roar­er on Boupari rang out with wild echoes from the coral cav­erns in the cen­tral grove that evening, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, their god, rose slow­ly from his place, and stood out from his hut, a de­ity re­vealed, be­fore his rev­er­en­tial wor­ship­pers.

As he rose, a hushed whis­per ran wave-​like through the dense throng of dusky forms that bent low, like corn be­neath the wind, be­fore him, “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la ris­es! He ris­es to speak! Hush! for the voice of the mighty man-​god!”

The god, look­ing around him su­per­cil­ious­ly with a cyn­ical air of con­tempt, stood for­ward with a firm and elas­tic step be­fore his silent wor­ship­pers. He was a stal­wart sav­age, in the very prime of life, tall, lithe, and ac­tive. His fig­ure was that of a man well used to com­mand; but his face, though hand­some, was vis­ibly marked by ev­ery ex­ter­nal sign of cru­el­ty, lust, and ex­treme blood­thirsti­ness. One might have said, mere­ly to look at him, he was a be­ing de­based by all forms of bru­tal and hate­ful self-​in­dul­gence. A bale­ful light burned in his keen gray eyes. His lips were thick, full, pur­ple, and wist­ful.

“My peo­ple may look up­on me,” he said, in a strange­ly af­fa­ble voice, stand­ing for­ward and smil­ing with a cu­ri­ous half-​cru­el, half-​com­pas­sion­ate smile up­on his awe-​struck fol­low­ers. “On ev­ery day of the sun's course but this, none save the min­is­ters ded­icat­ed to the ser­vice of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la dare gaze un­hurt up­on his sa­cred per­son. If any oth­er did, the light from his holy eyes would with­er them up, and the glow of his glo­ri­ous coun­te­nance would scorch them to ash­es.” He raised his two hands, palm out­ward, in front of him. “So all the year round,” he went on, “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, who loves his peo­ple, and sends them the ear­li­er and the lat­er rain in the wet sea­son, and makes their yams and their taro grow, and caus­es his sun to shine up­on them freely--all the year round Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, your god, sits shut up in his own house among the skele­tons of those whom he has killed and eat­en, or walks in his walled pad­dock, where his bread-​fruit ripens and his plan­tains spring--him­self, and the min­is­ters that his tribes­men have giv­en him.”

At the sound of their mys­tic de­ity's voice the sav­ages, bend­ing low­er still till their fore­heads touched the ground, re­peat­ed in cho­rus, to the clap­ping of hands, like some solemn litany: “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la speaks true. Our lord is mer­ci­ful. He sends down his show­ers up­on our crops and fields. He caus­es his sun to shine bright­ly over us. He makes our pigs and our slaves bring forth their in­crease. Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la is good. His peo­ple praise him.”

The god took an­oth­er step for­ward, the di­vine man­tle of red feath­ers glow­ing in the sun­set on his dusky shoul­ders, and smiled once more that hate­ful gra­cious smile of his. He was stand­ing near the open door of his wat­tled hut, over­shad­owed by the huge spread­ing arms of a gi­gan­tic banyan-​tree. Through the open door of the hut it was pos­si­ble to catch just a pass­ing glimpse of an aw­ful sight with­in. On the beams of the house, and on the boughs of the trees be­hind it, hu­man skele­tons, half cov­ered with dry flesh, hung in ghast­ly ar­ray, their skulls turned down­ward. They were the skele­tons of the vic­tims Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, their prince, had slain and eat­en; they were the tro­phies of the can­ni­bal man-​god's hate­ful prowess.

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la raised his right hand erect and spoke again. “I am a great god,” he said, slow­ly. “I am very pow­er­ful. I make the sun to shine, and the yams to grow. I am the spir­it of plants. With­out me there would be noth­ing for you all to eat or drink in Boupari. If I were to grow old and die, the sun would fade away in the heav­ens over­head; the bread-​fruit trees would with­er and cease to bear on earth; all fruits would come to an end and die at once; all rivers would stop forth­with from run­ning.”

His wor­ship­pers bowed down in ac­qui­es­cence with awestruck faces. “It is true,” they an­swered, in the same slow sing-​song of as­sent as be­fore. “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la is the great­est of gods. We owe to him ev­ery­thing. We hang up­on his fa­vor.”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la start­ed back, laughed, and showed his pearly white teeth. They were beau­ti­ful and reg­ular, like the teeth of a tiger, a strong young tiger. “But I need more sac­ri­fices than all the oth­er gods,” he went on, melo­di­ous­ly, like one who plays with con­sum­mate skill up­on some dif­fi­cult in­stru­ment. “I am greedy; I am thirsty; I am a hun­gry god. You must not stint me. I claim more hu­man vic­tims than all the oth­er gods be­side. If you want your crops to grow, and your rivers to run, the fields to yield you game, and the sea fish--this is what I ask: give me vic­tims, vic­tims! That is our com­pact. Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la calls you.”

The men bowed down once more and re­peat­ed humbly, “You shall have vic­tims as you will, great god; on­ly give us yam and taro and bread-​fruit, and cause not your bright light, the sun, to grow dark in heav­en over us.”

“Cut your­selves,” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la cried, in a peremp­to­ry voice, clap­ping his hands thrice. “I am thirst­ing for blood. I want your free-​will of­fer­ing.”

As he spoke, ev­ery man, as by a set rit­ual, took from a lit­tle skin wal­let at his side a sharp flake of coral-​stone, and, draw­ing it de­lib­er­ate­ly across his breast in a deep red gash, caused the blood to flow out freely over his chest and long grass waist­band. Then, hav­ing done so, they nev­er strove for a mo­ment to stanch the wound, but let the red drops fall as they would on to the dust at their feet, with­out seem­ing even to be con­scious at all of the fact that they were flow­ing.

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la smiled once more, a ghast­ly self-​sat­is­fied smile of un­ques­tioned pow­er. “It is well,” he went on. “My peo­ple love me. They know my strength, how I can with­er them up. They give me their blood to drink freely. So I will be mer­ci­ful to them. I will make my sun shine and my rain drop from heav­en. And in­stead of tak­ing _all_, I will choose one vic­tim.” He paused, and glanced along their line sig­nif­icant­ly.

“Choose, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la,” the men an­swered, with­out a mo­ment's hes­ita­tion. “We are all your meat. Choose which one you will take of us.”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la walked with a leisure­ly tread down the lines and sur­veyed the men crit­ical­ly. They were all drawn up in rows, one be­hind the oth­er, ac­cord­ing to tribes and fam­ilies; and the god walked along each row, ex­am­in­ing them with a cu­ri­ous and in­ter­est­ed eye, as a farmer ex­am­ines sheep fit for the mar­ket. Now and then, he felt a leg or an arm with his fin­ger and thumb, and hes­itat­ed a sec­ond. It was an im­por­tant mat­ter, this choos­ing a vic­tim. As he passed, a close ob­serv­er might have not­ed that each man trem­bled vis­ibly while the god's eye was up­on him, and looked af­ter him askance with a ter­ri­fied side­long gaze as he passed on to his neigh­bor. But not one sav­age gave any overt sign or to­ken of his ter­ror or his re­luc­tance. On the con­trary, as Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la passed along the line with lazy, cru­el de­lib­er­ate­ness, the men kept chant­ing aloud with­out one tremor in their voic­es, “We are all your meat. Choose which one you will take of us.”

On a sud­den, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la turned sharply round, and, dart­ing a rapid glance to­ward a row he had al­ready passed sev­er­al min­utes be­fore, he ex­claimed, with an air of un­ex­pect­ed in­spi­ra­tion, “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la has cho­sen. He takes Mal­oa.”

The man up­on whose shoul­der the god laid his heavy hand as he spoke stood forth from the crowd with­out a mo­ment's hes­ita­tion. If anger or fear was in his heart at all, it could not be de­tect­ed in his voice or his fea­tures. He bowed his head with seem­ing sat­is­fac­tion, and an­swered humbly, “What Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la says must need be done. This is a great hon­or. He is a mighty god. We poor men must obey him. We are proud to be tak­en up and made one with di­vin­ity.”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la raised in his hand a large stone axe of some pol­ished green ma­te­ri­al, close­ly re­sem­bling jade, which lay on a block by the door, and tried its edge with his fin­ger, in an ab­stract­ed man­ner. “Bind him!” he said, qui­et­ly, turn­ing round to his votaries. And the men, each glad to have es­caped his own fate, bound their com­rade will­ing­ly with green ropes of plan­tain fi­bre.

“Crown him with flow­ers!” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la said; and a fe­male at­ten­dant, ab­solved from the ter­ror of the bull-​roar­er by the god's com­mand, brought for­ward a great gar­land of crim­son hi­bis­cus, which she flung around the vic­tim's neck and shoul­ders.

“Lay his head on the sa­cred stone block of our fa­thers,” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la went on, in an easy tone of com­mand, wav­ing his hand grace­ful­ly. And the men, mov­ing for­ward, laid their com­rade, face down­ward, on a huge flat block of pol­ished green­stone, which lay like an al­tar in front of the hut with the moul­der­ing skele­tons.

“It is well,” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la mur­mured once more, half aloud. “You have giv­en me the free-​will of­fer­ing. Now for the tres­pass! Where is the wom­an who dared to ap­proach too near the tem­ple-​home of the di­vine Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la? Bring the crim­inal for­ward!”

The men di­vid­ed, and made a lane down their mid­dle. Then one of them, a min­is­ter of the man-​god's shrine, led up by the hand, all trem­bling and shrink­ing with su­per­nat­ural ter­ror in ev­ery mus­cle, a well-​formed young girl of eigh­teen or twen­ty. Her naked bronze limbs were shape­ly and lis­some; but her eyes were swollen and red with tears, and her face strong­ly dis­tort­ed with awe for the man-​god. When she stood at last be­fore Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's dread­ed face, she flung her­self on the ground in an agony of fear.

“Oh, mer­cy, great God!” she cried, in a fee­ble voice. “I have sinned, I have sinned. Mer­cy, mer­cy!”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la smiled as be­fore, a smile of im­pe­ri­al pride. No ray of pity gleamed from those steel-​gray eyes. “Does Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la show mer­cy?” he asked, in a mock­ing voice. “Does he par­don his sup­pli­ants? Does he for­give tres­pass­es? Is he not a god, and must not his wrath be ap­peased? She, be­ing a wom­an, and not a wife sealed to Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, has dared to look from afar up­on his sa­cred home. She has spied the mys­ter­ies. There­fore she must die. My peo­ple, bind her.”

In a sec­ond, with­out more ado, while the poor trem­bling girl writhed and groaned in her agony be­fore their eyes, that mob of wild sav­ages, let loose to tor­ture and slay, fell up­on her with hideous shouts, and bound her, as they had bound their com­rade be­fore, with coarse na­tive ropes of twist­ed plan­tain fi­bre.

“Lay her head on the stone,” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la said, grim­ly. And his votaries obeyed him.

“Now light the sa­cred fire to make our feast, be­fore I slay the vic­tims,” the god said, in a gloat­ing voice, run­ning his fin­ger again along the edge of his huge hatch­et.

As he spoke, two men, hold­ing in their hands hol­low bam­boos with coals of fire con­cealed with­in, which they kept aglow mean­while by wav­ing them up and down rapid­ly in the air, laid these prim­itive match­es to the base of a great pyra­mi­dal pile of wood and palm-​leaves, ready pre­pared be­fore­hand in the yard of the tem­ple. In a sec­ond, the dry fu­el, catch­ing the sparks in­stant­ly, blazed up to heav­en with a wild out­burst of flame. Great red tongues of fire licked up the moul­der­ing mass of leaves and twigs, and caught at once at the trunks of palm and li wood with­in. A huge con­fla­gra­tion red­dened the sky at once like light­ning. The ef­fect was mag­ical. The glow trans­fig­ured the whole is­land for miles. It was, in fact, the blaze that Fe­lix Thurstan had not­ed and re­marked up­on as he stood that evening on the silent deck of the Aus­tralasian.

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la gazed at it with hor­rid child­ish glee. “A fine fire!” he said, gay­ly. “A fire wor­thy of a god. It will serve me well. Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la will have a good oven to roast his meal in.”

Then he turned to­ward the sea, and held up his hand once more for si­lence. As he did so, an an­swer­ing light up­on its sur­face at­tract­ed his eye for a mo­ment's space. It was a bright red light, mixed with white and green ones; in point of fact, the Aus­tralasian was pass­ing. Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la point­ed to­ward it solemn­ly with his plump, brown fore-​fin­ger. “See,” he said, draw­ing him­self up and look­ing preter­nat­ural­ly wise; “your god is great. I am send­ing some of this fire across the sea to where my sun has set, to aid and re­in­force it. That is to keep up the fire of the sun, lest ev­er at any time it should fade and fail you. While Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la lives the sun will burn bright. If Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la were to die it would be night for­ev­er.”

His votaries, fol­low­ing their god's fore-​fin­ger as it point­ed, all turned to look in the di­rec­tion he in­di­cat­ed with blank sur­prise and as­ton­ish­ment. Such a sight had nev­er met their eyes be­fore, for the Aus­tralasian was the very first steam­er to take the east­ward route, through the dan­ger­ous and tor­tu­ous Boupari Chan­nel. So their awe and sur­prise at the un­wont­ed sight knew no bounds. Fire on the ocean! Mirac­ulous light on the waves! Their god must, in­deed, be a mighty de­ity if he could send flames like that ca­reer­ing over the sea! Sure­ly the sun was safe in the hands of a po­ten­tate who could thus vis­ibly re­in­force it with red light, and white! In their as­ton­ish­ment and awe, they stood with their long hair falling down over their fore­heads, and their hands held up to their eyes that they might gaze the far­ther across the dim, dark ocean. The bor­rowed light of their bon­fire was mov­ing, slow­ly mov­ing over the wa­tery sea. Fire and wa­ter were mix­ing and min­gling on friend­ly terms. Im­pos­si­ble! In­cred­ible! Mar­vel­lous! Mirac­ulous! They pros­trat­ed them­selves in their ter­ror at Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's feet. “Oh, great god,” they cried, in awe-​struck tones, “your pow­er is too vast! Spare us, spare us, spare us!”

As for Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la him­self, he was not as­ton­ished at all. Strange as it sounds to us, he re­al­ly be­lieved in his heart what he said. Pro­found­ly con­vinced of his own god­head, and ab­ject­ly su­per­sti­tious as any of his own votaries, he ab­so­lute­ly ac­cept­ed as a fact his own sug­ges­tion, that the light he saw was the re­flec­tion of that his men had kin­dled. The in­ter­pre­ta­tion he had put up­on it seemed to him a per­fect­ly nat­ural and just one. His wor­ship­pers, in­deed, mere men that they were, might be ter­ri­fied at the sight; but why should he, a god, take any spe­cial no­tice of it?

He ac­cept­ed his own su­pe­ri­or­ity as im­plic­it­ly as our Eu­ro­pean no­bles and rulers ac­cept theirs. He had no doubts him­self, and he con­sid­ered those who had lit­tle bet­ter than crim­inals.

By and by, a small­er light de­tached it­self by slow de­grees from the greater ones. The oth­ers stood still, and halt­ed in mid-​ocean. The less­er light made as if it would come in the di­rec­tion of Boupari. In point of fact, the gig had put out in search of Fe­lix and Muriel.

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la in­ter­pret­ed the facts at once, how­ev­er, in his own way. “See,” he said, point­ing with his plump fore­fin­ger once more, and en­cour­ag­ing with his words his ter­ri­fied fol­low­ers, “I am send­ing back a light again from the sun to my is­land. I am do­ing my work well. I am tak­ing care of my peo­ple. Fear not for your fu­ture. In the light is yet an­oth­er vic­tim. A man and a wom­an will come to Boupari from the sun, to make up for the man and wom­an whom we eat in our feast to-​night. Give me plen­ty of vic­tims, and you will have plen­ty of yam. Make haste, then; kill, eat; let us feast Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la! To-​mor­row the man and wom­an I have sent from the sun will come ashore on the reef, and reach Boupari.”

At the words, he stepped for­ward and raised that heavy tom­ahawk. With one blow each he brained the two bound and de­fence­less vic­tims on the al­tar-​stone of his fa­thers. The rest, a Eu­ro­pean hand shrinks from re­veal­ing. The or­gy was too hor­ri­ble even for de­scrip­tion.

And that was the land to­ward which, that mo­ment, Fe­lix Thurstan was strug­gling, with all his might, to car­ry Muriel El­lis, from the myr­iad clasp­ing arms of a com­par­ative­ly gen­tle and mer­ci­ful ocean!