The Great Taboo

CHAPTER XXX.

SUS­PENSE.

In a mo­ment, Fe­lix's mind was ful­ly made up. There was no time to think; it was the hour for ac­tion. He saw how he must com­port him­self to­ward this strange wild peo­ple. Seat­ing Muriel gen­tly on the ground, Mali be­side her, and step­ping for­ward him­self, with Pey­ron's hand in his, he beck­oned to the vast and surg­ing crowd to be­speak re­spect­ful si­lence.

A mighty hush fell at once up­on the peo­ple. The King of Fire and the King of Wa­ter stood back, obe­di­ent to his nod. They wait­ed for the up­shot of this strange new de­vel­op­ment.

“Men of Boupari,” Fe­lix be­gan, speak­ing with a mar­vel­lous flu­en­cy in their own tongue, for the ex­cite­ment it­self sup­plied him with elo­quence; “I have killed your late god in the pre­scribed way; I have plucked the sa­cred bough, and fought in sin­gle com­bat by the es­tab­lished rules of your own re­li­gion. Fire and Wa­ter, you guardians of this holy is­land, is it not so? You saw all things done, did you not, af­ter the pre­cepts of your an­ces­tors?”

The King of Fire bowed low and an­swered: “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la speaks, in­deed, the truth. Wa­ter and I, with our own eyes, have seen it.”

“And now,” Fe­lix went on, “I am my­self, by your own laws, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la.”

The King of Fire made a ges­ture of dis­sent. “Oh, great god, par­don me,” he mur­mured, “if I say aught, now, to con­tra­dict you; but you are not a full Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la yet till you have eat­en of the heart of the god, your pre­de­ces­sor.”

“Then where is now the spir­it of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, the very high god, if I am not he?” Fe­lix asked, abrupt­ly, thus puz­zling them with a hard prob­lem in their own sav­age the­ol­ogy.

The King of Fire gave a start, and pon­dered. This was a de­tail of his creed that had nev­er be­fore so much as oc­curred to him. All faiths have their _cruces_. “I do not well know,” he an­swered, “whether it is in the heart of Lavi­ta, the son of Sa­mi, or in your own body. But I feel sure it must now be cer­tain­ly some­where, though just where our fa­thers have nev­er told us.”

Fe­lix rec­og­nized at once that he had gained a point. “Then look to it well,” he said, aus­tere­ly. “Be care­ful how you act. Do noth­ing rash. For ei­ther the soul of the god is in the heart of Lavi­ta, the son of Sa­mi; and then, since I refuse to eat it, it will de­cay away, as Lavi­ta's body de­cays, and the world will shriv­el up, and all things will per­ish, be­cause the god is dead and crum­bled to dust for­ev­er. Or else it is in my body, who am god in his place; and then, if any­body does me harm or hurt, he will be an im­pi­ous wretch, and will have bro­ken taboo, and Heav­en knows what evils and mis­for­tunes may not, there­fore, fall on each and all of you.”

A very old chief rose from the ranks out­side. His hair was white and his eyes bleared. “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la speaks well,” he cried, in a loud but mum­bling voice. “His words are wise. He ar­gues to the point. He is very cun­ning. I ad­vise you, my peo­ple, to be care­ful how you anger the white-​faced stranger, for you know what he is; he is cru­el; he is pow­er­ful. There was nev­er any storm in my time--and I am an old man--so great in Boupari as the storm that rose when the King of the Rain ate the storm-​ap­ple. Our yams and our taros even now are suf­fer­ing from it. He is a mighty strong god. Be­ware how you tam­per with him!”

He sat down, trem­bling. A younger chief rose from a near­er rank, and said his say in turn. “I do not agree with our fa­ther,” he cried, point­ing to the chief who had just spo­ken. “His word is evil; he is much mis­tak­en. I have an­oth­er thought. My thought is this. Let us kill and eat the white-​faced stranger at once, by wa­ger of bat­tle; and let whoso­ev­er fights and over­comes him re­ceive his hon­ors, and take to wife the fair wom­an, the Queen of the Clouds, the sun-​faced Ko­rong, whom he brought from the sun with him.”

“But who will then be Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la?” Fe­lix asked, turn­ing round up­on him quick­ly. Ha­bit­ua­tion to dan­ger had made him un­nat­ural­ly alert in such ut­most ex­trem­ities.

“Why, the man who slays you,” the young chief an­swered, point­ed­ly, grasp­ing his heavy tom­ahawk with pro­found ex­pres­sion.

“I think not,” Fe­lix an­swered. “Your rea­son­ing is bad. For if I am not Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, how can any man be­come Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la by killing me? And if I am Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, how dare you, not be­ing your­self Ko­rong, and not hav­ing bro­ken off the sa­cred bough, as I did, ven­ture to at­tack me? You wish to set aside all the cus­toms of Boupari. Are you not ashamed of such gross impi­ety?”

“Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la speaks well,” the King of Fire put in, for he had no cause to love the ag­gres­sive young chief, and he thought bet­ter of his chances in life as Fe­lix's min­is­ter. “Be­sides, now I think of it, he _must_ be Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, be­cause he has tak­en the life of the last great god, whom he slew with his hands; and there­fore the life is now his--he holds it.”

Fe­lix was em­bold­ened by this fa­vor­able opin­ion to strike out a fresh line in a fur­ther di­rec­tion. He stood for­ward once more, and beck­oned again for si­lence. “Yes, my peo­ple,” he said calm­ly, with slow ar­tic­ula­tion, “by the cus­tom of your race and the creed you pro­fess I am now in­deed, and in ev­ery truth, the abode of your great god, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la. But, fur­ther­more, I have a new rev­ela­tion to make to you. I am go­ing to in­struct you in a fresh way. This creed that you hold is full of er­rors. As Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, I mean to take my own course, no is­lander hin­der­ing me. If you try to de­pose me, what great gods have you now got left? None, save on­ly Fire and Wa­ter, my min­is­ters. King of the Rain there is none; for I, who was he, am now Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la. Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la there is none, save on­ly me; for the oth­er, that was, I have fought and con­quered. The Queen of the Clouds is with me. The King of the Birds is with me. Con­sid­er, then, O friends, that if you kill us all, you will have nowhere to turn; you will be left quite god­less.”

“It is true,” the peo­ple mur­mured, look­ing about them, half puz­zled. “He is wise. He speaks well. He is in­deed a Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la.”

Fe­lix pressed his ad­van­tage home at once. “Now lis­ten,” he said, lift­ing up one solemn fore­fin­ger. “I come from a coun­try very far away, where the cus­toms are bet­ter by many yams than those of Boupari. And now that I am in­deed Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la--your god, your mas­ter--I will change and al­ter some of your cus­toms that seem to me here and now most un­de­sir­able. In the first place--hear this!--I will put down all can­ni­bal­ism. No man shall eat of hu­man flesh on pain of death. And to be­gin with, no man shall cook or eat the body of Lavi­ta, the son of Sa­mi. On that I am de­ter­mined--I, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la. The King of the Birds and I, we will dig a pit, and we will bury in it the corpse of this man that was once your god, and whom his own wicked­ness com­pelled me to fight and slay, in or­der to pre­vent more cru­el­ty and blood­shed.”

The young chief stood up, all red in his wrath, and in­ter­rupt­ed him, bran­dish­ing a coral-​stone hatch­et. “This is blas­phe­my,” he said. “This is sheer rank blas­phe­my. These are not good words. They are very bad medicine. The white-​faced Ko­rong is no true Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la. His ad­vice is evil--and ill-​luck would fol­low it. He wish­es to change the sa­cred cus­toms of Boupari. Now, that is not well. My coun­sel is this: let us eat him now, un­less he changes his heart, and amends his ways, and par­takes, as is right, of the body of Lavi­ta, the son of Sa­mi.”

The as­sem­bly swayed vis­ibly, this way and that, some in­clin­ing to the con­ser­va­tive view of the rash young chief, and oth­ers to the cau­tious lib­er­al­ism of the gray-​haired war­rior. Fe­lix not­ed their di­vi­sion, and spoke once more, this time still more au­thor­ita­tive­ly than ev­er.

“Fur­ther­more,” he said, “my peo­ple, hear me. As I came in a ship pro­pelled by fire over the high waves of the sea, so I go away in one. We watch for such a ship to pass by Boupari. When it comes, the Queen of the Clouds--up­on whose life I place a great Taboo; let no man dare to touch her at his per­il; if he does, I will rush up­on him and kill him as I killed Lavi­ta, the son of Sa­mi. When it comes, the Queen of the Clouds, the King of the Birds, and I, we will go away back in it to the land whence we came, and be quit of Boupari. But we will not leave it fire­less or god­less. When I re­turn back home again to my own far land, I will send out mes­sen­gers, very good men, who will tell you of a God more pow­er­ful by much than any you ev­er knew, and very righ­teous. They will teach you great things you nev­er dreamed of. There­fore, I ask you now to dis­perse to your own homes, while the King of Birds and I bury the body of Lavi­ta, the son of Sa­mi.”

All this time Muriel had been seat­ed on the ground, lis­ten­ing with pro­found in­ter­est, but scarce­ly un­der­stand­ing a word, though here and there, af­ter her six months' stay in the is­land, a sin­gle phrase was dim­ly in­tel­li­gi­ble to her. But now, at this crit­ical mo­ment she rose, and, stand­ing up­right by Fe­lix's side in her spot­less En­glish pu­ri­ty among those as­sem­bled sav­ages, she point­ed just once with her up­lift­ed fin­ger to the calm vault of heav­en, and then across the moon­lit hori­zon of the sea, and last of all to the clus­ter­ing huts and vil­lages of Boupari. “Tell them,” she said to Fe­lix, with blanched lips, but with­out one sign of a tremor in her fear­less voice, “I will pray for them to Heav­en, when I go across the sea, and will think of the chil­dren that I loved to pat and play with, and will send out mes­sen­gers from our home be­yond the waves, to make them wis­er and hap­pi­er and bet­ter.”

Fe­lix trans­lat­ed her sim­ple mes­sage to them in its pure wom­an­ly good­ness. Even the na­tives were touched. They whis­pered and hes­itat­ed. Then af­ter a time of much mur­mured de­bate, the King of Fire stood for­ward as a me­di­ator. “There is an or­acle, O Ko­rong,” he said, “not to pre­judge the mat­ter, which de­cides all these things--a great conch-​shell at a sa­cred grove in the neigh­bor­ing is­land of Aloa Mau­na. It is the holi­est or­acle of all our holy re­li­gion. We gods and men of Boupari have tak­en coun­sel to­geth­er, and have come to a con­clu­sion. We will put forth a ca­noe and send men with blood on their faces to in­quire at Aloa Mau­na of the very great or­acle. Till then, you are nei­ther Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, nor not Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la. It be­hooves us to be very care­ful how we deal with gods. Our peo­ple will stand round your precinct in a row, and guard you with their spears. You shall not cross the taboo line to them, nor they to you: all shall be neu­tral. Food shall be laid by the line, as al­ways, morn, noon, and night; and your Shad­ows shall take it in; but you shall not come out. Nei­ther shall you bury the body of Lavi­ta, the son of Sa­mi. Till the ca­noe comes back it shall lie in the sun and rot there.”

He clapped his hands twice.

In a mo­ment a tom-​tom be­gan to beat from be­hind, and the peo­ple all crowd­ed with­out the cir­cle. The King of Fire came for­ward os­ten­ta­tious­ly and made taboo. “If, any man cross this line,” he said in a dron­ing sing-​song, “till the ca­noe re­turn from the great or­acle of our faith on Aloa Mau­na, I, Fire, will scorch him in­to cin­der and ash­es. If any wom­an transgress, I will pitch her with palm oil, and light her up for a lamp on a moon­less night to light­en this tem­ple.”

The King of Wa­ter dis­tribut­ed shark's-​tooth spears. At once a great ser­ried wall hemmed in the Eu­ro­peans all round, and they sat down to wait, the three whites to­geth­er, for the up­shot of the mis­sion to Aloa Mau­na.

And the dawn now gleamed red on the east­ern hori­zon.