The Great Taboo

CHAPTER XXXI.

AT SEA: OFF BOUPARI.

Thir­teen days out from Syd­ney, the good ship Aus­tralasian was near­ing the equa­tor.

It was four of the clock in the af­ter­noon, and the cap­tain (off du­ty) paced the deck, puff­ing a cigar, and talk­ing idly with a pas­sen­ger on for­mer ex­pe­ri­ences.

Eight bells went on the quar­ter-​deck; time to change watch­es.

“This is on­ly our sec­ond trip through this chan­nel,” the cap­tain said, gaz­ing across with a ca­su­al glance at the palm-​trees that stood dark against the blue hori­zon. “We used to go a hun­dred miles to east­ward, here, to avoid the reefs. But last voy­age I came through this way quite safe­ly--though we had a nasty ac­ci­dent on the road--un­avoid­able--un­avoid­able! Big sea was run­ning free over the sunken shoals; caught the ship aft un­awares, and stove in bet­ter than half a dozen port­holes. La­dy pas­sen­ger on deck hap­pened to be lean­ing over the weath­er gun­wale; big sea caught her up on its crest in a jiffy, lift­ed her like a ba­by, and laid her down again gen­tly, just so, on the bed of the ocean. By George, sir, I was an­noyed. It was quite a ro­mance, poor thing; quite a ro­mance; we all felt so put out about it the rest of that voy­age. Young fel­low on board, nephew of Sir Theodore Thurstan, of the Colo­nial Of­fice, was in love with Miss El­lis--girl's name was El­lis--fa­ther's a par­son some­where down in Som­er­set­shire--and as soon as the big sea took her up on its crest, what does Thurstan go and do, but he ups on the taffrail, and, be­fore you could say Jack Robin­son, jumps over to save her.”

“But he didn't suc­ceed?” the pas­sen­ger asked, with lan­guid in­ter­est.

“Suc­ceed, my dear sir? and with a sea run­ning twelve feet high like that? Why, it was pitch dark, and such a surf on that the gig could hard­ly go through it.” The cap­tain smiled, and puffed away pen­sive­ly. “Drowned,” he said, af­ter a brief pause, with com­pla­cent com­po­sure. “Drowned. Drowned. Drowned. Went to the bot­tom, both of 'em. Davy Jones's lock­er. But un­avoid­able, quite. These ac­ci­dents _will_ hap­pen, even on the best-​reg­ulat­ed lin­ers. Why, there was my broth­er Tom, in the Cu­nard ser­vice--same that boast they nev­er lost a pas­sen­ger; there was my broth­er Tom, he was out one day off the New­found­land banks, heavy swell set­ting in from the nor'-nor'-east, ice­bergs ahead, pas­sen­gers bat­tened down--Bless my soul, how that light seems to come and go, don't it?”

It was a re­flect­ed light, flash­ing from the is­land straight in the cap­tain's eyes, small and in­signif­icant as to size, but strong for all that in the full trop­ical sun­shine, and glit­ter­ing like a di­amond from a vague el­eva­tion near the cen­tre of the is­land.

“Seems to come and go in reg­ular or­der,” the pas­sen­ger ob­served, re­flec­tive­ly, with­draw­ing his cigar. “Looks for all the world just like naval sig­nalling.”

The cap­tain paused, and shad­ed his eyes a mo­ment. “Hanged if that isn't just what it _is_,” he an­swered, slow­ly. “It's a rigged-​up he­li­ograph, and they're us­ing the Morse code; dash my eyes if they aren't. Well, this _is_ civ­iliza­tion! What the dick­ens can have come to the is­land of Boupari? There isn't a darned Eu­ro­pean soul in the place, nor ev­er has been. An­chor­age un­safe; no har­bor; bad reef; too small for mis­sion­ar­ies to make a liv­ing, and na­tives got noth­ing worth speak­ing of to trade in.”

“What do they say?” the pas­sen­ger asked, with sud­den­ly quick­ened in­ter­est.

“How the dev­il should I tell you yet, sir?” the cap­tain re­tort­ed with cho­ler­ic grumpi­ness. “Don't you see I'm spelling it out, let­ter by let­ter? O, r, e, s, c, u, e, u, s, c, o, m, e, w, e, l, l, a, r, m, e, d--Yes. yes, I twig it.” And the cap­tain jot­ted it down in his note-​book for some sec­onds, silent­ly.

“Run up the flag there,” he shout­ed, a mo­ment lat­er, rush­ing hasti­ly for­ward. “Stop her at once, Walk­er. Easy, easy. Get ready the gig. Well, up­on my soul, there _is_ a rum start any­way.”

“What does the mes­sage say?” the pas­sen­ger in­quired, with in­tense sur­prise.

“Say? Well, there's what I make it out,” the cap­tain an­swered, hand­ing him the scrap of pa­per on which he had jot­ted down the let­ters. “I missed the be­gin­ning, but the end's all right. Look alive there, boys, will you. Bring out the Winch­ester. Take cut­lass­es, all hands. I'll go along my­self in her.”

The pas­sen­ger took the piece of pa­per on which he read, “and send a boat to res­cue us. Come well armed. Sav­ages on guard. Thurstan, El­lis.”

In less than three min­utes the boat was low­ered and manned, and the cap­tain, with the Winch­ester six-​shoot­er by his side, seat­ed grim in the stern, took com­mand of the tiller.

On the is­land it was the first day of Fe­lix and Muriel's im­pris­on­ment in the dusty precinct of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's tem­ple. All the morn­ing through, they had sat un­der the shade of a small­er banyan in the out­er cor­ner; for Muriel could nei­ther en­ter the noi­some hut nor go near the great tree with the skele­tons on its branch­es; nor could she sit where the dead sav­age's body, still fes­ter­ing in the sun, at­tract­ed the buzzing blue flies by thou­sands, to drink up the blood that lay thick on the earth in a pool around it. Hard by, the na­tives sat, keen as lynx­es, in a great cir­cle just out­side the white taboo-​line, where, with ser­ried spears, they kept watch and ward over the per­sons of their doubt­ful gods or vic­tims. M. Pey­ron, alone pre­serv­ing his equa­nim­ity un­der these ad­verse cir­cum­stances, hummed low to him­self in very du­bi­ous tones; even he felt his French gayety had some­what for­sak­en him; this rev­olu­tion in Boupari failed to ex­cite his Parisian ar­dor.

About one o'clock in the day, how­ev­er, look­ing ca­su­al­ly sea­ward--what was this that M. Pey­ron, to his great sur­prise, de­scried far away on the dim south­ern hori­zon? A low black line, ly­ing close to the wa­ter? No, no; not a steam­er!

Too pru­dent to ex­cite the na­tives' at­ten­tion un­nec­es­sar­ily, the cau­tious French­man whis­pered, in the most com­mon­place voice on earth to Fe­lix: “Don't look at once; and when you do look, mind you don't ex­hib­it any ag­ita­tion in your tone or man­ner. But what do you make that out to be--that long black haze on the hori­zon to south­ward?”

Fe­lix looked, dis­re­gard­ing the friend­ly in­junc­tion, at once. At the same mo­ment, Muriel turned her eyes quick­ly in the self-​same di­rec­tion. Nei­ther made the faintest sign of out­er emo­tion; but Muriel clenched her white hands hard, till the nails dug in­to the palm, in her ef­fort to re­strain her­self, as she mur­mured very low, in an ag­itat­ed voice, “_Un vapeur, un vapeur_!”

“So I think,” M. Pey­ron an­swered, very low and calm. “It is, in­deed, a steam­er!”

For three long hours those anx­ious souls wait­ed and watched it draw near­er and near­er. Slow­ly the na­tives, too, be­gan to per­ceive the un­ac­cus­tomed ob­ject. As it drew abreast of the is­land, and the de­ci­sive mo­ment ar­rived for prompt ac­tion, Fe­lix rose in his place once more and cried aloud, “My peo­ple, I told you a ship, pro­pelled by fire, would come from the far land across the sea to take us. The ship has come; you can see for your­selves the thick black smoke that is­sues in huge puffs from the mouth of the mon­ster. Now, lis­ten to me, and dare not to dis­obey me. My word is law; let all men see to it. I am go­ing to send a mes­sage of fire from the sun to the great ca­noe that walks up­on the wa­ter. If any man ven­tures to stop me from do­ing it the peo­ple from the great ca­noe will land on this isle and take vengeance for his act, and kill with the thun­der which the sail­ing gods car­ry ev­er about with them.”

By this time the is­land was alive with com­mo­tion. Hun­dreds of na­tives, with their long hair falling un­kempt about their keen brown faces, were gaz­ing with open eyes at the big black ship that ploughed her way so fast against wind and tide over the sur­face of the wa­ters. Some of them shout­ed and ges­tic­ulat­ed with pan­ic fear; oth­ers seemed half in­clined to waste no time on prepa­ra­tion or doubt, but to rush on at once, and im­mo­late their cap­tives be­fore a res­cue was pos­si­ble. But Fe­lix, keep­ing ev­er his cool head undis­turbed, stood on the dusty mound by Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's house, and tak­ing in his hand the lit­tle mir­ror he had made from the match-​box, flashed the light from the sun full in their eyes for a mo­ment, to the as­ton­ish­ment and dis­com­fi­ture of all those gap­ing sav­ages. Then he fo­cussed it on the Aus­tralasian, across the surf and the waves, and with a throb­bing heart be­gan to make his last faint bid for life and free­dom.

For four or five min­utes he went flash­ing on, un­cer­tain of the ef­fect, whether they saw or saw not. Then a cry from Muriel burst at once up­on his ears. She clasped her hands con­vul­sive­ly in an agony of joy. “They see us! They see us!”

And sure enough, scarce­ly half a minute lat­er, a British flag ran gay­ly up the main­mast, and a boat seemed to drop down over the side of the ves­sel.

As for the na­tives, they watched these pro­ceed­ings with con­sid­er­able sur­prise and no lit­tle dis­com­fi­ture--Fire and Wa­ter, in par­tic­ular, whis­per­ing to­geth­er, much alarmed, with many su­per­sti­tious nods and taboos, in the cor­ner of the en­clo­sure.

Grad­ual­ly, as the boat drew near­er and near­er, di­vid­ed coun­sels pre­vailed among the sav­ages. With no cer­tain­ly rec­og­nized Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la to mar­shal their move­ments, each man stood in doubt from whom to take his or­ders. At last, the King of Fire, in a hes­itat­ing voice, gave the word of com­mand. “Half the war­riors to the shore to re­pel the en­emy; half to watch round the taboo-​line, lest the Ko­rongs es­cape us! Let Breath­less Fear, our war-​god, go be­fore the face of our troops, in­vis­ible!”

And, quick as thought, at his word, the war­riors had paired off, two and two, in long lines; some run­ning hasti­ly down to the beach, to man the war-​ca­noes, while oth­ers re­mained, with shark's tooth spears still set in a loos­er cir­cle, round the great tem­ple-​en­clo­sure of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la.

For Muriel, this sus­pense was pos­itive­ly ter­ri­ble. To feel one was so close to the hope of res­cue, and yet to know that be­fore that help ar­rived, or even as it came up, those sav­ages might any mo­ment run their ghast­ly spears through them.

But Fe­lix made the best of his po­si­tion still. “Re­mem­ber,” he cried, at the top of his voice, as the war­riors start­ed at a run for the wa­ter's edge, “your Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la tells you, these new-​com­ers are his friends. Who­ev­er hurts them, does so at his per­il. This is a great Taboo. I bid you re­ceive them. Be­ware for your lives. I, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la the Great, have said it.”