The Great Taboo

CHAPTER III.

LAND; BUT WHAT LAND?

As the last glim­mer­ing lights of the Aus­tralasian died away to sea­ward, Fe­lix Thurstan knew in his de­spair there was noth­ing for it now but to strike out bold­ly, if he could, for the shore of the is­land.

By this time the break­ers had sub­sid­ed great­ly. Not, in­deed, that the sea it­self was re­al­ly go­ing down. On the con­trary, a brisk wind was ris­ing sharp­er from the east, and the waves on the open Pa­cif­ic were grow­ing each mo­ment high­er and lop­pi­er. But the huge moun­tain of wa­ter that washed Muriel El­lis over­board was not a reg­ular or­di­nary wave; it was that far more pow­er­ful and dan­ger­ous mass, a shoal-​wa­ter break­er. The Aus­tralasian had passed at that in­stant over a sub­merged coral-​bar, quite deep enough, in­deed, to let her cross its top with­out the slight­est dan­ger of graz­ing, but still raised so high to­ward the sur­face as to pro­duce a con­sid­er­able con­stant ground-​swell, which broke in windy weath­er in­to huge sheets of surf, like the one that had just struck and washed over the Aus­tralasian, car­ry­ing Muriel with it. The very same cause that pro­duced the break­ers, how­ev­er, bore Fe­lix on their sum­mit rapid­ly land­ward; and once he had got well be­yond the re­gion of the bar that be­got them, he found him­self soon, to his in­tense re­lief, in com­par­ative­ly calm shoal wa­ter.

Muriel El­lis, for her part, was faint with ter­ror and with the buf­fet­ing of the waves; but she still float­ed by his side, up­held by the life-​belts. He had been able, by im­mense ef­forts, to keep un­sep­arat­ed from her amid the rend­ing surf of the break­ers. Now that they found them­selves in eas­ier wa­ters for a while, Fe­lix be­gan to strike out vig­or­ous­ly through the dark­ness for the shore. Hold­ing up his com­pan­ion with one hand, and swim­ming with all his might in the di­rec­tion where a vague white line of surf, lit up by the red glare-​of some fire far in­land, made him sus­pect the near­est land to lie, he al­most thought he had suc­ceed­ed at last, af­ter a long hour of strug­gle, in feel­ing his feet, af­ter all, on a firm coral bot­tom.

At the very mo­ment he did so, and touched the ground un­der­neath, an­oth­er great wave, curl­ing re­sist­less­ly be­hind him, caught him up on its crest, whirled him heav­en­ward like a cork, and then dashed him down once more, a pas­sive bur­den, on some soft and yield­ing sub­stance, which he con­jec­tured at once to be a beach of fine­ly pow­dered coral frag­ments. As he touched this beach for an in­stant, the un­der­tow of that vast dash­ing break­er sucked him back with its ebb again, a help­less, breath­less crea­ture; and then the suc­ceed­ing wave rolled him over like a ball, up­on the beach as be­fore, in quick suc­ces­sion. Four times the back-​cur­rent sucked him un­der with its wild pull in the self-​same way, and four times the re­turn wave flung him up up­on the beach again like a frag­ment of sea-​weed. With fran­tic ef­forts Fe­lix tried at first to cling still to Muriel--to save her from the ir­re­sistible force of that roar­ing surf--to snatch her from the open jaws of death by sheer strug­gling dint of thews and mus­cle. He might as well have tried to stem Ni­agara. The great waves, curl­ing ir­re­sistibly in huge curves land­ward, caught ei­ther of them up by turns on their arched sum­mits, and twist­ed them about re­morse­less­ly, rais­ing them now aloft on their foam­ing crest, beat­ing them back now prone in their hol­low trough, and fling­ing them fierce­ly at last with piti­less en­er­gy against the soft beach of coral. If the beach had been hard, they must in­fal­li­bly have been ground to pow­der or beat­en to jel­ly by the colos­sal force of those gi­gan­tic blows. For­tu­nate­ly it was yield­ing, smooth, and clay-​like, and re­ceived them al­most as a lay­er of moist plas­ter of Paris might have done, or they would have stood no chance at all for their lives in that des­per­ate bat­tle with the blind and fran­tic forces of un­re­lent­ing na­ture.

No man who has not him­self seen the surf break on one of these far-​south­ern coral shores can form any idea in his own mind of the ter­ror and hor­ror of the sit­ua­tion. The wa­ter, as it reach­es the beach, rears it­self aloft for a sec­ond in­to a huge up­right wall, which, ad­vanc­ing slow­ly, curls over at last in a hol­low cir­cle, and pounds down up­on the sand or reef with all the crush­ing force of some enor­mous sledge-​ham­mer. But af­ter the fourth as­sault, Fe­lix felt him­self flung up high and dry by the wave, as one may some­times see a bit of light reed or pith flung up some dis­tance ahead by an ad­vanc­ing tide on the beach in Eng­land. In an in­stant he stead­ied him­self and stag­gered to his feet. Torn and bruised as he was by the pum­melling of the bil­lows, he looked ea­ger­ly in­to the wa­ter in search of his com­pan­ion. The next wave flung up Muriel, as the last had flung him­self. He bent over her with a pant­ing heart as she lay there, in­sen­si­ble, on the long white shore. Alive or dead? that was now the ques­tion.

Rais­ing her hasti­ly in his arms, with her clothes all cling­ing wet and close about her, Fe­lix car­ried her over the nar­row strip of tidal beach, above high-​wa­ter lev­el, and laid her gen­tly down on a soft green bank of short trop­ical herbage, close to the edge of the coral. Then he bent over her once more, and lis­tened ea­ger­ly at her heart. It still beat with faint puls­es--beat--beat--beat. Fe­lix throbbed with joy. She was alive! alive! He was not quite alone, then, on that un­known is­land!

And strange as it seemed, it was on­ly a lit­tle more than two short hours since they had stood and looked out across the open sea over the bul­warks of the Aus­tralasian to­geth­er!

But Fe­lix had no time to mor­al­ize just then. The mo­ment was clear­ly one for ac­tion. For­tu­nate­ly, he hap­pened to car­ry three use­ful things in his pock­et when he jumped over­board af­ter Muriel. The first was a pock­et-​knife; the sec­ond was a flask with a lit­tle whiskey in it; and the third, per­haps the most im­por­tant of all, a small met­al box of wax ves­ta match­es. Pour­ing a lit­tle whiskey in­to the cup of the flask, he held it ea­ger­ly to Muriel's lips. The faint­ing girl swal­lowed it au­to­mat­ical­ly. Then Fe­lix, stoop­ing down, tried the match­es against the box. They were un­for­tu­nate­ly wet, but half an hour's ex­po­sure, he knew, on sun-​warmed stones, in that hot, trop­ical air, would soon re­store them again. So he opened the box and laid them care­ful­ly out on a flat white slab of coral. Af­ter that, he had time to con­sid­er ex­act­ly where they were, and what their chances in life, if any, might now amount to.

Pitch dark as it was, he had no dif­fi­cul­ty in de­cid­ing at once by the gen­er­al look of things that they had reached a fring­ing reef, such as he was al­ready fa­mil­iar with in the Mar­que­sas and else­where. The reef was no doubt cir­cu­lar, and it en­closed with­in it­self a sec­ond or cen­tral is­land, di­vid­ed from it by a shal­low la­goon of calm, still wa­ter. He walked some yards in­land. From where he now stood, on the sum­mit of the ridge, he could look ei­ther way, and by the faint re­flect­ed light of the stars, or the glare of the great pyre that burned on the cen­tral is­land, he could see down on one side to the ocean, with its fierce white pound­ing surf, and on the oth­er to the la­goon, re­flect­ing the stars over­head, and mo­tion­less as a mill-​pond. Be­tween them lay the low raised ridge of coral, cov­ered with tall stems of co­coanut palms, and in­ter­spersed here and there, as far as his eye could judge, with lit­tle rect­an­gu­lar clumps of plan­tain and taro.

But what alarmed Fe­lix most was the fire that blazed so bright­ly to heav­en on the cen­tral is­land; for he knew too well that meant--there were _men_ on the place; the land was in­hab­it­ed.

The co­coanuts and taro told the same doubt­ful tale. From the way they grew, even in that dim starlight, Fe­lix rec­og­nized at once they had all been plant­ed.

Still, he didn't hes­itate to do what he thought best for Muriel's re­lief for all that. Col­lect­ing a few sticks and frag­ments of palm-​branch­es from the jun­gle about, he piled them in­to a heap, and wait­ed pa­tient­ly for his match­es to dry. As soon as they were ready--and the warmth of the stone made them quick­ly in­flammable--he struck a match on the box, and pro­ceed­ed to light his fire by Muriel's side. As her clothes grew warmer, the poor girl opened her eyes at last, and, gaz­ing around her, ex­claimed, in blank ter­ror, “Oh, Mr. Thurstan, where are we? What does all this mean? Where have we got to? On a desert is­land?”

“No, _not_ on a desert is­land,” Fe­lix an­swered, short­ly; “I'm afraid it's a great deal worse than that. To tell you the truth, I'm afraid it's in­hab­it­ed.”

At that mo­ment, by the hot em­bers of the great sac­ri­fi­cial pyre on the cen­tral hill, two of the sav­age tem­ple-​at­ten­dants, call­ing their god's at­ten­tion to a sud­den blaze of flame up­on the fring­ing reef, point­ed with their dark fore­fin­gers and called out in sur­prise, “See, see, a fire on the bar­ri­er! A fire! A fire! What can it mean? There are no men of our peo­ple over there to-​night. Have war-​ca­noes ar­rived? Has some en­emy land­ed?”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la leaned back, drained his co­coanut cup of in­tox­icat­ing ka­va, and sur­veyed the un­wont­ed ap­pari­tion on the reef long and care­ful­ly. “It is noth­ing,” he said at last, in his most de­lib­er­ate man­ner, stroking his cheeks and chin con­tent­ed­ly with that plump round hand of his. “It is on­ly the vic­tims; the new vic­tims I promised you. Ko­rong! Ko­rong! They have come ashore with their light from my home in the sun. They have brought fire afresh--holy fire to Boupari.”

Three or four of the sav­ages leaped up in fierce joy, and bowed be­fore him as he spoke, with ea­ger faces. “Oh, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la!” the el­dest among them said, mak­ing a pro­found rev­er­ence, “shall we swim across to the reef and fetch them home to your house? Shall we take over our ca­noes and bring back your vic­tims!”

The god mo­tioned them back with one out­stretched palm. His eyes were flushed and his look lazy. “Not to-​night, my peo­ple,” he said; read­just­ing the gar­land of flow­ers round his neck, and giv­ing a care­less glance at the well-​picked bones that a few hours be­fore had been two trem­bling fel­low crea­tures. “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la has feast­ed his fill for this evening. Your god is full; his heart is hap­py. I have eat­en hu­man flesh; I have drunk of the juice of the ka­va. Am I not a great de­ity? Can I not do as I will? I frown, and the heav­ens thun­der; I gnash my teeth, and the earth trem­bles. What is it to me if fresh vic­tims come, or if they come not? Can I not make with a nod as many as I will of them?” He took up two fresh fin­ger-​bones, clean gnawed of their flesh, and knocked them to­geth­er in a wild tune, care­less­ly. “If Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la choos­es,” he went on, tap­ping his chest with con­scious pride, “he can knock these bones to­geth­er--so--and bid them live again. Is it not I who cause wom­en and beasts to bring forth their young? Is it not I who give the tur­tles their in­crease? And is it not a small thing to me, there­fore, whether the sea toss­es up my vic­tims from my home in the sun, or whether it does not? Let us leave them alone on the reef for to-​night; to-​mor­row we will send over our ca­noes to fetch them.”

It was all pure brag, all pure guess­work; and yet, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la him­self pro­found­ly be­lieved it.

As he spoke, the light from Fe­lix's fire blazed out against the dark sky, stronger and clear­er still; and through that cloud­less trop­ical air the fig­ure of a man, stand­ing for one mo­ment be­tween the flames and the la­goon, be­came dis­tinct­ly vis­ible to the keen and prac­tised eyes of the sav­ages. “I see them? I see them; I see the vic­tims!” the fore­most wor­ship­per ex­claimed, rush­ing for­ward a lit­tle at the sight, and be­side him­self with su­per­sti­tious awe and sur­prise at Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's pres­ence. “Sure­ly our god is great! He knows all things! He brings us meat from the set­ting sun, in ships of fire, in blaz­ing ca­noes, across the gold­en road of the sun-​bathed ocean!”

As for Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la him­self, lean­ing on his el­bow at ease, he gazed across at the un­ex­pect­ed sight with very lan­guid in­ter­est. He was a god, and he liked to see things con­duct­ed with prop­er deco­rum. This crow­ing and cry­ing over a cou­ple of spir­its--mere or­di­nary spir­its come ashore from the sun in a fiery boat--struck his god­ship as lit­tle short of child­ish. “Let them be,” he an­swered, petu­lant­ly, crush­ing a blos­som in his hand. “Let no man dis­turb them. They shall rest where they are till to-​mor­row morn­ing. We have eat­en; we have drunk; our soul is hap­py. The ka­va with­in us has made us like a god in­deed. I shall give my min­is­ters charge that no harm hap­pen to them.”

He drew a whis­tle from his side and whis­tled once. There was a mo­ment's pause. Then Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la spoke in a loud voice again. “The King of Fire!” he ex­claimed, in tones of prince­ly au­thor­ity.

From with­in the hut there came forth slow­ly a sec­ond stal­wart sav­age, big built and burly as the great god him­self, clad in a long robe or cloak of yel­low feath­ers, which shone bright with a strange metal­lic gleam in the rud­dy light of the huge pile of li-​wood.

“The King of Fire is here, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la,” the less­er god made an­swer, bend­ing his head slight­ly.

“Fire,” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la said, like a monarch giv­ing or­ders to his at­ten­dant min­is­ter, “if any man touch the new­com­ers on the reef be­fore I cause my sun to rise to-​mor­row morn­ing, scorch up his flesh with your flame, and con­sume his bones to ash and cin­der. If any wom­an go near them be­fore Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la bids, let her be rolled in palm-​leaves, and smeared with oil, and light her up for a torch on a dark night to light­en our tem­ple.”

The King of Fire bent his head in as­sent. “It is as Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la wills,” he an­swered, sub­mis­sive­ly.

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la whis­tled again, this time twice. “The King of Wa­ter!” he ex­claimed, in the same loud tone of com­mand as be­fore.

At the words, a man of about forty, tall and sinewy, clad in a short cape of white al­ba­tross feath­ers, and with a gir­dle of nau­tilus shells in­ter­spersed with red coral tied around his waist, came forth to the sum­mons.

“The King of Wa­ter is here,” he said, bend­ing his head, but not his knee, be­fore the greater de­ity.

“Wa­ter,” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la said, with half-​tip­sy solem­ni­ty, “you are a god too. Your pow­er is very great. But less than mine. Do, then, as I bid you. If any man touch my spir­its, whom I have brought from my home in the sun in a fiery ship, be­fore I bid him to-​mor­row, over­turn his ca­noe, and drown him in la­goon or spring or ocean. If any wom­an go near them with­out Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's leave, bind her hand and foot with ropes of por­poise hide, and cast her out in­to the surf, and dash her with your waves, and pum­mel her to pieces.”

The King of Wa­ter bent his head a sec­ond time. “I am a great god,” he an­swered, “be­fore all oth­ers save you: but for you, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, I haste to do your bid­ding. If any man dis­obey you, my bil­lows shall rise and over­whelm him in the sea. I am a great god. I claim each year many drowned vic­tims.”

“But not so many as me,” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la in­ter­posed, his hand play­ing on his knife with a faint air of im­pa­tience.

“But not so many as you,” the mi­nor god added, in haste, as if to ap­pease his ris­ing anger. “Fire and Wa­ter ev­er speed to do your bid­ding.”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la stood up, turned to­ward the dis­tant flame, and waved his hands round and round three times be­fore him. “Let this be for you all a great taboo,” he said, glanc­ing once more to­ward his awe-​struck fol­low­ers. “Now the mys­ter­ies are over. Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la will sleep. He has eat­en of hu­man flesh. He has drunk of co­coanut rum and of new ka­va. He has brought back his sun on its way in the heav­ens. He has sent it mes­sen­gers of fire to re­in­force its strength. He has fetched from it mes­sen­gers in turn with fresh fire to Boupari, fire not light­ed from any earth­ly flame; fire new, di­vine, scorch­ing, un­speak­able. To-​mor­row we will talk with the spir­its he has brought. To-​night we will sleep. Now all go to your homes; and tell your wom­en of this great taboo, lest they speak to the spir­its, and fall in­to the hands of Fire or of Wa­ter.”

The sav­ages dropped on their faces be­fore the eye of their god and lay quite still. They made a path as it were from the pyre to the tem­ple door with their pros­trate bod­ies. Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, walk­ing with un­steady steps over their half-​naked forms, turned to his hut in a drunk­en booze. He walked over them with no more com­punc­tion or feel­ing than over so many logs. Why should he not, in­deed? For he was a god, and they were his meat, his ser­vants, his wor­ship­pers.