The Great Taboo

CHAPTER IV.

THE GUESTS OF HEAV­EN.

All that night through--their first lone­ly night on the is­land of Boupari--Fe­lix sat up by his flick­er­ing fire, wide awake, half ex­pect­ing and dread­ing some treach­er­ous at­tack of the un­known sav­ages. From time to time he kept adding dry fu­el to his smoul­der­ing pile; and he nev­er ceased to keep a keen eye both on the la­goon and the reef, in case an as­sault should be made up­on them sud­den­ly by land or wa­ter. He knew the South Seas quite well enough al­ready to have all the pos­si­bil­ities of mis­for­tune float­ing vivid­ly be­fore his eyes. He re­al­ized at once from his own pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ence the full lone­li­ness and ter­ror of their un­armed con­di­tion.

For Boupari was one of those rare re­mote islets where the very ru­mor of our Eu­ro­pean civ­iliza­tion has hard­ly yet pen­etrat­ed.

As for Muriel, though she was alarmed enough, of course, and in­tense­ly shak­en by the sud­den shock she had re­ceived, the whole sur­round­ings were too whol­ly un­like any world she had ev­er yet known to en­able her to take in at once the ut­ter hor­ror of the sit­ua­tion. She on­ly knew they were alone, wet, bruised, and ter­ri­bly bat­tered; and the Aus­tralasian had gone on, leav­ing them there to their fate on an un­known is­land. That, for the mo­ment, was more than enough for her of ac­cu­mu­lat­ed mis­for­tune. She come to her­self but slow­ly, and as her torn clothes dried by de­grees be­fore the fire and the heat of the trop­ical night, she was so far from ful­ly re­al­iz­ing the dan­gers of their po­si­tion that her first and prin­ci­pal fear for the mo­ment was lest she might take cold from her wet things dry­ing up­on her. She ate a lit­tle of the plan­tain that Fe­lix picked for her; and at times, to­ward morn­ing, she dozed off in­to an un­easy sleep, from pure fa­tigue and ex­cess of weari­ness. As she slept, Fe­lix, bend­ing over her, with the biggest blade of his knife open in case of at­tack, watched with pro­found emo­tion the rise and fall of her bo­som, and hes­itat­ed with him­self, if the worst should come to the worst, as to what he ought to do with her.

It would be im­pos­si­ble to let a pure young En­glish girl like that fall help­less­ly in­to the hands of such blood­thirsty wretch­es as he knew the is­landers were al­most cer­tain to be. Who could tell what name­less in­dig­ni­ties, what in­cred­ible tor­tures they might wan­ton­ly in­flict up­on her in­no­cent soul? Was it right of him to have let her come ashore at all? Ought he not rather to have al­lowed the more mer­ci­ful sea to take her life eas­ily, with­out the chance or pos­si­bil­ity of such ad­di­tion­al hor­rors?

And now--as she slept--so calm and pure and maid­en­ly--what was his du­ty that minute, just there to her? He felt the blade of his knife with his fin­ger cau­tious­ly, and al­most doubt­ed. If on­ly she could tell what things might be in store for her, would she not, her­self, pre­fer death, an hon­or­able death, at the friend­ly hands of a ten­der­heart­ed fel­low-​coun­try­man, to the un­speak­able in­sults of these man-​eat­ing Poly­ne­sians? If on­ly he had the courage to re­lease her by one blow, as she lay there, from the com­ing ill! But he hadn't; he hadn't. Even on board the Aus­tralasian he had been vague­ly aware that he was get­ting very fond of that pret­ty lit­tle Miss El­lis. And now that he sat there, af­ter that des­per­ate strug­gle for life with the pound­ing waves, mount­ing guard over her through the live­long night, his own heart told him plain­ly, in tones he could not dis­obey, he loved her too well to dare what he thought best in the end for her.

Still, even so, he was brave enough to feel he must nev­er let the very worst of all be­fall her. He bethought him, in his doubt and agony, of how his un­cle, Ma­jor Thurstan, dur­ing the great In­di­an mutiny, had held his lone­ly bun­ga­low, with his wife and daugh­ter by his side, for three long hours against a howl­ing mob of na­tive in­sur­gents; and how, when fur­ther re­sis­tance was hope­less, and that great black wave of an­gry hu­man­ity burst in up­on them at last, the brave sol­dier had drawn his re­volver, shot his wife and daugh­ter with unerring aim, to pre­vent their falling alive in­to the hands of the na­tives, and then blown his own brains out with his last re­main­ing car­tridge. As his un­cle had done at Jhan­si, thir­ty years be­fore, so he him­self would do on that name­less Pa­cif­ic is­land--for he didn't know even now on what shore he had land­ed. If the sav­ages bore down up­on them with hos­tile in­tent, and threat­ened Muriel, he would plunge his knife first in­to that in­no­cent wom­an's heart; and then bury it deep in his own, and die be­side her.

So the long night wore on--Muriel pil­lowed on loose co­coanut husk, doz­ing now and again, and wak­ing with a start to gaze round about her wild­ly, and re­al­ize once more in what plight she found her­self; Fe­lix crouch­ing by her feet, and keep­ing watch with ea­ger eyes and ears on ev­ery side for the least sign of a noise­less, naked foot­fall through the tan­gled growth of that dense trop­ical un­der-​bush. Time af­ter time he clapped his hand to his ear, shell-​wise, and lis­tened and peered, with knit­ted brow, sus­pect­ing some sud­den swoop from an am­bush in the jun­gle of creep­ers be­hind the lit­tle plan­tain patch. Time af­ter time he grasped his knife hard, and puck­ered his eye­brows res­olute­ly, and stood still with bat­ed breath for a fierce, wild leap up­on his fan­cied as­sailant. But the night wore away by de­grees, a minute at a time, and no man came; and dawn be­gan to bright­en the sea-​line to east­ward.

As the day dawned, Fe­lix could see more clear­ly ex­act­ly where he was, and in what sur­round­ings. With­out, the ocean broke in huge curl­ing bil­lows on the shal­low beach of the fring­ing reef with such stu­pen­dous force that Fe­lix won­dered how they could ev­er have lived through its pound­ing surf and its fierce­ly re­treat­ing un­der­tow. With­in, the la­goon spread its calm lake-​like sur­face away to the white coral shore of the cen­tral atoll. Be­tween these two wa­ters, the greater and the less, a wav­ing pal­isade of tall-​stemmed palm-​trees rose on a nar­row rib­bon of cir­cu­lar land that formed the fring­ing reef. All night through he had felt, with a strange eerie mis­giv­ing, the very foun­da­tions of the land thrill un­der his feet at ev­ery dull thud or boom of the surf on its re­strain­ing bar­ri­er. Now that he could see that thin belt of shore in its ac­tu­al shape and size, he was not as­ton­ished at this con­stant shock; what sur­prised him rather was the fact that such a speck of land could hold its own at all against the cease­less can­non­ade of that seem­ing­ly ir­re­sistible ocean.

He stood up, hat­less, in his bat­tered tweed suit, and sur­veyed the scene of their present and fu­ture ad­ven­tures. It took but a glance to show him that the whole ground-​plan of the is­land was en­tire­ly cir­cu­lar. In the midst of all rose the cen­tral atoll it­self, a tiny moun­tain-​peak, just pro­ject­ing with its hills and gorges to a few hun­dred feet above the sur­face of the ocean. Out­side it came the la­goon, with its placid ring of glassy wa­ter sur­round­ing the cir­cu­lar is­land, and sep­arat­ed from the sea by an equal­ly cir­cu­lar belt of fring­ing reef, cov­ered thick with wav­ing stems of pic­turesque co­coanut. It was on the reef they had land­ed, and from it they now looked across the calm la­goon with doubt­ful eyes to­ward the cen­tral is­land.

As soon as the sun rose, their doubts were quick­ly re­solved in­to fears or cer­tain­ties. Scarce­ly had its rim be­gun to show it­self dis­tinct­ly above the east­ern hori­zon, when a great bus­tle and con­fu­sion was no­tice­able at once on the op­po­site shore. Brown-​skinned sav­ages were col­lect­ing in ea­ger groups by a white patch of beach, and putting out rude but well-​manned ca­noes in­to the calm wa­ters of the la­goon. At sight of their naked arms and bustling ges­tures, Muriel's heart sank sud­den­ly with­in her. “Oh, Mr. Thurstan,” she cried, cling­ing to his arm in her ter­ror, “what does it all mean? Are they go­ing to hurt us? Are these sav­ages com­ing over? Are they com­ing to kill us?”

Fe­lix grasped his trusty knife hard in his right hand, and swal­lowed a groan, as he looked ten­der­ly down up­on her. “Muriel,” he said, for­get­ting in the ex­cite­ment of the mo­ment the lit­tle con­ven­tion­al­ities and cour­te­sies of civ­ilized life, “if they are, trust me, you nev­er shall fall alive in­to their cru­el hands. Soon­er than that--” he held up the knife sig­nif­icant­ly, with its open blade be­fore her.

The poor girl clung to him hard­er still, with a ghast­ly shud­der. “Oh, it's ter­ri­ble, ter­ri­ble,” she cried, turn­ing dead­ly pale. Then, af­ter a short pause, she added, “But I would rather have it so. Do as you say. I could bear it from you. Promise me _that_, rather than that those crea­tures should kill me.”

“I promise,” Fe­lix an­swered, clasp­ing her hand hard, and paused, with the knife ev­er ready in his right, await­ing the ap­proach of the half-​naked sav­ages.

The boats glid­ed fast across the la­goon, pro­pelled by the pad­dles of the stal­wart Poly­ne­sians who manned them, and crowd­ed to the wa­ter's edge with groups of grin­ning and shout­ing war­riors. They were dressed in aprons of dra­cae­na leaves on­ly, with neck­lets and arm­lets of sharks' teeth and cowrie shells. A dozen ca­noes at least were mak­ing to­ward the reef at full speed, all bristling with spears and alive with noisy and bois­ter­ous sav­ages. Muriel shrank back ter­ror-​strick­en at the sight, as they drew near­er and near­er. But Fe­lix, hold­ing his breath hard, grew some­what less ner­vous as the men ap­proached the reef. He had seen enough of Poly­ne­sian life be­fore now to feel sure these peo­ple were not up­on the war-​path. What­ev­er their ul­ti­mate in­ten­tions to­ward the cast­aways might be, their im­me­di­ate ob­ject seemed friend­ly and good-​hu­mored. The boats, though large, were not reg­ular war-​ca­noes; the men, in­stead of bran­dish­ing their spears, and lung­ing out with them over the edge in threat­en­ing at­ti­tudes, held them erect in their hands at rest, like stan­dards; they were laugh­ing and talk­ing, not cry­ing their war-​cry. As they drew near the shore, one big ca­noe shot sud­den­ly a length or so ahead of the rest; and its lead­er, stand­ing on the grotesque carved fig­ure that adorned its prow, held up both his hands open and emp­ty be­fore him, in sign of peace, while at the same time he shout­ed out a word or two three times in his own lan­guage, to re­as­sure the cast­aways.

Fe­lix's eye glanced cau­tious­ly from boat to boat. “He says, 'We are friends,'” the young man re­marked in an un­der­tone to his ter­ri­fied com­pan­ion. “I can un­der­stand his di­alect. Thank Heav­en, it's very close to Fi­jian. I shall be able at least to palaver to these men. I don't think they mean just now to harm us. I be­lieve we can trust them, at any rate for the present.”

The poor girl drew back, in still greater awe and alarm than ev­er. “Oh, are they go­ing to land here?” she cried, still cling­ing clos­er with both hands to her one friend and pro­tec­tor.

“Try not to look so fright­ened!” Fe­lix ex­claimed, with a warn­ing glance. “Re­mem­ber, much de­pends up­on it; sav­ages judge you great­ly by what de­meanor you hap­pen to as­sume. If you're fright­ened, they know their pow­er; if they see you're res­olute, they sus­pect you have some su­per­nat­ural means of pro­tec­tion. Try to meet them frankly, as if you were not afraid of them.” Then, ad­vanc­ing slow­ly to the wa­ter's edge, he called out aloud, in a strong, clear voice, a few words which Muriel didn't un­der­stand, but which were re­al­ly the Fi­jian for “We al­so are friend­ly. Our medicine is good. We mean no mag­ic. We come to you from across the great wa­ter. We de­sire your peace. Re­ceive us and pro­tect us!”

At the sound of words which he could read­ily un­der­stand, and which dif­fered but lit­tle, in­deed, from his own lan­guage, the lead­er on the fore­most ca­noe, who seemed by his man­ner to be a great chief, turned round to his fol­low­ers and cried out in tones of su­per­sti­tious awe, “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la spoke well. These are, in­deed, what he told us. Ko­rong! Ko­rong! They are spir­its who have come to us from the disk of the sun, to bring us light and pure, fresh fire. Stay back there, all of you. You are not holy enough to ap­proach. I and my crew, who are sanc­ti­fied by the mys­ter­ies, we alone will go for­ward to meet them.”

As he spoke, a sud­den idea, sug­gest­ed by his words, struck Fe­lix's mind. Su­per­sti­tion is the great lever by which to move the sav­age in­tel­li­gence. Gath­er­ing up a few dry leaves and frag­ments of stick on the shore, he laid them to­geth­er in a pile, and await­ed in si­lence the ar­rival of the fore­most is­landers. The first ca­noe ad­vanced slow­ly and cau­tious­ly, the men in it ey­ing these pro­ceed­ings with ev­ident sus­pi­cion; the rest hung back, with their spears in ar­ray, and their hands just ready to use them with ef­fect should oc­ca­sion de­mand it.

The lead­er of the first ca­noe, com­ing close to the shore, jumped out up­on the reef in shal­low wa­ter. Half a dozen of his fol­low­ers jumped af­ter him with­out hes­ita­tion, and bran­dished their weapons round their heads as they ad­vanced, in sav­age uni­son. But Fe­lix, pre­tend­ing hard­ly to no­tice these hos­tile demon­stra­tions, stepped bold­ly up to­ward his lit­tle pile with great de­lib­er­ation, though trem­bling in­ward­ly, and pro­ceed­ed be­fore their eyes to take a match from his box, which he dis­played os­ten­ta­tious­ly, all glit­ter­ing in the sun, to the fore­most sav­age. The lead­er stood by and watched him close with eyes of silent won­der. Then Fe­lix, kneel­ing down, struck the match on the box, and ap­plied it, as it light­ed, to the dry leaves be­side him.

A cho­rus of as­ton­ish­ment burst unan­imous­ly from the de­light­ed na­tives as the dry leaves leaped all at once in­to a tongue of flame, and the lit­tle pile caught quick­ly from the fire in the ves­ta.

The lead­er looked hard at the two white faces, and then at the fire on the beach, with ev­ident ap­pro­ba­tion. “It is as Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la said,” he ex­claimed at last with pro­found awe. “They are spir­its from the sun, and they car­ry with them pure fire in shin­ing box­es.”

Then, ad­vanc­ing a pace and point­ing to­ward the ca­noe, he mo­tioned Fe­lix and Muriel to take their seats with­in it with na­tive sav­age po­lite­ness. “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la has sent for you,” he said, in his grand­est aris­to­crat­ic air, “for your chief is a gen­tle­man. He wish­es to re­ceive you. He saw your mes­sage-​fire on the reef last night, and he knew you had come. He has made you a very great Taboo. He has put you un­der pro­tec­tion of Fire and Wa­ter.”

The peo­ple in the boats, with one ac­cord, shout­ed out in wild cho­rus, as if to con­firm his words, “Taboo! Taboo! Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la has said it! Taboo! Taboo! Ware Fire! Ware Wa­ter!”

Though the di­alect in which they spoke dif­fered some­what from that in use in Fi­ji, Fe­lix could still make out with care al­most ev­ery word of what the chief had said to him; and the uni­ver­sal Poly­ne­sian ex­pres­sion, “Taboo,” in par­tic­ular, some­what re­as­sured him as to their friend­ly in­ten­tions. Among re­mote hea­then is­landers like these, he felt sure, the very word it­self was far too sa­cred to be tak­en in vain. They would re­spect its in­vi­ola­bil­ity. He turned round to Muriel. “We must go with them,” he said, short­ly. “It's our one chance left of life now. Don't be too ter­ri­fied; there is still some hope. They say some­body they call Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la has tabooed us. No one will dare to hurt us against so great a Taboo; for Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la is ev­ident­ly some very im­por­tant king or chief. You must step in­to the boat. It can't be avoid­ed. If any harm is threat­ened, be sure I won't for­get my promise.”

Muriel shrank back in alarm, and clung still to his arm now as nat­ural­ly as she would have clung to a broth­er's. “Oh, Mr. Thurstan,” she cried--“Fe­lix, I don't know what to say; I _can't_ go with them.”

Fe­lix put his arm gen­tly round her girl­ish waist, and half lift­ed her in­to the boat in spite of her re­luc­tance. “You must,” he said, with great firm­ness. “You must do as I say. I will watch over you, and take care of you. If the worst comes, I have al­ways my knife, and I won't for­get. Now, friend,” he went on, in Fi­jian, turn­ing round to the chief, as he took his seat in the ca­noe fear­less­ly among all those dusky, half-​clad fig­ures, “we are ready to start. We do not fear. We wish to go. Take us to Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la.”

And all the sav­ages around, shout­ing in their sur­prise and awe, ex­claimed once more in con­cert, “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la is great. We will take them, as he bids us, forth­with to heav­en.”

“What do they say?” Muriel cried, cling­ing close to the white man's side in her speech­less ter­ror. “Do you un­der­stand their lan­guage?”

“Well, I can't quite make it out,” Fe­lix an­swered, much puz­zled; “that is to say, not ev­ery word of it. They say they'll take us some­where, I don't quite know where; but in Fi­jian, the word would cer­tain­ly mean to heav­en.”

Muriel shud­dered vis­ibly. “You don't think,” she said, with a tremu­lous tongue, “they mean to kill us?”

“No, I don't _think_ so,” Fe­lix replied, not over-​con­fi­dent­ly. “They said we were Taboo. But with sav­ages like these, of course, one can nev­er in any case be quite cer­tain.”