The Great Taboo

CHAPTER V.

EN­ROLLED IN OLYM­PUS.

They rowed across the la­goon, a mys­te­ri­ous pro­ces­sion, al­most in si­lence--the ca­noe with the two Eu­ro­peans go­ing first, the oth­ers fol­low­ing at a slight dis­tance--and land­ed at last on the brink of the cen­tral is­land.

Sev­er­al of the Boupari peo­ple leaped ashore at once; then they helped Fe­lix and Muriel from the frail bark with al­most def­er­en­tial care, and led the way be­fore them up a steep white path, that zigzagged through the for­est to­ward the cen­tre of the is­land. As they went, a band of na­tives pre­ced­ed them in reg­ular line of march, shout­ing “Taboo, taboo!” at short in­ter­vals, es­pe­cial­ly as they neared any group of fan-​palm cot­tages. The wom­en whom they met fell on their knees at once, till the strange pro­ces­sion had passed them by; the men on­ly bowed their heads thrice, and made a rapid move­ment on their breasts with their fin­gers, which re­mind­ed Muriel at once of the sign of the cross in Catholic coun­tries.

So on they wend­ed their way in si­lence through the deep trop­ical jun­gle, along a path­way just wide enough for three to walk abreast, till they emerged sud­den­ly up­on a large cleared space, in whose midst grew a great banyan-​tree, with arms that dropped and root­ed them­selves like but­tress­es in the soil be­neath. Un­der the banyan-​tree a raised plat­form stood up­on posts of bam­boo. The plat­form was cov­ered with fine net­work in yel­low and red; and two lit­tle stools oc­cu­pied the mid­dle, as if placed there on pur­pose and wait­ing for their oc­cu­pants.

The man who had head­ed the first ca­noe turned round to Fe­lix and mo­tioned him for­ward. “This is Heav­en,” he said glibly, in his own tongue. “Spir­its, as­cend it!”

Fe­lix, much won­der­ing what the cer­emo­ny could mean, mount­ed the plat­form with­out a word, in obe­di­ence to the chief's com­mand, close­ly fol­lowed by Muriel, who dared not leave him for a sec­ond.

“Bring wa­ter!” the chief said, short­ly, in a voice of au­thor­ity to one of his fol­low­ers.

The man hand­ed up a cal­abash with a lit­tle wa­ter in it. The chief took the rude ves­sel from his hands in a rev­er­en­tial man­ner, and poured a few drops of the con­tents on Fe­lix's head; the wa­ter trick­led down over his hair and fore­head. In­vol­un­tar­ily, Fe­lix shook his head a lit­tle at the un­ex­pect­ed wet­ting, and scat­tered the drops right and left on his neck and shoul­ders. The chief watched this per­for­mance at­ten­tive­ly with pro­found sat­is­fac­tion. Then he turned to his at­ten­dants.

“The spir­it shakes his head,” he said, with a deeply con­vinced air. “All is well. Heav­en has cho­sen him. Ko­rong! Ko­rong! He is ac­cept­ed for his pur­pose. It is well! It is well! Let us try the oth­er one.”

He raised the cal­abash once more, and poured a few drops in like man­ner on Muriel's dark hair. The poor girl, trem­bling in ev­ery limb, shook her head al­so in the same un­in­ten­tion­al fash­ion. The chief re­gard­ed her with still more com­pla­cent eyes.

“It is well,” he ob­served once more to his com­pan­ions, smil­ing. “She, too, gives the sign of ac­cep­tance. Ko­rong! Ko­rong! Heav­en is well pleased with both. See how her body trem­bles!”

At that mo­ment a girl came for­ward with a lit­tle bas­ket of fruits. The chief chose a ba­nana with care from the bas­ket, peeled it with his dusky hands, broke it slow­ly in two, and hand­ed one half very solemn­ly to Fe­lix.

“Eat, King of the Rain,” he said, as he pre­sent­ed it. “The of­fer­ing of Heav­en.”

Fe­lix ate it at once, think­ing it best un­der the cir­cum­stances not to de­mur at all to any­thing his strange hosts might choose to im­pose up­on him.

The chief hand­ed the oth­er half just as solemn­ly to Muriel. “Eat, Queen of the Clouds,” he said, as he placed it in her fin­gers. “The of­fer­ing of Heav­en.”

Muriel hes­itat­ed. She didn't know what his words meant, and it seemed to her rather the of­fer­ing of a very dirty and un­washed sav­age. The chief eyed her hard. “For God's sake eat it, my child; he tells you to eat it!” Fe­lix ex­claimed in haste. Muriel lift­ed it to her lips and swal­lowed it down with dif­fi­cul­ty. The man's dusky hands didn't in­spire con­fi­dence.

But the chief seemed re­lieved when he had seen her swal­low it. “All is well done,” he said, turn­ing again to his fol­low­ers. “We have obeyed the words of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, and his or­ders that he gave us. We have of­fered the strangers, the spir­its from the sun, as a free gift to Heav­en, and Heav­en has ac­cept­ed them. We have giv­en them fruits, the fruits of the earth, and they have du­ly eat­en them. Ko­rong! Ko­rong! The King of the Rain and the Queen of the Clouds have in­deed come among us. They are tru­ly gods. We will take them now, as he bid us, to Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la.”

“What have they done to us?” Muriel asked aside, in a ter­ri­fied un­der­tone of Fe­lix.

“I can't quite make out,” Fe­lix an­swered in the self­same voice. “They call us the King of the Rain and the Queen of the Clouds in their own lan­guage. I think they imag­ine we've come from the sun and that we're a sort of spir­its.”

At the sound of these words the girl who held the bas­ket of fruits gave a sud­den start. It al­most seemed to Muriel as if she un­der­stood them. But when Muriel looked again she gave no fur­ther sign. She mere­ly held her peace, and tried to ap­pear whol­ly undis­con­cert­ed.

The chief beck­oned them down from the plat­form with a wave of his hand. They rose and fol­lowed him. As they rose the peo­ple around them bowed low to the ground. Fe­lix could see they were bow­ing to Muriel and him­self, not mere­ly to the chief. A doubt flit­ted strange­ly across his mind for a mo­ment. What could it all mean? Did they take the two strangers, then, for su­per­nat­ural be­ings? Had they en­rolled them as gods? If so, it might serve as some lit­tle pro­tec­tion for them.

The pro­ces­sion formed again, three and three, three and three, in solemn si­lence. Then the chief walked in front of them with mea­sured steps, and Fe­lix and Muriel fol­lowed be­hind, won­der­ing. As they went, the cry rose loud­er and loud­er than be­fore, “Taboo! Taboo!” Peo­ple who met them fell on their faces at once, as the chief cried out in a loud tone, “The King of the Rain! The Queen of the Clouds! Ko­rong! Ko­rong! They are com­ing! They are com­ing!”

At last they reached a sec­ond cleared space, stand­ing in a large gar­den of manil­la, lo­quat, pon­cians, and hi­bis­cus-​trees. It was en­tered by a gate, a tall gate of bam­boo posts. At the gate all the fol­low­ers fell back to right and left, awe-​struck. On­ly the chief went calm­ly on. He beck­oned to Fe­lix and Muriel to fol­low him.

They en­tered, half ter­ri­fied. Fe­lix still grasped his open knife in his hand, ready to strike at any mo­ment that might be nec­es­sary. The chief led them for­ward to­ward a very large tree near the cen­tre of the gar­den. At the foot of the tree stood a hut, some­what big­ger and bet­ter built than any they had yet seen; and in front of the trunk a stal­wart sav­age, very pow­er­ful­ly built, but with a sin­is­ter look in his cru­el and lust­ful eye, was pac­ing up and down, like a sen­tinel on guard, a long spear in his right hand, and a tom­ahawk in his left, held close by his side, all ready for ac­tion. As he prowled up and down he seemed to be peer­ing war­ily about him on ev­ery side, as if each in­stant he ex­pect­ed to be set up­on by an en­emy. But as the chief ap­proached, the peo­ple with­out set up once more the cry of “Taboo! Taboo!” and the stal­wart sav­age by the tree, lay­ing down his spear and let­ting his tom­ahawk fall free, dropped in a sec­ond the air of watch­ful alarm, and ad­vanced with some cour­tesy to greet the new-​com­ers.

“We have found them, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la,” the chief said, pre­sent­ing them to the god with a grace­ful wave of his hand. “We have found the spir­its that you brought from the sun, with the fire in their hands, and the light in box­es. We have tak­en them to Heav­en. Heav­en has ac­cept­ed them. We have of­fered them fruit, and they have eat­en the ba­nana. The King of the Rain--the Queen of the Clouds! Ko­rong! Re­ceive them!”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la glanced at them with an ap­prov­ing glance, strange­ly com­pound­ed of plea­sure and ter­ror. “They are plump,” he said short­ly. “They are in­deed Ko­rong. My sun has sent me an ac­cept­able present.”

“What is your will that we should do with them?” the chief asked in a deeply def­er­en­tial tone.

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la looked hard at Muriel--such a hate­ful look that the knife trem­bled ir­res­olute for a sec­ond in Fe­lix's hand. “Give them two fresh huts,” he said, in a lord­ly way. “Give them di­vine plat­ters. Give them all that they need. Make ev­ery­thing right for them.”

The chief bowed, and re­tired with an awed air from the pres­ence. Ex­act­ly as he passed a cer­tain line on the ground, marked white with a row of coral-​sand, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la seized his spear and his tom­ahawk once more, and mount­ed guard, as be­fore, at the foot of the great tree where they had seen him pac­ing. An in­stan­ta­neous change seemed to Muriel to come over his de­meanor at that mo­ment. While he spoke with the chief she no­ticed he looked all cru­el­ty, lust, and hate­ful self-​in­dul­gence. Now that he paced up and down war­ily in front of that sa­cred floor, peer­ing around him with keen sus­pi­cion, he seemed rather the per­son­ifi­ca­tion of watch­ful­ness, fear, and a cer­tain slav­ish bod­ily ter­ror. Es­pe­cial­ly, she ob­served, he cast up­on Fe­lix, as he went, a glance of an­gry hate; and yet he did not at­tempt to hurt or mo­lest him in any way, de­fence­less as they both were be­fore those nu­mer­ous sav­ages.

As they emerged from the en­clo­sure, the girl with the fruit bas­ket stood near the gate, look­ing out­ward from the wall, her face turned away from the aw­ful home of Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la. At the mo­ment when Muriel passed, to her im­mense as­ton­ish­ment the girl spoke to her. “Don't be afraid, mis­sy,” she said in En­glish, in a rather low voice, with­out ob­tru­sive­ly ap­proach­ing them. “Boupari man not go­ing to hurt you. Me go­ing to be your ser­vant. Me name Mali. Me very good girl. Me take plen­ty care of you.”

The un­ex­pect­ed sound of her own lan­guage, in the midst of so much un­mit­igat­ed sav­agery, took Muriel fair­ly by sur­prise. She looked hard at the girl, but thought it wis­est to an­swer noth­ing. This par­tic­ular young wom­an, in­deed, was just as dark, and to all ap­pear­ance just as much of a sav­age, as any of the rest of them. But she could speak En­glish, at any rate! And she said she was to be Muriel's ser­vant!

The chief led them back to the shore, talk­ing vol­ubly all the way in Poly­ne­sia to Fe­lix. His di­alect dif­fered so much from the Fi­jian that when he spoke first Fe­lix could hard­ly fol­low him. But he gath­ered vague­ly, nev­er­the­less, that they were to be well housed and fed for the present at the pub­lic ex­pense; and even that some­thing which the chief clear­ly re­gard­ed as a very great hon­or was in store for them in the fu­ture. What­ev­er these peo­ple's par­tic­ular su­per­sti­tion might be, it seemed pret­ty ev­ident at least that it told in the strangers' fa­vor. Fe­lix al­most be­gan to hope they might man­age to live there pret­ty tol­er­ably for the next two or three weeks, and per­haps to sig­nal in time to some pass­ing Aus­tralian lin­er.

The rest of that won­der­ful event­ful day was whol­ly oc­cu­pied with prac­ti­cal de­tails. Be­fore long, two ad­ja­cent huts were found for them, near the shore of the la­goon; and Fe­lix no­ticed with plea­sure, not on­ly that the huts them­selves were new and clean, but al­so that the chief took great care to place round both of them a sin­gle cir­cu­lar line of white coral-​sand, like the one he had no­ticed at Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's palace-​tem­ple. He felt sure this white line made the space with­in taboo. No na­tive would dare with­out leave to cross it.

When the line was well marked out round the two huts to­geth­er, the chief went away for a while, leav­ing the Eu­ro­peans with­in their broad white cir­cle, guard­ed by an an­gry-​look­ing band of na­tives with long spears at rest, all point­ed in­ward. The na­tives them­selves stood well with­out the ring, but the points of their spears al­most reached the line, and it was clear they would not for the present per­mit the Eu­ro­peans to leave the charmed cir­cle.

Present­ly, the chief re­turned again, fol­lowed by two oth­er na­tives in of­fi­cial cos­tumes. One of them was a tall and hand­some young man, dressed in a long robe or cloak of yel­low feath­ers. The oth­er was stouter, and per­haps forty or there­abouts; he wore a short cape of white al­ba­tross plumes, with a gir­dle of shells at his waist, in­ter­spersed with red coral.

“The King of Fire will make Taboo,” the chief said, solemn­ly.

The young man with the cloak of yel­low feath­ers stepped for­ward and spoke, toe­ing the line with his left foot, and bran­dish­ing a light­ed stick in his right hand. “Taboo! Taboo! Taboo!” he cried aloud, with em­pha­sis. “If any man dare to transgress this line with­out leave, I burn him to ash­es. If any wom­an, I scorch her to a cin­der. Taboo to the King of the Rain and the Queen of the Clouds. Taboo! Taboo! Taboo! Ko­rong! I say it.”

He stepped back in­to the ranks with an air of du­ty per­formed. The chief looked about him cu­ri­ous­ly a mo­ment. “The King of Wa­ter will make Taboo,” he re­peat­ed af­ter a pause, in the same deep tone of pro­found con­vic­tion.

The stouter man in the short white cape stepped for­ward in his turn. He toed the line with his naked left foot; in his brown right hand he car­ried a cal­abash of wa­ter. “Taboo! Taboo! Taboo!” he ex­claimed aloud, pour­ing out the wa­ter up­on the ground sym­bol­ical­ly. “If any man dare to transgress this line with­out leave, I drown him in his ca­noe. If any wom­an, I drag her alive in­to the spring as she fetch­es wa­ter. Taboo to the King of the Rain and the Queen of the Clouds. Taboo! Taboo! Taboo! Ko­rong! I say it.”

“What does it all mean?” Muriel whis­pered, ter­ri­fied.

Fe­lix ex­plained to her, as far as he could, in a few hur­ried sen­tences. “There's on­ly one word in it I don't un­der­stand,” he added, hasti­ly, “and that's Ko­rong. It doesn't oc­cur in Fi­ji. They keep say­ing we're Ko­rong, what­ev­er that may mean; and ev­ident­ly they at­tach some very great im­por­tance to it.”

“Let the Shad­ows come for­ward,” the chief said, look­ing up with an air of dig­ni­ty.

A good-​look­ing young man, and the girl who said her name was Mali, stepped forth from the crowd, and fell on their knees be­fore him.

The chief laid his hand on the young man's shoul­der and raised him up. “The Shad­ow of the King of the Rain,” he cried, turn­ing him three times round. “Fol­low him in all his in­com­ings and his out­go­ings, and serve him faith­ful­ly! Taboo! Taboo! Pass with­in the sa­cred cir­cle!”

He clapped his hands. The young man crossed the line with a sort of rev­er­ent re­luc­tance, and took his place with­in the ring, close up to Fe­lix.

The chief laid his hand on Mali's shoul­der. “The Shad­ow of the Queen of the Clouds,” he said, turn­ing her three times round. “Fol­low her in all her in­com­ings and out­go­ings, and serve her faith­ful­ly. Taboo! Taboo! Pass with­in the sa­cred cir­cle!”

Then he waved both hands to Fe­lix. “Go where you will now,” he said. “Your Shad­ow will fol­low you. You are free as the rain that drops where it will. You are as free as the clouds that roam through heav­en. No man will hin­der you.”

And in a mo­ment the spear­men dropped their spears in con­cert, the crowd fell back, and the vil­lagers dis­persed as if by mag­ic, to their own hous­es.

But Fe­lix and Muriel were left alone be­side their huts, guard­ed on­ly in si­lence by their two mys­tic Shad­ows.