The Great Taboo Part 3

"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 a.s.sume. 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 superst.i.tious 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.

Superst.i.tion is the great lever by which to move the savage intelligence.

Gathering up a few dry leaves and fragments of stick on the sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 rea.s.sured 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."

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 ash.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sed them by; the men only bowed their heads thrice, and made a rapid movement on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 s.p.a.ce, in whose midst grew a great banyan-tree, with arms that dropped and rooted themselves like b.u.t.tresses 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 circ.u.mstances 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.ds. 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 G.o.ds? 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 l.u.s.tful 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.