The Great Taboo Part 6

As they emerged, a strange procession met their eyes unawares, coming down the zig-zag path that led from the hills to the sh.o.r.e of the lagoon, where their huts were situated. At its head marched two men--tall, straight, and supple--wearing huge feather masks over their faces, and beating tom-toms, decorated with long strings of shiny cowries. After them, in order, came a sort of hollow square of chiefs or warriors, surrounding with fan-palms a central object all shrouded from the view with the utmost precaution. This central object was covered with a huge regal umbrella, from whose edge hung rows of small nautilus and other sh.e.l.ls, so as to form a kind of screen, like the j.a.panese portieres now so common in English doorways. Two supporters held it up, one on either side, in long cloaks of feathers. Under the umbrella, a man seemed to move; and as he approached, the natives, to right and left, fled precipitately to their huts, s.n.a.t.c.hing up their naked little ones from the ground as they went, and crying aloud, "Taboo, Taboo! He comes! he comes. Tu-Kila-Kila! Tu-Kila-Kila!"

The procession wound slowly on, unheeding these common creatures, till it reached the huts. Then the chiefs who formed the hollow square fell back one by one, and the man under the umbrella, with his two supporters, came forward boldly. Felix noticed that they crossed without scruple the thick white line of sand which all the other natives so carefully respected.

The man within the umbrella drew aside the curtain of hanging nautilus sh.e.l.ls. His face was covered with a thin mask of paper mulberry bark; but Felix knew he was the self-same person whom they had seen the day before in the central temple.

Tu-Kila-Kila's air was more insolent and arrogant than even before. He was clearly in high spirits. "You have done well, O King of the Rain," he said, turning gayly to Felix; "and you too, O Queen of the Clouds; you have done right bravely. We have all acquitted ourselves as our people would wish. We have made our showers to descend abundantly from heaven; we have caused the crops to grow; we have wetted the plantain bushes.

See; Tu-Kila-Kila, who is so great a G.o.d, has come from his own home on the hills to greet you."

"It has certainly rained in the night," Felix answered, dryly.

But Tu-Kila-Kila was not to be put off thus. Adjusting his thin mask or veil of bark, so as to hide his face more thoroughly from the inferior G.o.d, he turned round once more to the chiefs, who even so hardly dared to look openly upon him. Then he struck an att.i.tude. The man was clearly bursting with spiritual pride. He knew himself to be a G.o.d, and was filled with the insolence of his supernatural power. "See, my people," he cried, holding up his hands, palm outward, in his accustomed G.o.d-like way; "I am indeed a great deity--Lord of Heaven, Lord of Earth, Life of the World, Master of Time, Measurer of the Sun's Course, Spirit of Growth, Creator of the Harvest, Master of Mortals, Bestower of Breath upon Men, Chief Pillar of Heaven!"

The warriors bowed down before their bloated master with unquestioning a.s.sent. "Giver of Life to all the host of the G.o.ds," they cried, "you are indeed a mighty one. Weigher of the equipoise of Heaven and Earth, we acknowledge your might; we give you thanks eternally."

Tu-Kila-Kila swelled with visible importance. "Did I not tell you, my meat," he exclaimed, "I would bring you new G.o.ds, great spirits from the sun, fetchers of fire from my bright home in the heavens? And have they not come? Are they not here to-day? Have they not brought the precious gift of fresh fire with them?"

"Tu-Kila-Kila speaks true," the chiefs echoed, submissively, with bent heads.

"Did I not make one of them King of the Rain?" Tu-Kila-Kila asked once more, stretching one hand toward the sky with theatrical magnificence.

"Did I not declare the other Queen of the Clouds in Heaven? And have I not caused them to bring down showers this night upon our crops? Has not the dry earth drunk? Am I not the great G.o.d, the Saviour of Boupari?"

"Tu-Kila-Kila says well," the chiefs responded, once more, in unanimous chorus.

Tu-Kila-Kila struck another att.i.tude with childish self-satisfaction.

"I go into the hut to speak with my ministers," he said, grandiloquently.

"Fire and Water, wait you here outside while I enter and speak with my friends from the sun, whom I have brought for the salvation of the crops to Boupari."

The King of Fire and the King of Water, supporting the umbrella, bowed a.s.sent to his words. Tu-Kila-Kila motioned Felix and Muriel into the nearest hut. It was the one where the two Shadows lay crouching in terror among the native mats. As the G.o.d tried to enter, the two cowering wretches set up a loud shout, "Taboo! Taboo! Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!"

Tu-Kila-Kila retreated with a contemptuous smile. "I want to see you alone," he said, in Polynesian, to Felix. "Is the other hut empty? If not, go in and cut their throats who sit there, and make the place a solitude for Tu-Kila-Kila."

"There is no one in the hut," Felix answered, with a nod, concealing his disgust at the command as far as he was able.

"That is well," Tu-Kila-Kila answered, and walked into it carelessly.

Felix followed him close and deemed it best to make Muriel enter also.

As soon-as they were alone, Tu-Kila-Kila's manner altered greatly. "Come, now," he said, quite genially, yet with a curious under-current of hate in his steely gray eye; "we three are all G.o.ds. We who are in heaven need have no secrets from one another. Tell me the truth; did you really come to us direct from the sun, or are you sailing G.o.ds, dropped from a great canoe belonging to the warriors who seek laborers for the white men in the distant country?"

Felix told him briefly, in as few words as possible, the story of their arrival.

Tu-Kila-Kila listened with lively interest, then he said, very decisively, with great bravado, "It was _I_ who made the big wave wash your sister overboard. I sent it to your ship. I wanted a Korong just now in Boupari. It was _I_ who brought you."

"You are mistaken," Felix said, simply, not thinking it worth while to contradict him further. "It was a purely natural accident."

"Well, tell me," the savage G.o.d went on once more, eying him close and sharp, "they say you have brought fresh fire from the sun with you, and that you know how to make it burst out like lightning at will. My people have seen it. They tell me the wonder. I wish to see it too. We are all G.o.ds here; we need have no secrets. Only, I didn't want to let those common people outside see I asked you to show me. Make fire leap forth. I desire to behold it."

Felix took out the match-box from his pocket, and struck a vesta carefully. Tu-Kila-Kila looked on with profound interest. "It is wonderful," he said, taking the vesta in his own hand as it burned, and examining it closely. "I have heard of this before, but I have never seen it. You are indeed G.o.ds, you white men, you sailors of the sea." He glanced at Muriel. "And the woman, too," he said, with a horrible leer, "the woman is pretty."

Felix took the measure of his man at once. He opened his knife, and held it up threateningly. "See here, fellow," he said, in a low, slow tone, but with great decision, "if you dare to speak or look like that at that lady--G.o.d or no G.o.d, I'll drive this knife straight up to the handle in your heart, though your people kill me for it afterward ten thousand times over. I am not afraid of you. These savages may be afraid, and may think you are a G.o.d; but if you are, then I am a G.o.d ten thousand times stronger than you. One more word--one more look like that, I say--and I plunge this knife remorselessly into you."

Tu-Kila-Kila drew back, and smiled benignly. Stalwart ruffian as he was, and absolute master of his own people's lives, he was yet afraid in a way of the strange new-comer. Vague stories of the men with white faces--the "sailing G.o.ds"--had reached him from time to time; and though only twice within his memory had European boats landed on his island, he yet knew enough of the race to know that they were at least very powerful deities--more powerful with their weapons than even he was. Besides, a man who could draw down fire from heaven with a piece of wax and a little metal box might surely wither him to ashes, if he would, as he stood before him. The very fact that Felix bearded him thus openly to his face astonished and somewhat terrified the superst.i.tious savage. Everybody else on the island was afraid of him; then certainly a man who was not afraid must be the possessor of some most efficacious and magical medicine. His one fear now was lest his followers should hear and discover his discomfiture. He peered about him cautiously, with that careful gleam shining bright in his eye; then he said with a leer, in a very low voice, "We two need not quarrel. We are both of us G.o.ds. Neither of us is the stronger. We are equal, that's all. Let us live like brothers, not like enemies, on the island."

"I don't want to be your brother," Felix answered, unable to conceal his loathing any more. "I hate and detest you."

"What does he say?" Muriel asked, in an agony of fear at the savage's black looks. "Is he going to kill us?"

"No," Felix answered, boldly. "I think he's afraid of us. He's going to do nothing. You needn't fear him."

"Can she not speak?" the savage asked, pointing with his finger somewhat rudely toward Muriel. "Has she no voice but this, the chatter of birds?

Does she not know the human language?"

"She can speak," Felix replied, placing himself like a shield between Muriel and the astonished savage. "She can speak the language of the people of our distant country--a beautiful language which is as far superior to the speech of the brown men of Polynesia as the sun in the heavens is superior to the light of a candlenut. But she can't speak the wretched tongue of you Boupari cannibals. I thank Heaven she can't, for it saves her from understanding the hateful things your people would say of her. Now go! I have seen already enough of you. I am not afraid.

Remember, I am as powerful a G.o.d as you. I need not fear. You cannot hurt me."

A baleful light gleamed in the cannibal's eye. But he thought it best to temporize. Powerful as he was on his island, there was one thing yet more powerful by far than he; and that was Taboo--the custom and superst.i.tion handed down from his ancestors, These strangers were Korong; he dare not touch them, except in the way and manner and time appointed by custom. If he did, G.o.d as he was, his people themselves would turn and rend him. He was a G.o.d, but he was bound on every side by the strictest taboos. He dare not himself offer violence to Felix.

So he turned with a smile and bided his time. He knew it would come. He could afford to laugh. Then, going to the door, he said, with his grand affable manner to his chiefs around, "I have spoken with the G.o.ds, my ministers, within. They have kissed my hands. My rain has fallen. All is well in the land. Arise, let us go away hence to my temple."

The savages put themselves in marching order at once. "It is the voice of a G.o.d," they said, reverently. "Let us take back Tu-Kila-Kila to his temple home. Let us escort the lord of the divine umbrella. Wherever he is, there trees and plants put forth green leaves and flourish. At his bidding flowers bloom and springs of water rise up in fountains. His presence diffuses heavenly blessings."

"I think," Felix said, turning to poor, terrified Muriel, "I've sent the wretch away with a bee in his bonnet."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CUSTOMS OF BOUPARI.

Human nature cannot always keep on the full stretch of excitement. It was wonderful to both Felix and Muriel how soon they settled down into a quiet routine of life on the island of Boupari. A week pa.s.sed away--two weeks--three weeks--and the chances of release seemed to grow slenderer and slenderer. All they could do now was to wait for the stray accident of a pa.s.sing ship, and then try, if possible, to signal it, or to put out to it in a canoe, if the natives would allow them.

Meanwhile, their lives for the moment seemed fairly safe. Though for the first few days they lived in constant alarm, this feeling, after a time, gave way to one of comparative security. The strange inst.i.tution of Taboo protected them more efficiently in their wattled huts than the whole police force of London could have done in a Belgravian mansion. There thieves break through and steal, in spite of bolts and bars and metropolitan constables; but at Boupari no native, however daring or however wicked, would ever venture to transgress the narrow line of white coral sand which protected the castaways like an intangible wall from all outer interference. Within this impalpable ring-fence they were absolutely safe from all rude intrusion, save that of the two Shadows, who waited upon them, day and night, with unfailing willingness.

In other respects, considering the circ.u.mstances, their life was an easy one. The natives brought them freely of their simple store--yam, taro, bread-fruit, and cocoanut, with plenty of fish, crabs, and lobsters, as well as eggs by the basketful, and even sometimes chickens. They required no pay beyond a nod and a smile, and went away happy at those slender recognitions. Felix discovered, in fact, that they had got into a region where the arid generalizations of political economy do not apply; where Adam Smith is unread, and Mill neglected; where the medium of exchange is an unknown quant.i.ty, and where supply and demand readjust themselves continuously by simpler and more generous principles than the familiar European one of "the higgling of the market."

The people, too, though utter savages, were not in their own way altogether unpleasing. It was their customs and superst.i.tions, rather than themselves, that were so cruel and horrible. Personally, they seemed for the most part simple-minded and good natured creatures. At first, indeed, Muriel was afraid to venture for a step beyond the precincts of their own huts; and it was long before she could make up her mind to go alone through the jungle paths with Mali, unaccompanied by Felix. But by degrees she learned that she could walk by herself (of course, with the inevitable Shadow ever by her side) over the whole island, and meet everywhere with nothing from men, women, and children but the utmost respect and gracious courtesy. The young lads, as she pa.s.sed, would stand aside from the path, with downcast eyes, and let her go by with all the politeness of chivalrous English gentlemen. The old men would raise their eyes, but cross their hands on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and stand motionless for a few minutes till she got almost out of sight. The women would bring their pretty brown babies for the fair English lady to admire or to pat on the head; and when Muriel now and again stooped down to caress some fat little naked child, lolling in the dust outside the hut, with true tropical laziness, the mothers would run up at the sight with delight and joy, and throw themselves down in ecstacies of grat.i.tude for the notice she had taken of their favored little ones. "The G.o.ds of Heaven," they would say, with every sign of pleasure, "have looked graciously upon our Unaloa."

At first Felix and Muriel were mainly struck with the politeness and deference which the natives displayed toward them. But after a time Felix at least began to observe, behind it all, that a certain amount of affection, and even of something like commiseration as well, seemed to be mingled with the respect and reverence showered upon them by their hosts.

The women, especially, were often evidently touched by Muriel's innocence and beauty. As she walked past their huts with her light, girlish tread, they would come forth shyly, bowing many times as they approached, and offer her a long spray of the flowering hibiscus, or a pretty garland of crimson ti-leaves, saying at the same time, many times over, in their own tongue, "Receive it, Korong; receive it, Queen of the Clouds! You are good. You are kind. You are a daughter of the Sun. We are glad you have come to us."

A young girl soon makes herself at home anywhere; and Muriel, protected alike by her native innocence and by the invisible cloak of Polynesian taboo, quickly learned to understand and to sympathize with these poor dusky mothers. One morning, some weeks after their arrival, she pa.s.sed down the main street of the village, accompanied by Felix and their two attendants, and reached the _marae_--the open forum or place of public a.s.sembly--which stood in its midst; a circular platform, surrounded by bread-fruit trees, under whose broad, cool shade the people were sitting in little groups and talking together. They were dressed in the regular old-time festive costume of Polynesia; for Boupari, being a small and remote island, too insignificant to be visited by European ships, retained still all its aboriginal heathen manners and customs. The sight was, indeed, a curious and picturesque one. The girls, large-limbed, soft-skinned, and with delicately rounded figures, sat on the ground, laughing and talking, with their knees crossed under them; their wrists were encinctured with girdles of dark-red dracaena leaves, their swelling bosoms half concealed, half accentuated by hanging necklets of flowers.

Their beautiful brown arms and shoulders were bare throughout; their long, black hair was gracefully twined and knotted with bright scarlet flowers. The men, strong and stalwart, sat behind on short stools or lounged on the b.u.t.tressed roots of the bread-fruit trees, clad like the women in narrow waist-belts of the long red dracaena leaves, with necklets of sharks' teeth, pendent chain of pearly sh.e.l.ls, a warrior's cap on their well-shaped heads, and an armlet of native beans, arranged below the shoulder, around their powerful arms. Altogether, it was a striking and beautiful picture. Muriel, now almost released from her early sense of fear, stood still to look at it.

The men and girls were laughing and chatting merrily together. Most of them were engaged in holding up before them fine mats; and a row of mulberry cloth, spread along on the ground, led to a hut near one side of the _marae_. Toward this the eyes of the spectators were turned. "What is it, Mali?" Muriel whispered, her woman's instinct leading her at once to expect that something special was going on in the way of local festivities.

And Mali answered at once, with many nods and smiles, "All right, Missy Queenie. Him a wedding, a marriage."

The words had hardly escaped her lips when a very pretty young girl, half smothered in flowers, and decked out in beads and fancy sh.e.l.ls, emerged slowly from the hut, and took her way with stately tread along the path carpeted with native cloth. She was girt round the waist with rich-colored mats, which formed a long train, like a court dress, trailing on the ground five or six feet behind her.