The Great Taboo

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 dracæna 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.”