The Great Taboo

“MR. THURSTAN, I PRESUME.”

Naturally enough, it was some time before Felix and Muriel could recover from the shock of their deadly peril.  Yet, strange to say, the natives at the end of three days seemed positively to have forgotten all about it.  Their loves and their hates were as shortlived as children’s.  As soon as the period of seclusion was over, their attentions to the two strangers redoubled in intensity.  They were evidently most anxious, after this brief disagreement, to reassure the new gods, who came from the sun, of their gratitude and devotion.  The men who had wounded Felix, in particular, now came daily in the morning with exceptional gifts of fish, fruit, and flowers; they would bring a crab from the sea, or a joint of turtle-meat.  “Forgive us, O king,” they cried, prostrating themselves humbly.  “We did not mean to hurt you; we thought your time had really come.  You are a Korong.  We would not offend you.  Do not refuse us your showers because of our sin.  We are very penitent.  We will do what you ask of us.  Your look is poison.  See, here is wood; here are leaves and fire; we are but your meat; choose and cook which you will of us!”

It was useless Felix’s trying to explain to them that he wanted no victims, and no propitiation.  The more he protested, the more they brought gifts.  “He is a very great god,” they exclaimed.  “He wants nothing from us.  What can we give him that will be an acceptable gift?  Shall we offer him ourselves, our wives, our children?”

As for the women, when they saw how thoroughly frightened of them Muriel now was, they couldn’t find means to express their regret and devotion.  Mothers brought their little children, whom she had patted on the head, and offered them, just outside the line, as presents for her acceptance.  They explained to her Shadow that they never meant to hurt her, and that, if only she would venture without the line, as of old, all should be well, and they would love and adore her.  Mali translated to her mistress these speeches and prayers.  “Them say, ‘You come back, Queenie,’” she explained in her broken Queensland English. “’Boupari women love you very much.  Boupari women glad you come.  You kind; you beautiful!  All Boupari men and women very much pleased with you and the gentleman, because you give back him cocoanut and fruit that you pick in the storm, and because you bring down fresh fire from heaven.’”

Gradually, after several days, Felix’s confidence was so far restored that he ventured to stroll beyond the line again; and he found himself, indeed, most popular among the people.  In various ways he picked up gradually the idea that the islanders generally disliked Tu-Kila-Kila, and liked himself; and that they somehow regarded him as Tu-Kila-Kila’s natural enemy.  What it could all mean he did not yet understand, though some inklings of an explanation occasionally occurred to him.  Oh, how he longed now for the Month of Birds to end, in order that he might pay his long-deferred visit to the mysterious Frenchman, from whose voice his Shadow had fled on that fateful evening with such sudden precipitancy.  The Frenchman, he judged, must have been long on the island, and could probably give him some satisfactory solution of this abstruse problem.

So he was glad, indeed, when one evening, some weeks later, his Shadow, observing the sky narrowly, remarked to him in a low voice, “New moon to-morrow!  The Month of Birds will then be up.  In the morning you can go and see your brother god at the Abode of Birds without breaking taboo.  The Month of Turtles begins at sunrise.  My family god is a turtle, so I know the day for it.”

So great was Felix’s impatience to settle this question, that almost before the sun was up next day he had set forth from his hut, accompanied as usual by his faithful Shadow.  Their way lay past Tu-Kila-Kila’s temple.  As they went by the entrance with the bamboo posts, Felix happened to glance aside through the gate to the sacred enclosure.  Early as it was, Tu-Kila-Kila was afoot already; and, to Felix’s great surprise, was pacing up and down, with that stealthy, wary look upon his cunning face that Muriel had so particularly noted on the day of their first arrival.  His spear stood in his hand, and his tomahawk hung by his left side; he peered about him suspiciously, with a cautious glance, as he walked round and round the sacred tree he guarded so continually.  There was something weird and awful in the sight of that savage god, thus condemned by his own superstition and the custom of his people to tramp ceaselessly up and down before the sacred banyan.

At sight of Felix, however, a sudden burst of frenzy seemed to possess at once all Tu-Kila-Kila’s limbs.  He brandished his spear violently, and set himself spasmodically in a posture of defence.  His brow grew black, and his eyes darted out eternal hate and suspicion.  It was evident he expected an instant attack, and was prepared with all his might and main to resist aggression.  Yet he never offered to desert his post by the tree or to assume the offensive.  Clearly, he was guarding the sacred grove itself with jealous care, and was as eager for its safety as for his own life and honor.

Felix passed on, wondering what it all could mean, and turned with an inquiring glance to his trembling Shadow.  As for Toko, he had held his face averted meanwhile, lest he should behold the great god, and be scorched to a cinder; but in answer to Felix’s mute inquiry he murmured low:  “Was Tu-Kila-Kila there?  Were all things right?  Was he on guard at his post by the tree already?”

“Yes,” Felix replied, with that weird sense of mystery creeping over him now more profoundly than ever.  “He was on guard by the tree and he looked at me angrily.”

“Ah,” the Shadow remarked, with a sigh of regret, “he keeps watch well.  It will be hard work to assail him.  No god in Boupari ever held his place so tight.  Who wishes to take Tu-Kila-Kila’s divinity must get up early.”

They went on in silence to the little volcanic knoll near the centre of the island.  There, in the neat garden plot they had observed before, a man, in the last relics of a very tattered European costume, much covered with a short cape of native cloth, was tending his flowers and singing to himself merrily.  His back was turned to them as they came up.  Felix paused a moment, unseen, and caught the words the stranger was singing: 

“Très jolie,
 Peu polie,
 Possédant un gros magot;
 Fort en gueule,
 Pas bégueule;
 Telle était—­”

The stranger looked up, and paused in the midst of his lines, open-mouthed.  For a moment he stood and stared astonished.  Then, raising his native cap with a graceful air, and bowing low, as he would have bowed to a lady on the Boulevard, he advanced to greet a brother European with the familiar words, in good educated French, “Monsieur, I salute you!”

To Felix, the sound of a civilized voice in the midst of so much strange and primitive barbarism, was like a sudden return to some forgotten world, so deeply and profoundly did it move and impress him.  He grasped the sunburnt Frenchman’s rugged hand in his.  “Who are you?” he cried, in the very best Parisian he could muster up on the spur of the moment.  “And how did you come here?”

“Monsieur,” the Frenchman answered, no less profoundly moved than himself, “this is, indeed, wonderful!  Do I hear once more that beautiful language spoken?  Do I find myself once more in the presence of a civilized person?  What fortune!  What happiness!  Ah, it is glorious, glorious.”

For some seconds they stood and looked at one another in silence, grasping their hands hard again and again with intense emotion; then Felix repeated his question a second time:  “Who are you, monsieur? and where do you come from?”

“Your name, surname, age, occupation?” the Frenchman repeated, bursting forth at last into national levity.  “Ah, monsieur, what a joy to hear those well-known inquiries in my ear once more.  I hasten to gratify your legitimate curiosity.  Name:  Peyron; Christian name:  Jules; age:  forty-one; occupation:  convict, escaped from New Caledonia.”

Under any other circumstances that last qualification might possibly have been held an undesirable one in a new acquaintance.  But on the island of Boupari, among so many heathen cannibals, prejudices pale before community of blood; even a New Caledonian convict is at least a Christian European.  Felix received the strange announcement without the faintest shock of surprise or disgust.  He would gladly have shaken hands then and there with M. Jules Peyron, indeed, had he introduced himself in even less equivocal language as a forger, a pickpocket, or an escaped house-breaker.

“And you, monsieur?” the ex-convict inquired, politely.

Felix told him in a few words the history of their accident and their arrival on the island.

“Comment?” the Frenchman exclaimed, with surprise and delight.  “A lady as well; a charming English lady!  What an acquisition to the society of Boupari! Quelle chance!  Quel bonheur! Monsieur, you are welcome, and mademoiselle too!  And in what quality do you live here?  You are a god, I see; otherwise you would not have dared to transgress my taboo, nor would this young man—­your Shadow, I suppose—­have permitted you to do so.  But which sort of god, pray?  Korong—­or Tula?”

“They call me Korong,” Felix answered, all tremulous, feeling himself now on the very verge of solving this profound mystery.

“And mademoiselle as well?” the Frenchman exclaimed, in a tone of dismay.

“And mademoiselle as well,” Felix replied.  “At least, so I make out.  We are both Korong.  I have many times heard the natives call us so.”

His new acquaintance seized his hand with every appearance of genuine alarm and regret.  “My poor friend,” he exclaimed, with a horrified face, “this is terrible, terrible!  Tu-Kila-Kila is a very hard man.  What can we do to save your life and mademoiselle’s!  We are powerless!  Powerless!  I have only that much to say.  I condole with you!  I commiserate you!”

“Why, what does Korong mean?” Felix asked, with blanched lips.  “Is it then something so very terrible?”

“Terrible!  Ah, terrible!” the Frenchman answered, holding up his hands in horror and alarm.  “I hardly know how we can avert your fate.  Step within my poor hut, or under the shade of my Tree of Liberty here, and I will tell you all the little I know about it.”