The Great Taboo

FACING THE WORST.

Muriel, meanwhile, sat alone in her hut, frightened at Felix’s unexpected disappearance so early in the morning, and anxiously awaiting her lover’s return, for she made no pretences now to herself that she did not really love Felix.  Though the two might never return to Europe to be husband and wife, she did not doubt that before the eye of Heaven they were already betrothed to one another as truly as though they had plighted their troth in solemn fashion.  Felix had risked his life for her, and had brought all this misery upon himself in the attempt to save her.  Felix was now all the world that was left her.  With Felix, she was happy, even on this horrible island; without him, she was miserable and terrified, no matter what happened.

“Mali,” she cried to her faithful attendant, as soon as she found Felix was missing from his tent, “what’s become of Mr. Thurstan?  Where can he be gone, I wonder, this morning?”

“You no fear, Missy Queenie,” Mali answered, with the childish confidence of the native Polynesian.  “Mistah Thurstan, him gone to see man-a-oui-oui, the King of the Birds.  Month of Birds finish last night; man-a-oui-oui no taboo any longer.  King of the Birds keep very old parrot, Boupari folk tell me; and old parrot very wise, know how to make Tu-Kila-Kila.  Mistah Thurstan, him gone to find man-a-oui-oui.  Parrot tell him plenty wise thing.  Parrot wiser than Boupari people; know very good medicine; wise like Queensland lady and gentleman.”  And Mali set herself vigorously to work to wash the wooden platter on which she served up her mistress’s yam for breakfast.

It was curious to Muriel to see how readily Mali had slipped from savagery to civilization in Queensland, and how easily she had slipped back again from civilization to savagery in Boupari.  In waiting on her mistress she was just the ordinary trained native Australian servant; in every other respect she was the simple unadulterated heathen Polynesian.  She recognized in Muriel a white lady of the English sort, and treated her within the hut as white ladies were invariably treated in Queensland; but she considered that at Boupari one must do as Boupari does, and it never for a moment occurred to her simple mind to doubt the omnipotence of Tu-Kila-Kila in his island realm any more than she had doubted the omnipotence of the white man and his local religion in their proper place (as she thought it) in Queensland.

An hour or two passed before Felix returned.  At last he arrived, very white and pale, and Muriel saw at once by the mere look on his face that he had learned some terrible news at the Frenchman’s.

“Well, you found him?” she cried, taking his hand in hers, but hardly daring to ask the fatal question at once.

And Felix, sitting down, as pale as a ghost, answered faintly, “Yes, Muriel, I found him!”

“And he told you everything?”

“Everything he knew, my poor child.  Oh, Muriel, Muriel, don’t ask me what it is.  It’s too terrible to tell you.”

Muriel clasped her white hands together, held bloodless downward, and looked at him fixedly.  “Mali, you can go,” she said.  And the Shadow, rising up with childish confidence, glided from the hut, and left them, for the first time since their arrival on the central island, alone together.

Muriel looked at him once more with the same deadly fixed look.  “With you, Felix,” she said, slowly, “I can bear or dare anything.  I feel as if the bitterness of death were past long ago.  I know it must come.  I only want to be quite sure when….  And besides, you must remember, I have your promise.”

Felix clasped his own hands despondently in return, and gazed across at her from his seat a few feet off in unspeakable misery.

“Muriel,” he cried, “I couldn’t.  I haven’t the heart.  I daren’t.”

Muriel rose and laid her hand solemnly on his arm.  “You will!” she answered, boldly.  “You can!  You must!  I know I can trust your promise for that.  This moment, if you like.  I would not shrink.  But you will never let me fall alive into the hands of those wretches.  Felix, from your hand I could stand anything.  I’m not afraid to die.  I love you too dearly.”

Felix held her white little wrist in his grasp and sobbed like a child.  Her very bravery and confidence seemed to unman him, utterly.

She looked at him once more.  “When?” she asked, quietly, but with lips as pale as death.

“In about four months from now,” Felix answered, endeavoring to be calm.

“And they will kill us both?”

“Yes, both.  I think so.”

“Together?”

“Together.”

Muriel drew a deep sigh.

“Will you know the day beforehand?” she asked.

“Yes.  The Frenchman told me it.  He has known others killed in the self-same fashion.”

“Then, Felix—–­the night before it comes, you will promise me, will you?”

“Muriel, Muriel, I could never dare to kill you.”

She laid her hand soothingly on his.  She stroked him gently.  “You are a man,” she said, looking up into his eyes with confidence.  “I trust you.  I believe in you.  I know you will never let these savages hurt me….  Felix, in spite of everything, I’ve been happier since we came to this island together than ever I have been in my life before.  I’ve had my wish.  I didn’t want to miss in life the one thing that life has best worth giving.  I haven’t missed it now.  I know I haven’t; for I love you, and you love me.  After that, I can die, and die gladly.  If I die with you, that’s all I ask.  These seven or eight terrible weeks have made me feel somehow unnaturally calm.  When I came here first I lived all the time in an agony of terror.  I’ve got over the agony of terror now.  I’m quite resigned and happy.  All I ask is to be saved—­by you—­from the cruel hands of these hateful cannibals.”

Felix raised her white hand just once to his lips.  It was the first time he had ever ventured to kiss her.  He kissed it fervently.  She let it drop as if dead by her side.

“Now tell me all that happened,” she said.  “I’m strong enough to bear it.  I feel such a woman now—­so wise and calm.  These few weeks have made me grow from a girl into a woman all at once.  There’s nothing I daren’t hear, if you’ll tell me it, Felix.”

Felix took up her hand again and held it in his, as he narrated the whole story of his visit to the Frenchman.  When Muriel had heard it, she said once more, slowly, “I don’t think there’s any hope in all these wild plans of playing off superstition against superstition.  To my mind there are only two chances left for us now.  One is to concoct with the Frenchman some means of getting away by canoe from the island—­I’d rather trust the sea than the tender mercy of these dreadful people; the other is to keep a closer lookout than ever for the merest chance of a passing steamer.”

Felix drew a deep sigh.  “I’m afraid neither’s much use,” he said.  “If we tried to get away, dogged as we are, day and night, by our Shadows, the natives would follow us with their war-canoes in battle array and hack us to pieces; for Peyron says that, regarding us as gods, they think the rain would vanish from their island forever if once they allowed us to get away alive and carry the luck with us.  And as to the steamers, we haven’t seen a trace of one since we left the Australasian.  Probably it was only by the purest accident that even she ever came so close in to Boupari.”

“At any rate,” Muriel cried, still clasping his hand tight, and letting the tears now trickle slowly down her pale white cheeks, “we can talk it all over some day with M. Peyron.”

“We can talk it over to-day,” Felix answered, “if it comes to that; for Peyron means to step round, he says, a little later in the afternoon, to pay his respects to the first white lady he has ever seen since he left New Caledonia.”