The Great Taboo Part 21

Felix looked about him with a whirling brain. His eye fell suddenly.

There, in his own hand, lay the fateful bough. In his efforts to steady himself, he had clutched at it by pure accident, and broken it off unawares with the force of his clutching. As fortune would have it, he grasped it still. His senses reeled. He was almost dead with excitement, suspense, and uncertainty, mingled with pain of his wrenched wrist. But for Muriel's sake he pulled himself together. Gazing down and trying hard to take it all in--that strange savage scene--he saw that Tu-Kila-Kila was making frantic attempts to lunge at him with the spear, while the King of Fire and the King of Water, stern and relentless, were holding him off by main force, and striving their best to appease and quiet him.

There was an awful pause. Then a voice broke the stillness from beyond the taboo-line:

"The Shadow of the King of the Rain speaks," it said, in very solemn, conventional accents. "Korong! Korong! The Great Taboo is broken. Fire and Water, hold him in whom dwells the G.o.d till my master comes. He has the Soul of all the spirits of the wood in his hands. He will fight for his right. Taboo! Taboo! I, Toko, have said it."

He clapped his hands thrice.

Tu-Kila-Kila made a wild effort to break away once more. But the King of Fire, standing opposite him, spoke still louder and clearer. "If you touch the Korong before the line is drawn," he said, with a voice of authority, "you are no Tu-Kila-Kila, but an outcast and a criminal. All the people will hold you with forked sticks, while the Korong burns you alive slowly, limb by limb, with me, who am Fire, the fierce, the consuming. I will scorch you and bake you till you are as a bamboo in the flame. Taboo! Taboo! Taboo! I, Fire, have said it."

The King of Water, with three attendants, forced Tu-Kila-Kila on one side for a moment. Ula stood by and smiled pleased compliance. A temple slave, trembling all over at this conflict of the G.o.ds, brought out a calabash full of white coral-sand. The King of Water spat on it and blessed it. By this time a dozen natives, at least, had a.s.sembled outside the taboo-line, and stood eagerly watching the result of the combat. The temple slave made a long white mark with the coral-sand on one side of the cleared area. Then he handed the calabash solemnly to Toko. Toko crossed the sacred precinct with a few inaudible words of muttered charm, to save the Taboo, as prescribed in the mysteries. Then he drew a similar line on the ground on his side, some twenty yards off. "Descend, O my lord!" he cried to Felix; and Felix, still holding the bough tight in his hand, swung himself blindly from the tree, and took his place by Toko.

"Toe the line!" Toko cried, and Felix toed it.

"Bring up your G.o.d!" the Shadow called out aloud to the King of Water.

And the King of Water, using no special ceremony with so great a duty, dragged Tu-Kila-Kila helplessly along with him to the farther taboo-line.

The King of Water brought a spear and tomahawk. He handed them to Felix.

"With these weapons," he said, "fight, and merit heaven. I hold the bough meanwhile--the victor takes it."

The King of Fire stood out between the lists. "Korongs and G.o.ds," he said, "the King of the Rain has plucked the sacred bough, according to our fathers' rites, and claims trial which of you two shall henceforth hold the sacred soul of the world, the great Tu-Kila-Kila. Wager of Battle decides the day. Keep toe to line. At the end of my words, forth, forward, and fight for it. The great G.o.d knows his own, and will choose his abode. Taboo, Taboo, Taboo! I, Fire, have spoken it."

Scarcely were the words well out of his mouth, when, with a wild whoop of rage, Tu-Kila-Kila, who had the advantage of knowing the rules of the game, so to speak, dashed madly forward, drunk with pa.s.sion and kava, and gave one lunge with his spear full tilt at the breast of the startled and unprepared white man. His aim, though frantic, was not at fault. The spear struck Felix high up on the left side. He felt a dull thud of pain; a faint gurgle of blood. Even in the pale moonlight his eye told him at once a red stream was trickling--out over his flannel s.h.i.+rt. He was p.r.i.c.ked, at least. The great G.o.d had wounded him.

CHAPTER XXIX.

VICTORY--AND AFTER?

The great G.o.d had wounded him. But not to the heart. Felix, as good luck would have it, happened to be wearing buckled braces. He had worn them on board, and, like the rest of his costume, had, of course, never since been able to discard them. They stood him in good stead now. The buckle caught the very point of the bone-tipped spear, and broke the force of the blow, as the great G.o.d lunged forward. The wound was but a graze, and Tu-Kila-Kila's light shaft snapped short in the middle.

Madder and wilder than ever, the savage pitched it away, yelling, rushed forward with a fierce curse on his angry tongue, and flung himself, tooth and nail, on his astonished opponent.

The suddenness of the onslaught almost took the Englishman's breath away.

By this time, however, Felix had pulled together his ideas and taken in the situation. Tu-Kila-Kila was attacking him now with his heavy stone axe. He must parry those deadly blows. He must be alert, but watchful. He must put himself in a posture of defence at once. Above all, he must keep cool and have his wits about him.

If he could but have drawn his knife, he would have stood a better chance in that hand-to-hand conflict. But there was no time now for such tactics as those. Besides, even in close fight with a bloodthirsty savage, an English gentleman's sense of fair play never for one moment deserts him.

Felix felt, if they were to fight it out face to face for their lives, they should fight at least on a perfect equality. Steel against stone was a mean advantage. Parrying Tu-Kila-Kila's first desperate blow with the haft of his own hatchet, he leaped aside half a second to gain breath and strength. Then he rushed on, and dealt one deadly downstroke with the ponderous weapon.

For a minute or two they closed, in perfectly savage single combat.

Fire and Water, observant and impartial, stood by like seconds to see the G.o.d himself decide the issue, which of the two combatants should be his living representative. The contest was brief but very hard-fought.

Tu-Kila-Kila, inspired with the last frenzy of despair, rushed wildly on his opponent with hands and fists, and teeth and nails, dealing his blows in blind fury, right and left, and seeking only to sell his life as dearly as possible. In this last extremity, his very superst.i.tions told against him. Everything seemed to show his hour had come. The parrot's bite--the omen of his own blood that stained the dust of earth--Ula's treachery--the chance by which the Korong had learned the Great Taboo--Felix's accidental or providential success in breaking off the bough--the length of time he himself had held the divine honors--the probability that the G.o.d would by this time begin to prefer a new and stronger representative--all these things alike combined to fire the drunk and maddened savage with the energy of despair. He fell upon his enemy like a tiger upon an elephant. He fought with his tomahawk and his feet and his whole lithe body; he foamed at the mouth with impotent rage; he spent his force on the air in the extremity of his pa.s.sion.

Felix, on the other hand, sobered by pain, and nerved by the fixed consciousness that Muriel's safety now depended absolutely on his perfect coolness, fought with the calm skill of a practised fencer. Happily he had learned the gentle art of thrust and parry years before in England; and though both weapon and opponent were here so different, the lesson of quickness and calm watchfulness he had gained in that civilized school stood him in good stead, even now, under such adverse circ.u.mstances.

Tu-Kila-Kila, getting spent, drew back for a second at last, and panted for breath. That faint breathing-s.p.a.ce of a moment's duration sealed his fate. Seizing his chance with consummate skill, Felix closed upon the breathless monster, and brought down the heavy stone hammer point blank upon the centre of his cras.h.i.+ng skull. The weapon drove home. It cleft a great red gash in the cannibal's head. Tu-Kila-Kila reeled and fell.

There was an infinitesimal pause of silence and suspense. Then a great shout went up from all round to heaven, "He has killed him! He has killed him! We have a new-made G.o.d! Tu-Kila-Kila is dead! Long live Tu-Kila-Kila!"

Felix drew back for a moment, panting and breathless, and wiped his wet brow with his sleeve, his brain all whirling. At his feet, the savage lay stretched, like a log. Felix gazed at the blood-bespattered face remorsefully. It is an awful thing, even in a just quarrel, to feel that you have really taken a human life! The responsibility is enough to appall the bravest of us. He stooped down and examined the prostrate body with solemn reverence. Blood was flowing in torrents from the wounded head. But Tu-Kila-Kila was dead--stone-dead forever.

Hot tears of relief welled up into Felix's eyes. He touched the body cautiously with a reverent hand. No life. No motion.

Just as he did so, the woman Ula came forward, bare-limbed and beautiful, all triumph in her walk, a proud, insensitive savage. One second she gazed at the great corpse disdainfully. Then she lifted her dainty foot, and gave it a contemptuous kick. "The body of Lavita, the son of Sami,"

she said, with a gesture of hatred. "He had a bad heart. We will cook it and eat it." Next turning to Felix, "Oh, Tu-Kila-Kila," she cried, clapping her hands three times and bowing low to the ground, "you are a very great G.o.d. We will serve you and salute you. Am not I, Ula, one of your wives, your meat? Do with me as you will. Toko, you are henceforth the great G.o.d's Shadow!"

Felix gazed at the beautiful, heartless creature, all horrified. Even on Boupari, that cannibal island, he was hardly prepared for quite so low a depth of savage insensibility. But all the people around, now a hundred or more, standing naked before their new G.o.d, took up the shout in concert. "The body of Lavita, the son of Sami," they cried. "A carrion corpse! The G.o.d has deserted it. The great soul of the world has entered the heart of the white-faced stranger from the disk of the sun; the King of the Rain; the great Tu-Kila-Kila. We will cook and eat the body of Lavita, the son of Sami. He was a bad man. He is a worn-out sh.e.l.l.

Nothing remains of him now. The great G.o.d has left him."

They clapped their hands in a set measure as they recited this hymn.

The King of Fire retreated into the temple. Ula stood by, and whispered low with Toko. There was a ceremonial pause of some fifteen minutes.

Presently, from the inner recesses of the temple itself, a low noise issued forth as of a rising wind. For some seconds it buzzed and hummed, droningly. But at the very first note of that holy sound Ula dropped her lover's hand, as one drops a red-hot coal, and darted wildly off at full speed, like some frightened wild beast, into the thick jungle. Every other woman near began to rush away with equally instantaneous signs of haste and fear. The men, on the other hand, erect and naked, with their hands on their foreheads, crossed the taboo-line at once. It was the summons to all who had been initiated at the mysteries--the sacred bull-roarer was calling the a.s.sembly of the men of Boupari.

For several minutes it buzzed and droned, that mystic implement, growing louder and louder, till it roared like thunder. One after another, the men of the island rushed in as if mad or in flight for their lives before some fierce beast pursuing them. They ran up, panting, and dripping with sweat; their hands clapped to their foreheads; their eyes starting wildly from their staring sockets; torn and bleeding and lacerated by the thorns and branches of the jungle, for each man ran straight across country from the spot where he lay asleep, in the direction of the sound, and never paused or drew breath, for dear life's sake, till he stood beside the corpse of the dead Tu-Kila-Kila.

And every moment the cry pealed louder and louder still. "Lavita, the son of Sami, is dead, praise Heaven! The King of the Rain has slain him, and is now the true Tu-Kila-Kila!"

Felix bent irresolute over the fallen savage's bloodstained corpse. What next was expected of him he hardly knew or cared. His one desire now was to return to Muriel--to Muriel, whom he had rescued from something worse than death at the hateful hands of that accursed creature who lay breathless forever on the ground beside him.

Somebody came up just then, and seized his hand warmly. Felix looked up with a start. It was their friend, the Frenchman. "Ah, my captain, you have done well," M. Peyron cried, admiring him. "What courage! What coolness! What pluck! What soldiers.h.i.+p! I couldn't see all. But I was in at the death! And oh, _mon Dieu_, how I admired and envied you!"

By this time the bull-roarer had ceased to bellow among the rocks. The King of Fire stood forth. In his hands he held a length of bamboo-stick with a lighted coal in it. "Bring wood and palm-leaves," he said, in a tone of command. "Let me light myself up, that I may blaze before Tu-Kila-Kila."

He turned and bowed thrice very low before Felix. "The accepted of Heaven," he cried, holding his hands above him. "The very high G.o.d! The King of all Things! He sends down his showers upon our crops and our fields. He causes his sun to s.h.i.+ne brightly over us. He makes our pigs and our slaves bring forth their increase. All we are but his meat. We, his people, praise him."

And all the men of Boupari, naked and bleeding, bent low in response.

"Tu-Kila-Kila is great," they chanted, as they clapped their hands. "We thank him that he has chosen a fresh incarnation. The sun will not fade in the heavens overhead, nor the bread-fruits wither and cease to bear fruit on earth. Tu-Kila-Kila, our G.o.d, is great. He springs ever young and fresh, like the herbs of the field. He is a most high G.o.d. We, his people, praise him."

Four temple attendants brought sticks and leaves, while Felix stood still, half dazed with the newness of these strange preparations. The King of Fire, with his torch, set light to the pile. It blazed merrily on high. "I, Fire, salute you," he cried, bending over it toward Felix.

"Now cut up the body of Lavita, the son of Sami," he went on, turning toward it contemptuously. "I will cook it in my flame, that Tu-Kila-Kila the great may eat of it."

Felix drew back with a face all aglow with horror and disgust. "Don't touch that body!" he cried, authoritatively, putting his foot down firm.

"Leave it alone at once. I refuse to allow you." Then he turned to M. Peyron. "The King of the Birds and I," he said, with calm resolve, "we two will bury it."

The King of Fire drew back at these strange words, nonplussed. This was, indeed, an ill-omened break in the ceremony of initiation of a new Tu-Kila-Kila, to which he had never before in his life been accustomed.

He hardly knew how to comport himself under such singular circ.u.mstances.

It was as though the sovereign of England, on coronation-day, should refuse to be crowned, and intimate to the archbishop, in his full canonicals, a confirmed preference for the republican form of Government.

It was a contingency that law and custom in Boupari had neither, in their wisdom, foreseen nor provided for.

The King of Water whispered low in the new G.o.d's ear. "You must eat of his body, my lord," he said. "That is absolutely necessary. Every one of us must eat of the flesh of the G.o.d; but you, above all, must eat his heart, his divine nature. Otherwise you can never be full Tu-Kila-Kila."

"I don't care a straw for that," Felix cried, now aroused to a full sense of the break in Methuselah's story and trembling with apprehension. "You may kill me if you like; we can die only once; but human flesh I can never taste; nor will I, while I live, allow you to touch this dead man's body. We will bury it ourselves, the King of the Birds and I. You may tell your people so. That is my last word." He raised his voice to the customary ceremonial pitch. "I, the new Tu-Kila-Kila," he said, "have spoken it."

The King of Fire and the King of Water, taken aback at his boldness, conferred together for some seconds privately. The people meanwhile looked on and wondered. What could this strange hitch in the divine proceedings mean? Was the G.o.d himself recalcitrant? Never in their lives had the oldest men among them known anything like it.

And as they whispered and debated, awe-struck but discordant, a shout arose once more from the outer circle--a mighty shout of mingled surprise, alarm, and terror. "Taboo! Taboo! Fence the mysteries. Beware!

Oh, great G.o.d, we warn you. The mysteries are in danger! Cut her down!