The Great Taboo. Allen Grant
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.”
CHAPTER V. — ENROLLED IN OLYMPUS.
They rowed across the lagoon, a mysterious procession, almost in silence—the canoe with the two Europeans going first, the others following at a slight distance—and landed at last on the brink of the central island.
Several of the Boupari people leaped ashore at once; then they helped Felix and Muriel from the frail bark with almost deferential care, and led the way before them up a steep white path, that zigzagged through the forest toward the centre of the island. As they went, a band of natives preceded them in regular line of march, shouting “Taboo, taboo!” at short intervals, especially as they neared any group of fan-palm cottages. The women whom they met fell on their knees at once, till the strange procession had passed them by; the men only bowed their heads thrice, and made a rapid movement on their breasts with their fingers, which reminded Muriel at once of the sign of the cross in Catholic countries.
So on they wended their way in silence through the deep tropical jungle, along a pathway just wide enough for three to walk abreast, till they emerged suddenly upon a large cleared space, in whose midst grew a great banyan-tree, with arms that dropped and rooted themselves like buttresses in the soil beneath. Under the banyan-tree a raised platform stood upon posts of bamboo. The platform was covered with fine network in yellow and red; and two little stools occupied the middle, as if placed there on purpose and waiting for their occupants.
The man who had headed the first canoe turned round to Felix and motioned him forward. “This is Heaven,” he said glibly, in his own tongue. “Spirits, ascend it!”
Felix, much wondering what the ceremony could mean, mounted the platform without a word, in obedience to the chief’s command, closely followed by Muriel, who dared not leave him for a second.
“Bring water!” the chief said, shortly, in a voice of authority to one of his followers.
The man handed up a calabash with a little water in it. The chief took the rude vessel from his hands in a reverential manner, and poured a few drops of the contents on Felix’s head; the water trickled down over his hair and forehead. Involuntarily, Felix shook his head a little at the unexpected wetting, and scattered the drops right and left on his neck and shoulders. The chief watched this performance attentively with profound satisfaction. Then he turned to his attendants.
“The spirit shakes his head,” he said, with a deeply convinced air. “All is well. Heaven has chosen him. Korong! Korong! He is accepted for his purpose. It is well! It is well! Let us try the other one.”
He raised the calabash once more, and poured a few drops in like manner on Muriel’s dark hair. The poor girl, trembling in every limb, shook her head also in the same unintentional fashion. The chief regarded her with still more complacent eyes.
“It is well,” he observed once more to his companions, smiling. “She, too, gives the sign of acceptance. Korong! Korong! Heaven is well pleased with both. See how her body trembles!”
At that moment a girl came forward with a little