Grant Allen

“ The King of Water bent his head a second time. “I am a great god,” he answered, “before all others save you: but for you, Tu-Kila-Kila, I haste to do your bidding. If any man disobey you, my billows shall rise and overwhelm him in the sea. I am a great god. I claim each year many drowned victims.”
“But not so many as me,” Tu-Kila-Kila interposed, his hand playing on his knife with a faint air of impatience.
“But not so many as you,” the minor god added, in haste, as if to appease his rising anger. “Fire and Water ever speed to do your bidding.” ”

“ Ula raised herself on her elbow, and gazed snake-like into his face, “My lord’s Eyes are everywhere,” she said, reverently, with every mark of respect. “He sees and knows all things. Who can hide anything on earth from his face? Even when he is asleep, his Eyes watch well for him. Then why should the great god, the Measurer of Heaven and Earth, the King of Men, fear a white-faced stranger? To-morrow the Queen of the Clouds will be yours, and the stranger will be abased: ha, ha, he will grieve at it! ”

“ For there is a way of escape for every Korong: I know it well; I gather it from all the natives say; it is a part of their mysteries; but what it may be, I have hitherto, in spite of all my efforts, failed to discover. All I do know is this: Tu-Kila-Kila hates and dreads in his heart every Korong that is elevated to Heaven, and would do anything, if he dared, to get rid of him quietly. But he doesn’t dare, because he is bound hand and foot himself, too, by taboos innumerable. Taboo is the real god and king of Boupari. All the island alike bows down to it and worships it. ”

“ The white-faced Korong is a very great deity! He is indeed the true Tu-Kila-Kila. These gods have come for him. They are very mighty. Thunder and lightning and waterspouts are theirs. The waves do as they bid. The sea obeys them. They are here to take away our Tu-Kila-Kila from our midst. And what will then become of the island of Boupari? Will it not sink in the waves of the sea and disappear? Will not the sun in heaven grow dark, and the moon cease to shed its benign light on the earth, when Tu-Kila-Kila the Great returns at last to his own far country? ”

“ Turning suddenly round upon the sleek, caressing hand, he darted his beak with a vicious peck at his assailant, and bit the divine finger of the Pillar of Heaven as carelessly as he would have bitten any child on Boupari. Tu-Kila-Kila, thunder-struck, drew back his arm with a start of surprise and a loud cry of pain. The bird had wounded him. He shook his hand and stamped. Blood was dropping on the ground from the man-god’s finger. He hardly knew what strange evil this omen of harm might portend for the world. ”

“ The Soul of all dead parrots had carried out the curse, and had drawn red drops from the sacred veins of Tu-Kila-Kila.
One must be a savage one’s self, and superstitious at that, fully to understand the awful significance of this deadly occurrence. To draw blood from a god, and, above all, to let that blood fall upon the dust of the ground, is the very worst luck—too awful for the human mind to contemplate. ”

“ While that precious hour of taboo lasted, no wandering dragon or spirit of the air could hurt the holy tree, and no human assailant dare touch or approach it. Even the disease-making gods, who walk in the pestilence, could not blight or wither it. At all other times Tu-Kila-Kila mounted guard over his tree with a jealousy that fairly astonished Felix Thurstan’s soul; for Felix Thurstan only dimly understood as yet how implicitly Tu-Kila-Kila’s own life and office were bound up with the inviolability of the banyan he protected. ”

“ I claim more human victims than all the other gods beside. If you want your crops to grow, and your rivers to run, the fields to yield you game, and the sea fish—this is what I ask: give me victims, victims! That is our compact. Tu-Kila-Kila calls you.”
The men bowed down once more and repeated humbly, “You shall have victims as you will, great god; only give us yam and taro and bread-fruit, and cause not your bright light, the sun, to grow dark in heaven over us.” ”

“ A very old chief rose from the ranks outside. His hair was white and his eyes bleared. “Tu-Kila-Kila speaks well,” he cried, in a loud but mumbling voice. “His words are wise. He argues to the point. He is very cunning. I advise you, my people, to be careful how you anger the white-faced stranger, for you know what he is; he is cruel; he is powerful. There was never any storm in my time—and I am an old man—so great in Boupari as the storm that rose when the King of the Rain ate the storm-apple. Our yams and our taros even now are suffering from it. He is a mighty strong god. ”

“ But the women, knowing themselves unworthy to face the dread presence of the high god in his wrath, rush wildly from the spot, and, flinging themselves down at full length, with their mouths to the dust, wait patiently till the voice of their deity is no longer audible.
And as the bull-roarer on Boupari rang out with wild echoes from the coral caverns in the central grove that evening, Tu-Kila-Kila, their god, rose slowly from his place, and stood out from his hut, a deity revealed, before his reverential worshippers. ”

“ 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 god! The King of all Things! He sends down his showers upon our crops and our fields. He causes his sun to shine brightly over us. He makes our pigs and our slaves bring forth their increase. All we are but his meat. ”

“ As she stole from the hut, Tu-Kila-Kila, looking ruefully at his wounded hand, and then at that light and supple retreating figure, muttered sulkily to himself, with a very bad grace, “the woman knows too much. She nearly wormed my secret out of me. She knows that Tu-Kila-Kila’s life and soul are bound up in the tree. She knows that I bled, and that the parrot bit me. If she blabs, as women will do, mischief may come of it. I am a great god, a very great god—keen, bloodthirsty, cruel. ”

“ Felix looked at Muriel, and Muriel looked at Felix. They could hardly contain themselves with awe and surprise. The parrot’s words were so human, its speech was so real to them, that they felt as though the English Tu-Kila-Kila of two hundred years back had really and truly been speaking to them from that perch; it was a human creature indeed that lay dead before them. Felix raised the warm body from the ground with positive reverence. ”

“ Felix asked, with intense interest.
“Oh, no, he’s not nearly so powerful as that,” the Shadow answered, half terrified at the bare suggestion. “No god in heaven or earth is like Tu-Kila-Kila. This one is only king of the birds, which is a little province, while Tu-Kila-Kila is king of heaven and earth, of plants and animals, of gods and men, of all things created. At his nod the sky shakes and the rocks tremble. But still, this god is Tula, like Tu-Kila-Kila. He is not for a year. He goes on forever, till some other supplants him.” ”

“ Tu-Kila-Kila asked, a little relieved.
“I am the King of the Birds, and I know the voices of my subjects by heart; I assure you it is as I say,” M. Peyron answered, drawing himself up solemnly.
Tu-Kila-Kila looked askance, with something very closely approaching a wink in his left eye. “We two are both gods,” he said, with a tinge of irony in his tone. “We know what that means.... I do not feel so certain.”
He stood close by the parrot with itching fingers. “It is very, very old,” he went on to himself, musingly. “It can’t live long. And then—none but Boupari men will know the secret.” ”

“ By and by, above even the fierce roar of the mingled thunder and cyclone, a wild orgy of noise burst upon them all from without the hut. It was a sound as of numberless drums and tom-toms, all beaten in unison with the mad energy of fear; a hideous sound, suggestive of some hateful heathen devil-worship. Muriel clapped her hands to her ears in horror. “Oh, what’s that?” she cried to Felix, at this new addition to their endless alarms. “Are the savages out there rising in a body? Have they come to murder us?” ”

“ 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 god, is great. He springs ever young and fresh, like the herbs of the field. He is a most high god. 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A very beautiful woman this Ula, certainly. Not one of all his wives had larger brown limbs, or whiter teeth, or a deeper respect for his divine nature. He had almost a mind—it was only Ula? Why not break the silence enjoined upon gods toward women, and explain this matter to her? Not the great secret itself, of course—the secret on which hung the Death and Transmigration of Tu-Kila-Kila—oh, no; not that one. The savage was far too cunning in his generation to intrust that final terrible Taboo to the ears of a woman. But the reason why he made all strangers Korong. ”

“ Oh, our mother, great queen, mighty goddess, stop with us! Take not away your sun from the heavens, nor your rain from the crops. We acknowledge we have sinned; we have done very wrong; but the chief sinner is dead; the wrong-doer has paid; spare us who remain; spare us, great deity; do not make the bright lights of heaven become dark over us. Stay with your worshippers, and we will give you choice young girls to eat every day, we will sacrifice the tenderest of our children to feed you. ”

“ They burn up brighter and fresher than ever. They burn to cook my meat, the limbs of my victims. Take heed that you do the King of the Rain no harm as long as he remains within his sacred circle. He is a very great god. He is fierce; he is cruel. His taboo is not broken. Beware! Beware! Disobey at your peril. I, Tu-Kila-Kila, have spoken.”
As he spoke, it seemed to Felix that these strange mystic words about each god springing fresh from his own ashes must contain the solution of that dread problem they were trying in vain to read. That, perhaps, was the secret of Korong. ”

“ Felix approached the mysterious and venerable bird with somewhat incautious fingers. “It looks very old,” he said, trying to stroke its head and neck with a friendly gesture. “You do well, indeed, in calling it Methuselah.”
As he spoke, the bird, alarmed at the vague consciousness of a hand and voice which it did not recognize and mindful of Tu-Kila-Kila’s recent attack, made a vicious peck at the fingers outstretched to caress it. “Take care!” the Frenchman cried, in a warning voice. “The patriarch’s temper is no longer what it was sixty or seventy years ago. He grows old and peevish. ”

“ The captain felt uncertain whether the natives would close round them in force or not. It is always dangerous to fire a shot at savages. But the Boupari men were too utterly awed to venture on defence. “He was Tu-Kila-Kila’s enemy,” they cried, in astonished tones. “He raised his voice against the very high god. Therefore, the very high god’s friends have smitten him with their lightning. Their thunderbolt went through him, and hit the water beyond. How strong is their hand! They can kill from afar. They are mighty gods. Let no man strive to fight against the friends of Tu-Kila-Kila.” ”

“ The King of Fire came forward ostentatiously and made taboo. “If, any man cross this line,” he said in a droning sing-song, “till the canoe return from the great oracle of our faith on Aloa Mauna, I, Fire, will scorch him into cinder and ashes. If any woman transgress, I will pitch her with palm oil, and light her up for a lamp on a moonless night to lighten this temple.”
The King of Water distributed shark’s-tooth spears. At once a great serried wall hemmed in the Europeans all round, and they sat down to wait, the three whites together, for the upshot of the mission to Aloa Mauna. ”

“ It is the fashion of this people to hold that their gods must always be strong and lusty. For they argue to themselves thus: that the continuance of the rain must needs depend upon the vigor and subtlety of its Soul, the rain-god. So the continuance and fruitfulness of the trees and plants which yield them food must needs depend upon the health of the tree-god. And the life of the world, and the light of the sun, and the well-being of all things that in them are, must depend upon the strength and cunning of the high god of all, Too-Keela-Keela. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”