The Great Taboo

he unknown savages. From time to time he kept adding dry fuel to his smouldering pile; and he never ceased to keep a keen eye both on the lagoon and the reef, in case an assault

ious experience the full loneliness a

islets where the very rumor of our Europe

island. That, for the moment, was more than enough for her of accumulated misfortune. She come to herself but slowly, and as her torn clothes dried by degrees before the fire and the heat of the tropical night, she was so far from fully realizing the dangers of their position that her first and principal fear for the moment was lest she might take cold from her wet things drying upon her. She ate a little of

rtain to be. Who could tell what nameless indignities, what incredible tortures they might wantonly inflict upon her innocent soul? Was it right of him to have let he

dly hands of a tenderhearted fellow-countryman, to the unspeakable insults of these man-eating Polynesians? If only he had the courage to release her by one blow, as she lay there, from the coming ill! But he hadn't; he hadn't. Even on board the Australasian he had been vaguely aware that he was getting very fo

when further resistance was hopeless, and that great black wave of angry humanity burst in upon them at last, the brave soldier had drawn his revolver, shot his wife and daughter with unerring aim, to prevent their falling alive into the hands of the natives, and then blown his own brains out with his last remaining cartridge. As his uncle had

sign of a noiseless, naked footfall through the tangled growth of that dense tropical under-bush. Time after time he clapped his hand to his ear, shell-wise, and listened and peered, with knitted brow, suspecting some sudden swoop from an ambush in the jungle of creepers behind the little plantain

ts 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. All night through he had felt, with a strange eerie misgiving, the very foundations of the land thrill under

atoll itself, a tiny mountain-peak, just projecting with its hills and gorges to a few hundred feet above the surface of the ocean. Outside it came the lagoon, with its placid ring of glassy water surrounding the circular island, and separated f

n the opposite shore. Brown-skinned savages were collecting in eager groups by a white patch of beach, and putting out rude but well-manned canoes into the calm waters of the lagoon. At sight of their naked arms and bustling

forgetting in the excitement of the moment the little conventionalities and courtesies of civilized life, "if they are, trust me, yo

ried, turning deadly pale. Then, after a short pause, she added, "But I would rather have it so. Do a

, and paused, with the knife ever ready in his righ

as they drew nearer and nearer. But Felix, holding his breath hard, grew somewhat less nervous as the men approached the reef. He had seen enough of Polynesian life before now to feel sure these people were not upon the war-path. Whatever their ultimate intentions toward the castaways might be, their immediate object seemed friendly and good-humored. The boats, though large, were not regular war-canoes; the men, instead of brandishing their spears, and lunging out with them over the edg

s terrified companion. "I can understand his dialect. Thank Heaven, it's very close to Fijian. I shall be able at least to

ever. "Oh, are they going to land here?" she cried, still cli

re resolute, they suspect you have some supernatural means of protection. Try to meet them frankly, as if you were not afraid of them." Then, advancing slowly to the water's edge, he called out aloud, in a strong, clear voice, a few

d 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 th

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 m

. 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 oste

tives as the dry leaves leaped all at once into a tongue of flam

evident approbation. "It is as Tu-Kila-Kila said," he exclaimed at last with profound a

u-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 me

ild chorus, as if to confirm his words, "Taboo! Taboo! Tu-

g 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

urally as she would have clung to a brother's. "Oh, Mr. Thurstan,"

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

awe, exclaimed once more in concert, "Tu-Kila-Kila is gre

lose to the white man's side in her speechle

to say, not every word of it. They say they'll take us somewhere, I don't

't think," she said, with a tremul

ly. "They said we were Taboo. But with savages like these