The Great Taboo

The Great Taboo

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Title: The Great Taboo
Author: Grant Allen
Release Date: October 26, 2004 [eBook #13876]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE GREAT TABOO
by
GRANT ALLEN

PREFACE
I desire to express my profound indebtedness, for the central
mythological idea embodied in this tale, to Mr. J.G. Frazer's admirable
and epoch-making work, "The Golden Bough," whose main contention
I have endeavored incidentally to popularize in my present story. I wish
also to express my obligations in other ways to Mr. Andrew Lang's
"Myth, Ritual, and Religion," Mr. H.O. Forbes's "Naturalist's
Wanderings," and Mr. Julian Thomas's "Cannibals and Convicts." If I

have omitted to mention any other author to whom I may have owed
incidental hints, it will be some consolation to me to reflect that I shall
at least have afforded an opportunity for legitimate sport to the
amateurs of the new and popular British pastime of badger-baiting or
plagiary-hunting. It may also save critics some moments' search if I say
at once that, after careful consideration, I have been unable to discover
any moral whatsoever in this humble narrative. I venture to believe that
in so enlightened an age the majority of my readers will never miss it.
G.A.
THE NOOK, DORKING, October, 1890.


CHAPTER I.
IN MID PACIFIC.
"Man overboard!"
It rang in Felix Thurstan's ears like the sound of a bell. He gazed about
him in dismay, wondering what had happened.
The first intimation he received of the accident was that sudden sharp
cry from the bo'sun's mate. Almost before he had fully taken it in, in all
its meaning, another voice, farther aft, took up the cry once more in an
altered form: "A lady! a lady! Somebody overboard! Great heavens, it
is her! It's Miss Ellis! Miss Ellis!"
Next instant Felix found himself, he knew not how, struggling in a wild
grapple with the dark, black water. A woman was clinging to
him--clinging for dear life. But he couldn't have told you himself that
minute how it all took place. He was too stunned and dazzled.
He looked around him on the seething sea in a sudden awakening, as it
were, to life and consciousness. All about, the great water stretched
dark and tumultuous. White breakers surged over him. Far ahead the
steamer's lights gleamed red and green in long lines upon the ocean. At

first they ran fast; then they slackened somewhat. She was surely
slowing now; they must be reversing engines and trying to stop her.
They would put out a boat. But what hope, what chance of rescue by
night, in such a wild waste of waves as that? And Muriel Ellis was
clinging to him for dear life all the while, with the despairing clutch of
a half-drowned woman!
The people on the Australasian, for their part, knew better what had
occurred. There was bustle and confusion enough on deck and on the
captain's bridge, to be sure: "Man overboard!"--three sharp rings at the
engine bell:--"Stop her short!--reverse engines!--lower the gig!--look
sharp, there, all of you!" Passengers hurried up breathless at the first
alarm to know what was the matter. Sailors loosened and lowered the
boat from the davits with extraordinary quickness. Officers stood by,
giving orders in monosyllables with practised calm. All was hurry and
turmoil, yet with a marvellous sense of order and prompt obedience as
well. But, at any rate, the people on deck hadn't the swift swirl of the
boisterous water, the hampering wet clothes, the pervading
consciousness of personal danger, to make their brains reel, like Felix
Thurstan's. They could ask one another with comparative composure
what had happened on board; they could listen without terror to the
story of the accident.
It was the thirteenth day out from Sydney, and the Australasian was
rapidly nearing the equator. Toward evening the wind had freshened,
and the sea was running high against her weather side. But it was a fine
starlit night, though the moon had not yet risen; and as the brief tropical
twilight faded away by quick degrees in the west, the fringe of
cocoanut palms on the reef that bounded the little island of Boupari
showed out for a minute or two in dark relief, some miles to leeward,
against the pale pink horizon. In spite of the heavy sea, many
passengers