The Great Taboo | Page 8

victims,"
the god said, in a gloating voice, running his finger again along the
edge of his huge hatchet.
As he spoke, two men, holding in their hands hollow bamboos with
coals of fire concealed within, which they kept aglow meanwhile by
waving them up and down rapidly in the air, laid these primitive
matches to the base of a great pyramidal pile of wood and palm-leaves,
ready prepared beforehand in the yard of the temple. In a second, the
dry fuel, catching the sparks instantly, blazed up to heaven with a wild
outburst of flame. Great red tongues of fire licked up the mouldering
mass of leaves and twigs, and caught at once at the trunks of palm and
li wood within. A huge conflagration reddened the sky at once like
lightning. The effect was magical. The glow transfigured the whole
island for miles. It was, in fact, the blaze that Felix Thurstan had noted
and remarked upon as he stood that evening on the silent deck of the
Australasian.
Tu-Kila-Kila gazed at it with horrid childish glee. "A fine fire!" he said,
gayly. "A fire worthy of a god. It will serve me well. Tu-Kila-Kila will
have a good oven to roast his meal in."
Then he turned toward the sea, and held up his hand once more for
silence. As he did so, an answering light upon its surface attracted his
eye for a moment's space. It was a bright red light, mixed with white

and green ones; in point of fact, the Australasian was passing.
Tu-Kila-Kila pointed toward it solemnly with his plump, brown
fore-finger. "See," he said, drawing himself up and looking
preternaturally wise; "your god is great. I am sending some of this fire
across the sea to where my sun has set, to aid and reinforce it. That is to
keep up the fire of the sun, lest ever at any time it should fade and fail
you. While Tu-Kila-Kila lives the sun will burn bright. If Tu-Kila-Kila
were to die it would be night forever."
His votaries, following their god's fore-finger as it pointed, all turned to
look in the direction he indicated with blank surprise and astonishment.
Such a sight had never met their eyes before, for the Australasian was
the very first steamer to take the eastward route, through the dangerous
and tortuous Boupari Channel. So their awe and surprise at the
unwonted sight knew no bounds. Fire on the ocean! Miraculous light
on the waves! Their god must, indeed, be a mighty deity if he could
send flames like that careering over the sea! Surely the sun was safe in
the hands of a potentate who could thus visibly reinforce it with red
light, and white! In their astonishment and awe, they stood with their
long hair falling down over their foreheads, and their hands held up to
their eyes that they might gaze the farther across the dim, dark ocean.
The borrowed light of their bonfire was moving, slowly moving over
the watery sea. Fire and water were mixing and mingling on friendly
terms. Impossible! Incredible! Marvellous! Miraculous! They
prostrated themselves in their terror at Tu-Kila-Kila's feet. "Oh, great
god," they cried, in awe-struck tones, "your power is too vast! Spare us,
spare us, spare us!"
As for Tu-Kila-Kila himself, he was not astonished at all. Strange as it
sounds to us, he really believed in his heart what he said. Profoundly
convinced of his own godhead, and abjectly superstitious as any of his
own votaries, he absolutely accepted as a fact his own suggestion, that
the light he saw was the reflection of that his men had kindled. The
interpretation he had put upon it seemed to him a perfectly natural and
just one. His worshippers, indeed, mere men that they were, might be
terrified at the sight; but why should he, a god, take any special notice
of it?

He accepted his own superiority as implicitly as our European nobles
and rulers accept theirs. He had no doubts himself, and he considered
those who had little better than criminals.
By and by, a smaller light detached itself by slow degrees from the
greater ones. The others stood still, and halted in mid-ocean. The lesser
light made as if it would come in the direction of Boupari. In point of
fact, the gig had put out in search of Felix and Muriel.
Tu-Kila-Kila interpreted the facts at once, however, in his own way.
"See," he said, pointing with his plump forefinger once more, and
encouraging with his words his terrified followers, "I am sending back
a light again from the sun to my island. I am doing my work well. I am
taking care of my people. Fear not for your future. In the light is yet
another victim.