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Hitherto Tabus had listened quietly, but when she closed her passionate threats with the exclamation that he also deserved punishment for alienating Gula, the sailor's wife, from her absent husband, the enchantress also lost her composure and cried out angrily: "If that is true, if the Greek really committed that crime then certainly.
At Honannau, Hawaii, two young girls of the highest rank, Kapiolani and Keoua, having been detected in the act of eating a banana, their kahu, or tutor, was held responsible, and put to death by drowning. Shortly before the abolition of the tabus, a little child had one of her eyes scooped out for the same offense.
"And he?" asked Tabus anxiously. "He called the brief hours which I required him to wait an eternity," replied the girl, "and they seemed no less long to me but neither entreaties nor urgency availed; what you predicted for me from the cords last year strengthened my courage.
Meanwhile the lad, a precocious fourteen-year-old cabin-boy from the Hydra, pointed to the boat which lay ready, and took Ledscha's bundle in his hand; but she sprang into the light skiff before him and ordered it to be rowed to the Owl's Nest, where she must bid Mother Tabus good-bye.
I fancy I can still hear him exclaim, with loving impetuosity, that he hated every day and every night which kept him from me. And now? Now? For another's sake he lets me wait for him in vain, and if his slave does not lie, this is only the beginning of his infamous, treacherous game." She had uttered the last words in a hoarse cry, but Tabus answered soothingly: "Hush, child, hush!
Ledscha had expected her lover's return with eager longing, but week after week elapsed, yet nothing was seen or heard of the ships owned by the Owl's Nest family; then a rumour spread that this time the corsairs were defeated in a battle with the Syrian war-galleys. The first person who received sure tidings was old Tabus.
Therefore do you understand me? you must question the cords now, to-night, for to-morrow evening what they advised might be too late." "Now?" repeated Tabus in surprise, letting her gaze rest inquiringly upon the girl. Then she took the spit from the fire, exclaiming angrily: "Directly, do you mean? As if that could be! As if the stars obeyed us mortals like maids or men servants!
Our Taus," she continued in a more gentle tone, "is still so young, and our mother died when she was a little child; but I, fool, who should have warned her, left her alone, and if she yielded to Hermon's temptations the fault is mine, wholly mine." During this outburst the light of the fire, which old Tabus had fed with fresh straw and dry rushes, fell upon the face of the agitated girl.
The prediction of old Tabus, who ruled as mistress over so many demons, could not deceive. After Ledscha had so lately reminded the lover who so vehemently roused her jealous wrath what this night of the full moon meant to her, she could rely upon his appearance in spite of everything.
Yet the official ordered the Owl's Nest to be searched. In doing this he made himself guilty of an act of violence, as the island's right of asylum still existed, and this incensed the irritable and refractory Biamites the more violently, the deeper was the reverent awe with which the nation regarded Tabus, who, according to their belief, was over a hundred years old.
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