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Updated: May 14, 2025
By the dim light of the moon, straggling through the dense foliage, Felix could see its yellow leaves distinctly. Beneath it hung a skeleton, suspended by invisible cords, head downward from the branches. It was the skeleton of a previous Korong who had tried in vain to reach the bough, and perished.
Ula crept nearer, with one lithe round arm laid caressingly close to her master's neck. "Then why do you make them Korong?" she asked, with feminine curiosity, like some wife who seeks to worm out of her husband the secret of freemasonry. "Why do you not cook them and eat them at once, as soon as they arrive? They are very good food so white and fine.
The men who had wounded Felix, in particular, now came daily in the morning with exceptional gifts of fish, fruit, and flowers; they would bring a crab from the sea, or a joint of turtle-meat. "Forgive us, O king," they cried, prostrating themselves humbly. "We did not mean to hurt you; we thought your time had really come. You are a Korong. We would not offend you.
"They are plump," he said shortly. "They are indeed Korong. My sun has sent me an acceptable present." "What is your will that we should do with them?" the chief asked in a deeply deferential tone. Tu-Kila-Kila looked hard at Muriel such a hateful look that the knife trembled irresolute for a second in Felix's hand. "Give them two fresh huts," he said, in a lordly way. "Give them divine platters.
He clapped his hands thrice. Tu-Kila-Kila made a wild effort to break away once more. But the King of Fire, standing opposite him, spoke still louder and clearer. "If you touch the Korong before the line is drawn," he said, with a voice of authority, "you are no Tu-Kila-Kila, but an outcast and a criminal.
It seems that a long time ago how many years ago nobody knows, only that it was in the time of the thirty-ninth Tu-Kila-Kila, before the reign of Lavita, the son of Sami a strange Korong was cast up upon this island by the waves of the sea, much as you and I have been in the present generation.
"And this here is the manner whereby I obtained it. The Too-Keela-Keela from time to time doth generally appoint any castaway stranger that comes to the island to the post of Korong that is to say, an annual god or victim.
But I, myself, having through God's grace found favor in their eyes, was promoted to the post which in their speech is called Korong, the nature of which this bird, my mouthpiece, will hereafter, to your ears, more fully discover." Having said so much, in a very jerky way, Methuselah paused, and blinked his eyes wearily. "What does he say?" the Frenchman began, eager to know the truth.
"Korong must not touch or give anything to a bride," he said, quietly; "not with his own hand. He must not lay his finger on her; that would be unlucky. But he may hand it by his Shadow." Then he turned to his fellow-tribesmen.
"Of course," the young man answered, with a tone of natural assent. "To be sure he hates you. How could he do otherwise? You are Korong. You may any day be his enemy." "But he's afraid of me, too," Felix went on. "He would have liked to let the people tear me in pieces. Yet he dared not risk it. He seems to dread offending me." "Of course," the Shadow replied, as readily as before.
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