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Updated: June 9, 2025
Among savages, one expects things to be as among savages." Felix drew a quiet sigh. It was certain that on the island of Boupari that expectation, at least, was never doomed to disappointment. "And when a Korong is taken to Tu-Kila-Kila's temple," he asked, continuing the subject of most immediate interest, "what happens next to him?"
Felix wound his way painfully through the deep fern-brake of the jungle, by no regular path, so as to avoid exciting the alarm of the natives, and to take Tu-Kila-Kila's palace-temple from the rear, where the big tree, which overshadowed it with its drooping branches, was most easily approachable.
The woman gave her message in short, sharp sentences. "We have found out all," she said, breathing hard. "Fire and Water have learned it. But Tu-Kila-Kila himself knows nothing. We have found out that the King of the Rain has discovered the secret of the Great Taboo. He heard it from the Soul of all dead parrots. Tu-Kila-Kila's Eyes saw, and learned, and understood.
They may look toward the place where Tu-Kila-Kila's face is hidden from them." The people all rose with one accord, and gazed straight before them. "The King of Fire will bring dry sticks," Tu-Kila-Kila said, in his accustomed regal manner. The King of Fire, sticking one pole of the screen into the ground securely, brought forward a bundle of sun-dried sticks and leaves from a basket beside him.
According to her simple natural philosophy, that was a certain sign that through the parrot's instrumentality Tu-Kila-Kila's life would be forfeited to the great eternal earth-spirit. Or, rather, the earth-spirit would claim the blood of the man Lavita, in whose body it dwelt, and would itself migrate to some new earthly tabernacle. But for all that, she dissembled.
In a moment the answer flashed back, word by word, "Come quick, if you want to hear. Methuselah is reciting!" A few seconds later Muriel emerged from her hut, and the two Europeans, closely followed, as always, by their inseparable Shadows, took the winding side-path that led through the jungle by a devious way, avoiding the front of Tu-Kila-Kila's temple, to the Frenchman's cottage.
They are Tu-Kila-Kila's trespass-offering. Let us kill them and eat them!" In a moment, Felix's mind was fully made up. There was no time to think; it was the hour for action. He saw how he must comport himself toward this strange wild people.
"The King of the Rain has been here," he said, in a pompous tone, as the Frenchman rose and saluted him ceremoniously. "Tu-Kila-Kila's eyes are sharp. They never sleep. The sun is his sight. He beholds all things. You cannot hide aught in heaven or earth from the knowledge of him that dwells in heaven. I look down upon land and sea, and spy out all that takes place or is planned in them.
As she stole from the hut, Tu-Kila-Kila, looking ruefully at his wounded hand, and then at that light and supple retreating figure, muttered sulkily to himself, with a very bad grace, "the woman knows too much. She nearly wormed my secret out of me. She knows that Tu-Kila-Kila's life and soul are bound up in the tree. She knows that I bled, and that the parrot bit me.
But Felix, keeping ever his cool head undisturbed, stood on the dusty mound by Tu-Kila-Kila's house, and taking in his hand the little mirror he had made from the match-box, flashed the light from the sun full in their eyes for a moment, to the astonishment and discomfiture of all those gaping savages.
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