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"On every day of the sun's course but this, none save the ministers dedicated to the service of Tu-Kila-Kila dare gaze unhurt upon his sacred person. If any other did, the light from his holy eyes would wither them up, and the glow of his glorious countenance would scorch them to ashes." He raised his two hands, palm outward, in front of him.
Then, having done so, they never strove for a moment to stanch the wound, but let the red drops fall as they would on to the dust at their feet, without seeming even to be conscious at all of the fact that they were flowing. Tu-Kila-Kila smiled once more, a ghastly self-satisfied smile of unquestioned power. "It is well," he went on. "My people love me.
The Frenchman looked back at him with as little love as Tu-Kila-Kila himself would have displayed had his face been visible. "Yes, you are a very great god," he answered, in the conventional tone of Polynesian adulation, with just a faint under-current of irony running through his accent as he spoke. "You say the truth. You do, indeed, know all things.
Gazing down and trying hard to take it all in that strange savage scene he saw that Tu-Kila-Kila was making frantic attempts to lunge at him with the spear, while the King of Fire and the King of Water, stern and relentless, were holding him off by main force, and striving their best to appease and quiet him. There was an awful pause.
These savages may be afraid, and may think you are a god; but if you are, then I am a god ten thousand times stronger than you. One more word one more look like that, I say and I plunge this knife remorselessly into you." Tu-Kila-Kila drew back, and smiled benignly. Stalwart ruffian as he was, and absolute master of his own people's lives, he was yet afraid in a way of the strange new-comer.
Were they only waiting till he moved, Felix wondered; and would they then hasten off by short routes through the jungle to warn their master of the impending conflict? At last the hour came when Felix felt sure there was the greatest chance of Tu-Kila-Kila sleeping soundly in his hut, and forgetting the defence of the sacred bough on the holy banyan-tree.
Tu-Kila-Kila there is none, save only me; for the other, that was, I have fought and conquered. The Queen of the Clouds is with me. The King of the Birds is with me. Consider, then, O friends, that if you kill us all, you will have nowhere to turn; you will be left quite godless." "It is true," the people murmured, looking about them, half puzzled. "He is wise. He speaks well.
My sister Jani go too near him temple, against taboo because her not belong-a Tu-Kila-Kila temple; and last night, when it great feast, plenty men catch Jani, and tie him up in rope; and Tu-Kila-Kila kill him, and plenty Boupari men help Tu-Kila-Kila eat up Jani." She said it in the same simple, matter-of-fact way as she had said that she was a nurse for three years in Queensland.
There I draw a line so, with my stick in the dust, if you try to advance one step beyond, I stab you to the heart. Wait till to-morrow to take your prey. Give me one more night. Great god as you are, if you are wise, you will not drive an angry man to utter desperation." Tu-Kila-Kila looked with a suspicious side glance at the gleaming steel blade Felix still fingered tremulously.
"Tu-Kila-Kila come," she answered, all breathless. "No blackfellow look at him. Burn blackfellow up. You and Missy Korong. All right for you. Go out to meet him!" "Tu-Kila-Kila is coming," the young man-Shadow said, in Polynesian, almost in the same breath, and no less tremulously. "We dare not look upon his face lest he burn us to ashes. He is a very great Taboo. His face is fire.
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