style="font-size:15px;"> "I promise," Felix answered, clasping her hand hard, and paused, with the knife ever ready in his right, awaiting the approach of the half-naked savages.
The boats glided fast across the lagoon, propelled by the paddles of the stalwart Polynesians who manned them, and crowded to the water's edge with groups of grinning and shouting warriors. They were dressed in aprons of dracæna leaves only, with necklets and armlets of sharks' teeth and cowrie shells. A dozen canoes at least were making toward the reef at full speed, all bristling with spears and alive with noisy and boisterous savages. Muriel shrank back terror-stricken at the sight, as they drew nearer and nearer. But Felix, holding his breath hard, grew somewhat less nervous as the men approached the reef. He had seen enough of Polynesian life before now to feel sure these people were not upon the war-path. Whatever their ultimate intentions toward the castaways might be, their immediate object seemed friendly and good-humored. The boats, though large, were not regular war-canoes; the men, instead of brandishing their spears, and lunging out with them over the edge in threatening attitudes, held them erect in their hands at rest, like standards; they were laughing and talking, not crying their war-cry. As they drew near the shore, one big canoe shot suddenly a length or so ahead of the rest; and its leader, standing on the grotesque carved figure that adorned its prow, held up both his hands open and empty before him, in sign of peace, while at the same time he shouted out a word or two three times in his own language, to reassure the castaways.
Felix's eye glanced cautiously from boat to boat. "He says, 'We are friends,'" the young man remarked in an undertone to his terrified companion. "I can understand his dialect. Thank Heaven, it's very close to Fijian. I shall be able at least to palaver to these men. I don't think they mean just now to harm us. I believe we can trust them, at any rate for the present."
The poor girl drew back, in still greater awe and alarm than ever. "Oh, are they going to land here?" she cried, still clinging closer with both hands to her one friend and protector.
"Try not to look so frightened!" Felix exclaimed, with a warning glance. "Remember, much depends upon it; savages judge you greatly by what demeanor you happen to assume. If you're frightened, they know their power; if they see you're resolute, they suspect you have some supernatural means of protection. Try to meet them frankly, as if you were not afraid of them." Then, advancing slowly to the water's edge, he called out aloud, in a strong, clear voice, a few words which Muriel didn't understand, but which were really the Fijian for "We also are friendly. Our medicine is good. We mean no magic. We come to you from across the great water. We desire your peace. Receive us and protect us!"
At the sound of words which he could readily understand, and which differed but little, indeed, from his own language, the leader on the foremost canoe, who seemed by his manner to be a great chief, turned round to his followers and cried out in tones of superstitious awe, "Tu-Kila-Kila spoke well. These are, indeed, what he told us. Korong! Korong! They are spirits who have come to us from the disk of the sun, to bring us light and pure, fresh fire. Stay back there, all of you. You are not holy enough to approach. I and my crew, who are sanctified by the mysteries, we alone will go forward to meet them."
As he spoke, a sudden idea, suggested by his words, struck Felix's mind. Superstition is the great lever by which to move the savage intelligence. Gathering up a few dry leaves and fragments of stick on the shore, he laid them together in a pile, and awaited in silence the arrival of the foremost islanders. The first canoe advanced slowly and cautiously, the men in it eying these proceedings with evident suspicion; the rest hung back, with their spears in array, and their hands just ready to use them with effect should occasion demand it.
The leader of the first canoe, coming close to the shore, jumped out upon the reef in shallow water. Half a dozen of his followers jumped after him without hesitation, and brandished their weapons round their heads as they advanced, in savage unison. But Felix, pretending hardly to notice these hostile demonstrations, stepped boldly up toward his little pile with great deliberation, though trembling inwardly, and proceeded before their eyes to take a match from his box, which he displayed ostentatiously, all glittering in the sun, to the foremost savage. The leader stood by and watched him close with eyes of silent wonder. Then Felix, kneeling down, struck the match on the box, and applied it, as it lighted, to the dry leaves beside him.
A chorus of astonishment burst unanimously from the delighted natives as the dry leaves leaped all at once into a tongue of flame, and the little pile caught quickly from the fire in the vesta.
The leader looked hard at the two white faces, and then at the fire on the beach, with evident approbation. "It is as Tu-Kila-Kila said," he exclaimed at last with profound awe. "They are spirits from the sun, and they carry with them pure fire in shining boxes."
Then, advancing a pace and pointing toward the canoe, he motioned Felix and Muriel to take their seats within it with native savage politeness. "Tu-Kila-Kila has sent for you," he said, in his grandest aristocratic air, "for your chief is a gentleman. He wishes to receive you. He saw your message-fire on the reef last night, and he knew you had come. He has made you a very great Taboo. He has put you under protection of Fire and Water."
The people in the boats, with one accord, shouted out in wild chorus, as if to confirm his words, "Taboo! Taboo! Tu-Kila-Kila has said it! Taboo! Taboo! Ware Fire! Ware Water!"
Though the dialect in which they spoke differed somewhat from that in use in Fiji, Felix could still make out with care almost every word of what the chief had said to him; and the universal Polynesian expression, "Taboo," in particular, somewhat reassured him as to their friendly intentions. Among remote heathen islanders like these, he felt sure, the very word itself was far too sacred to be taken in vain. They would respect its inviolability. He turned round to Muriel. "We must go with them," he said, shortly. "It's our one chance left of life now. Don't be too terrified; there is still some hope. They say somebody they call Tu-Kila-Kila has tabooed us. No one will dare to hurt us against so great a Taboo; for Tu-Kila-Kila is evidently some very important king or chief. You must step into the boat. It can't be avoided. If any harm is threatened, be sure I won't forget my promise."
Muriel shrank back in alarm, and clung still to his arm now as naturally as she would have clung to a brother's. "Oh, Mr. Thurstan," she cried—"Felix, I don't know what to say; I can't go with them."
Felix put his arm gently round her girlish waist, and half lifted her into the boat in spite of her reluctance. "You must," he said, with great firmness. "You must do as I say. I will watch over you, and take care of you. If the worst comes, I have always my knife, and I won't forget. Now, friend," he went on, in Fijian, turning round to the chief, as he took his seat in the canoe fearlessly among all those dusky, half-clad figures, "we are ready to start. We do not fear. We wish to go. Take us to Tu-Kila-Kila."
And all the savages around, shouting in their surprise and awe, exclaimed once more in concert, "Tu-Kila-Kila is great. We will take them, as he bids us, forthwith to heaven."
"What do they say?" Muriel cried, clinging close to the white man's side in her speechless terror. "Do you understand their language?"
"Well, I can't quite make it out," Felix answered, much puzzled; "that is to say, not every word of it. They say they'll take us somewhere, I don't quite know where; but in Fijian, the word would certainly mean to heaven."
Muriel shuddered visibly. "You don't think," she said, with a tremulous tongue, "they mean to kill us?"
"No, I don't think so," Felix replied, not over-confidently. "They said we were Taboo. But with savages like these, of course, one can never in any case be quite certain."
CHAPTER V.
ENROLLED IN OLYMPUS
They rowed across the lagoon, a mysterious procession, almost in silence—the canoe with the two Europeans
