The Great Taboo. Allen Grant

shells at his waist, interspersed with red coral.

      “The King of Fire will make Taboo,” the chief said, solemnly.

      The young man with the cloak of yellow feathers stepped forward and spoke, toeing the line with his left foot, and brandishing a lighted stick in his right hand. “Taboo! Taboo! Taboo!” he cried aloud, with emphasis. “If any man dare to transgress this line without leave, I burn him to ashes. If any woman, I scorch her to a cinder. Taboo to the King of the Rain and the Queen of the Clouds. Taboo! Taboo! Taboo! Korong! I say it.”

      He stepped back into the ranks with an air of duty performed. The chief looked about him curiously a moment. “The King of Water will make Taboo,” he repeated after a pause, in the same deep tone of profound conviction.

      The stouter man in the short white cape stepped forward in his turn. He toed the line with his naked left foot; in his brown right hand he carried a calabash of water. “Taboo! Taboo! Taboo!” he exclaimed aloud, pouring out the water upon the ground symbolically. “If any man dare to transgress this line without leave, I drown him in his canoe. If any woman, I drag her alive into the spring as she fetches water. Taboo to the King of the Rain and the Queen of the Clouds. Taboo! Taboo! Taboo! Korong! I say it.”

      “What does it all mean?” Muriel whispered, terrified.

      Felix explained to her, as far as he could, in a few hurried sentences. “There’s only one word in it I don’t understand,” he added, hastily, “and that’s Korong. It doesn’t occur in Fiji. They keep saying we’re Korong, whatever that may mean; and evidently they attach some very great importance to it.”

      “Let the Shadows come forward,” the chief said, looking up with an air of dignity.

      A good-looking young man, and the girl who said her name was Mali, stepped forth from the crowd, and fell on their knees before him.

      The chief laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder and raised him up. “The Shadow of the King of the Rain,” he cried, turning him three times round. “Follow him in all his incomings and his outgoings, and serve him faithfully! Taboo! Taboo! Pass within the sacred circle!”

      He clapped his hands. The young man crossed the line with a sort of reverent reluctance, and took his place within the ring, close up to Felix.

      The chief laid his hand on Mali’s shoulder. “The Shadow of the Queen of the Clouds,” he said, turning her three times round. “Follow her in all her incomings and outgoings, and serve her faithfully. Taboo! Taboo! Pass within the sacred circle!”

      Then he waved both hands to Felix. “Go where you will now,” he said. “Your Shadow will follow you. You are free as the rain that drops where it will. You are as free as the clouds that roam through heaven. No man will hinder you.”

      And in a moment the spearmen dropped their spears in concert, the crowd fell back, and the villagers dispersed as if by magic, to their own houses.

      But Felix and Muriel were left alone beside their huts, guarded only in silence by their two mystic Shadows.