o
expect that something special was going on in the way of local
festivities.

And Mali answered at once, with many nods and smiles, "All right, Missy
Queenie. Him a wedding, a marriage."

The words had hardly escaped her lips when a very pretty young girl,
half smothered in flowers, and decked out in beads and fancy shells,
emerged slowly from the hut, and took her way with stately tread along
the path carpeted with native cloth. She was girt round the waist with
rich-colored mats, which formed a long train, like a court dress,
trailing on the ground five or six feet behind her.

"That's the bride, I suppose," Muriel whispered, now really
interested--for what woman on earth, wherever she may be, can resist
the seductive delights of a wedding?

"Yes, her a bride," Mali answered; "and ladies what follow, them her
bridesmaids."

At the word, six other girls, similarly dressed, though without the
train, and demure as nuns, emerged from the hut in slow order, two and
two, behind her.

Muriel and Felix moved forward with natural curiosity toward the scene.
The natives, now ranged in a row along the path, with mats turned inward,
made way for them gladly. All seem pleased that Heaven should thus
auspiciously honor the occasion; and the bride herself, as well as the
bridegroom, who, decked in shells and teeth, advanced from the opposite
side along the path to meet her, looked up with grateful smiles at the
two Europeans. Muriel, in return, smiled her most gracious and girlish
recognition. As the bride drew near, she couldn't refrain from bending
forward a little to look at the girl's really graceful costume. As she
did so, the skirt of her own European dress brushed for a second against
the bride's train, trailed carelessly many yards on the ground behind
her.

Almost before they could know what had happened, a wild commotion arose,
as if by magic, in the crowd around them. Loud cries of "Taboo! Taboo!"
mixed with inarticulate screams, burst on every side from the assembled
natives. In the twinkling of an eye they were surrounded by an angry,
threatening throng, who didn't dare to draw near, but, standing a yard or
two off, drew stone knives freely and shook their fists, scowling, in the
strangers' faces. The change was appalling in its electric suddenness.
Muriel drew back horrified, in an agony of alarm. "Oh, what have I done!"
she cried, piteously, clinging to Felix for support. "Why on earth are
they angry with u