iel looked up, all dazed, and saw, to her intense surprise, the crowd
was now nothing but affection and sympathy. Slowly they gathered in
closer and closer, till they almost touched the hem of her robe; then the
men stood by respectfully, laying their fingers on whatever she had
wetted with her tears, while the women and girls took her hand in theirs
and pressed it sympathetically. Mali explained their meaning with ready
interpretation. "No cry too much, them say," she observed, nodding her
head sagely. "Not good for Missy Queenie to cry too much. Them say, kind
lady, be comforted."

There was genuine good-nature in the way they consoled her; and Felix was
touched by the tenderness of those savage hearts; but the additional
explanation, given him in Polynesian by his own Shadow, tended somewhat
to detract from the disinterestedness of their sympathy. "They say, 'It
is good for the Queen of the Clouds to weep,'" Toko said, with frank
bluntness; "'but not too much--for fear the rain should wash away all our
yam and taro plants.'"

By this time the little bride had roused herself from her stupor, and,
smiling away as if nothing had happened, said a few words in a very low
voice to Felix's Shadow. The Shadow turned most respectfully to his
master, and, touching his sleeve-link, which was of bright gold, said, in
a very doubtful voice, "She asks you, oh king, will you allow her, just
for to-day, to wear this ornament?"

Felix unbuttoned the shining bauble at once, and was about to hand it to
the bride with polite gallantry. "She may wear it forever, for the matter
of that, if she likes," he said, good-humoredly. "I make her a present
of it."

But the bride drew back as before in speechless terror, as he held out
his hand, and seemed just on the point of bursting out into tears again
at this untoward incident. The Shadow intervened with fortunate
perception of the cause of the misunderstanding. "Korong must not touch
or give anything to a bride," he said, quietly; "not with his own hand.
He must not lay his finger on her; that would be unlucky. But he may hand
it by his Shadow." Then he turned to his fellow-tribesmen. "These gods,"
he said, in an explanatory voice, like one bespeaking forgiveness,
"though they are divine, and Korong, and very powerful--see, they have
come from the sun, and they are but strangers in Boupari--they do not yet
know the ways of our island. They have not eaten of human flesh. They do
not unders