quite, quite sure Tu-Kila-Kila will never discover it."

"I'm quite sure," Felix answered, with perfect confidence. "I know it for
certain. I swear a great oath to it."

"You swear by Tu-Kila-Kila himself?" the young savage asked, anxiously.

"I swear by Tu-Kila-Kila himself," Felix replied at once. "I swear,
without doubt. He can never know it."

"That is a great Taboo," the Shadow went on, meditatively, stroking
Felix's arm. "A very great Taboo indeed. A terrible medicine. And you
are a god; I can trust you. Well, then, you see, the secret is this:
you are Korong, but you are a stranger, and you don't understand the
ways of Boupari. If for three days after the end of this storm, which
Tu-Kila-Kila has sent Fire and Water to pray and vow against, you or the
Queen of the Clouds show yourselves outside your own taboo-line--why,
then, the people are clear of sin; whoever takes you may rend you alive;
they will tear you limb from limb and cut you into pieces."

"Why so?" Felix asked, aghast at this discovery. They seemed to live on a
perpetual volcano in this wonderful island; and a volcano ever breaking
out in fresh places. They could never get to the bottom of its horrible
superstitions.

"Because you ate the storm-apple," the Shadow answered, confidently.
"That was very wrong. You brought the tempest upon us yourselves by your
own trespass; therefore, by the custom of Boupari, which we learn in the
mysteries, you become full Korong for the sacrifice at once. That makes
the term for you. The people will give you all your dues; then they will
say, 'We are free; we have bought you with a price; we have brought your
cocoanuts. No sin attaches to us; we are righteous; we are righteous.'
And then they will kill you, and Fire and Water will roast you and boil
you."

"But only if we go outside the taboo-line?" Felix asked, anxiously.

"Only if you go outside the taboo-line," the Shadow replied, nodding a
hasty assent. "Inside it, till your term comes, even Tu-Kila-Kila
himself, the very high god, whose meat we all are, dare never hurt you."

"Till our term comes?" Felix inquired, once more astonished and
perplexed. "What do you mean by that, my Shadow?"

But the Shadow was either bound by some superstitious fear, or else
incapable of putting himself into Felix's point of view. "Why, till you
are full Korong," he answered, like one who speaks of some familiar fact,
as who should say, till you are forty years old, or,