ghted, you must promise us to
put down cannibalism altogether henceforth in your island."

Tu-Kila-Kila hesitated. After all, it was only for a very short time that
these strangers could thus beard him. Their day would come soon. They
were but Korongs. Meanwhile, it was best, no doubt, to effect a
compromise. "Agreed," he answered, slowly. "I will put down human
sacrifices--so long as you live among us. And I will tell the people your
taboo is not broken. All shall be done as you will in this matter. Now,
come out before the crowd and light the fire from Heaven."

"Remember," Felix repeated, "if you break your word, my people will come
down upon you, sooner or later, in their mighty fire-canoes, and will
take vengeance for your crime, and destroy you utterly."

Tu-Kila-Kila smiled a cunning smile. "I know all that," he answered. "I
am a god myself, not a fool, don't you see? You are a very great god,
too; but I am the greater. No more of words between us two. It is as
between gods. The fire! the fire!"

Tu-Kila-Kila replaced his mask. They proceeded from the hut to the open
space within the taboo-line. The people still lay all flat on their
faces. "Fire and Water," Tu-Kila-Kila said, in a commanding tone, "come
forward and screen me!"

The King of Fire and the King of Water unrolled a large square of native
cloth, which they held up as a screen on two poles in front of their
superior deity. Tu-Kila-Kila sat down on the ground, hugging his knees,
in the common squatting savage fashion, behind the veil thus readily
formed for him. "Taboo is removed," he said, in loud, clear tones. "My
people may rise. The light will not burn them. They may look toward the
place where Tu-Kila-Kila's face is hidden from them."

The people all rose with one accord, and gazed straight before them.

"The King of Fire will bring dry sticks," Tu-Kila-Kila said, in his
accustomed regal manner.

The King of Fire, sticking one pole of the screen into the ground
securely, brought forward a bundle of sun-dried sticks and leaves from a
basket beside him.

"The King of the Rain, who has put out all our hearths with his flood
last night, will relight them again with new fire, fresh flame from the
sun, rays of our disk, divine, mystic, wonderful," Tu-Kila-Kila
proclaimed, in his droning monotone.

Felix advanced as he spoke to the pile, and struck a match before the
eyes of all the islanders. As they saw it light, and then set fire to the
woo