ix asked once more, trembling.

"Yes, monsieur. Many of them, alas! And this is what happens. When the
Korong's time is come, as these creatures say, either on the summer or
winter solstice, he is bound with native ropes, and carried up so
pinioned to Tu-Kila-Kila's temple. In the time before this man was
Tu-Kila-Kila, I remember--"

"Stop," Felix cried. "I don't understand. Has there then been more than
one Tu-Kila-Kila?"

"Why, yes," the Frenchman answered. "Certainly, many. And there the
mystery comes in again. We have always among us one Tu-Kila-Kila or
another. He is a sort of pope, or grand lama, _voyez-vous?_ No sooner is
the last god dead than another god succeeds him and takes his name, or
rather his title. This young man who now holds the place was known
originally as Lavita, the son of Sami. But what is more curious still,
the islanders always treat the new god as if he were precisely the
self-same person as the old one. So far as I have been able to understand
their theology, they believe in a sort of transmigration of souls. The
soul of the Tu-Kila-Kila who is just dead passes into and animates the
body of the Tu-Kila-Kila who succeeds to the office. Thus they speak as
though Tu-Kila-Kila were a continuous existence; and the god of the
moment, himself, will even often refer to events which occurred to him,
as he says, a hundred years ago or more, but which he really knows, of
course, only by the persistent tradition of the islanders. They are a
very curious people, these Bouparese. But what would you have? Among
savages, one expects things to be as among savages."

Felix drew a quiet sigh. It was certain that on the island of Boupari
that expectation, at least, was never doomed to disappointment. "And when
a Korong is taken to Tu-Kila-Kila's temple," he asked, continuing the
subject of most immediate interest, "what happens next to him?"

"Monsieur," the Frenchman answered, "I hardly know whether I do right or
not to say the truth to you. Each Korong is a god for one season only;
when the year renews itself, as the savages believe, by a change of
season, then a new Korong must be chosen by Heaven to fill the place of
the old ones who are to be sacrificed. This they do in order that the
seasons may be ever fresh and vigorous. Especially is that the case with
the two meteorological gods, so to speak, the King of the Rain and the
Queen of the Clouds. Those, I understand, are the posts in their pantheon
wh