o the Frenchman. When Muriel had heard it, she said
once more, slowly, "I don't think there's any hope in all these wild
plans of playing off superstition against superstition. To my mind there
are only two chances left for us now. One is to concoct with the
Frenchman some means of getting away by canoe from the island--I'd rather
trust the sea than the tender mercy of these dreadful people; the other
is to keep a closer lookout than ever for the merest chance of a passing
steamer."

Felix drew a deep sigh. "I'm afraid neither's much use," he said. "If we
tried to get away, dogged as we are, day and night, by our Shadows, the
natives would follow us with their war-canoes in battle array and hack us
to pieces; for Peyron says that, regarding us as gods, they think the
rain would vanish from their island forever if once they allowed us to
get away alive and carry the luck with us. And as to the steamers, we
haven't seen a trace of one since we left the Australasian. Probably it
was only by the purest accident that even she ever came so close in to
Boupari."

"At any rate," Muriel cried, still clasping his hand tight, and letting
the tears now trickle slowly down her pale white cheeks, "we can talk it
all over some day with M. Peyron."

"We can talk it over to-day," Felix answered, "if it comes to that; for
Peyron means to step round, he says, a little later in the afternoon, to
pay his respects to the first white lady he has ever seen since he left
New Caledonia."

CHAPTER XVIII.

TU-KILA-KILA PLAYS A CARD.

Before the Frenchman could carry out his plan, however, he was himself
the recipient of the high honor of a visit from his superior god and
chief, Tu-Kila-Kila.

Every day and all day long, save on a few rare occasions when special
duties absolved him, the custom and religion of the islanders prescribed
that their supreme incarnate deity should keep watch and ward without
cessation over the great spreading banyan-tree that overshadowed with
its dark boughs his temple-palace. High god as he was held to be, and
all-powerful within the limits of his own strict taboos, Tu-Kila-Kila was
yet as rigidly bound within those iron laws of custom and religious usage
as the meanest and poorest of his subject worshippers. From sunrise to
sunset, and far on into the night, the Pillar of Heaven was compelled to
prowl up and down, with spear in hand and tomahawk at side, as Felix had
so often seen him, before the sacr