mounted guard over
his tree with a jealousy that fairly astonished Felix Thurstan's soul;
for Felix Thurstan only dimly understood as yet how implicitly
Tu-Kila-Kila's own life and office were bound up with the inviolability
of the banyan he protected.

Within the hut, during that playtime of siesta, while the lizards (who
are also gods) ran up and down the wall, and puffed their orange throats,
Tu-Kila-Kila lounged at his ease that afternoon, with one of his many
wives--a tall and beautiful Polynesian woman, lithe and supple, as is the
wont of her race, and as exquisitely formed in every limb and feature as
a sculptured Greek goddess. A graceful wreath of crimson hibiscus adorned
her shapely head, round which her long and glossy black hair was coiled
in great rings with artistic profusion. A festoon of blue flowers and
dark-red dracaena leaves hung like a chaplet over her olive-brown neck and
swelling bust. One breadth of native cloth did duty for an apron or
girdle round her waist and hips. All else was naked. Her plump brown arms
were set off by the green and crimson of the flowers that decked her.
Tu-Kila-Kila glanced at his slave with approving eyes. He always liked
Ula; she pleased him the best of all his women. And she knew his ways,
too: she never contradicted him.

Among savages, guile is woman's best protection. The wife who knows when
to give way with hypocritical obedience, and when to coax or wheedle her
yielding lord, runs the best chance in the end for her life. Her model is
not the oak, but the willow. She must be able to watch for the rising
signs of ill-humor in her master's mind, and guard against them
carefully. If she is wise, she keeps out of her husband's way when his
anger is aroused, but soothes and flatters him to the top of his bent
when his temper is just slightly or momentarily ruffled.

"The Lord of Heaven and Earth is ill at ease," Ula murmured,
insinuatingly, as Tu-Kila-Kila winced once with the pain of his swollen
finger. "What has happened today to the Increaser of Bread-Fruit? My lord
is sad. His eye is downcast. Who has crossed my master's will? Who
has dared to anger him?"

Tu-Kila-Kila kept the wounded hand wrapped up in a soft leaf, like a
woolly mullein. All the way home he had been obliged to conceal it, and
disguise the pain he felt, lest Fire and Water should discover his
secret. For he dared not let his people know that the Soul of all dead
parrots had bitten his finger,