, O Sustainer of the Equipoise of Heaven; I know you are great; I know
you are mighty; I know you are holy and wise and cruel; but why must you
let these sailing gods who come from unknown lands beyond the place
where the sun rises or sets--why must you let them so trouble and annoy
you? Why do you not at once eat them up and be done with them? Is not
their flesh sweet? Is not their blood red? Are they not a dainty well fit
for the banquet of Tu-Kila-Kila?"

The savage looked at her for a moment and hesitated. A very beautiful
woman this Ula, certainly. Not one of all his wives had larger brown
limbs, or whiter teeth, or a deeper respect for his divine nature. He had
almost a mind--it was only Ula? Why not break the silence enjoined upon
gods toward women, and explain this matter to her? Not the great secret
itself, of course--the secret on which hung the Death and Transmigration
of Tu-Kila-Kila--oh, no; not that one. The savage was far too cunning
in his generation to intrust that final terrible Taboo to the ears of a
woman. But the reason why he made all strangers Korong. A woman might
surely be trusted with that--especially Ula. She was so very handsome.
And she was always so respectful to him.

"Well, the fact of it is," he answered, laying his hand on her neck, that
plump brown neck of hers, under the garland of dracaena leaves, and
stroking it voluptuously, "the sailing gods who happen upon this island
from time to time are made Korong--but hush! it is taboo." He gazed
around the hut suspiciously. "Are all the others away?" he asked, in a
frightened tone. "Fire and Water would denounce me to all my people if
once they found I had told a taboo to a woman. And as for you, they would
take you, because you knew it, and would pull your flesh from your bones
with hot stone pincers!"

Ula rose and looked about her at the door of the tent. She nodded thrice;
then she glided back, serpentine, and threw herself gracefully, in a
statuesque pose, on the native mat beside him. "Here, drink some more
kava," she cried, holding a bowl to his lips, and wheedling him with her
eyes. "Kava is good; it is fit for gods. It makes them royally drunk, as
becomes great deities. The spirits of our ancestors dwell in the bowl;
when you drink of the kava they mount by degrees into your heart and
head. They inspire brave words. They give you thoughts of heaven. Drink,
my master, drink. The Ruler of the Sun in Heaven is thirsty."

She lay pr