of his divinity as I do."

For even in Polynesia, superstitious as it is, no hero is a god to his
wives or his valets.

CHAPTER XXI.

METHUSELAH GIVES SIGN.

All the hopes of the three Europeans were concentrated now on the bare
off-chance of a passing steamer. M. Peyron in particular was fully
convinced that, if the Australasian had found the inner channel
practicable, other ships in future would follow her example. With this
idea firmly fixed in his head, he arranged with Felix that one or other
of them should keep watch alternately by night as far as possible; and he
also undertook that a canoe should constantly be in readiness to carry
them away to the supposititious ship, if occasion arose for it. Muriel
took counsel with Mali on the question of rousing the Frenchman if a
steamer appeared, and they were the first to sight it; and Mali, in whom
renewed intercourse with white people had restored to some extent the
civilized Queensland attitude of mind, readily enough promised to assist
in their scheme, provided she was herself taken with them, and so
relieved from the terrible vengeance which would otherwise overtake her.
"If Boupari man catch me," she said, in her simple, graphic, Polynesian
way, "Boupari man kill me, and lay me in leaves, and cook me very nice,
and make great feast of me, like him do with Jani." From that untimely
end both Felix and Muriel promised faithfully, as far as in them lay, to
protect her.

To communicate with M. Peyron by daytime, without arousing the
ever-wakeful suspicion of the natives, Felix hit upon an excellent plan.
He burnished his metal matchbox to the very highest polish it was capable
of taking, and then heliographed by means of sun-flashes on the Morse
code. He had learned the code in Fiji in the course of his official
duties; and he taught the Frenchman now readily enough how to read and
reply with the other half of the box, torn off for the purpose.

It was three or four days, however, before the two English wanderers
ventured to return M. Peyron's visit. They didn't wish to attract too
greatly the attention of the islanders. Gradually, as their stay on the
island went on, they learned the truth that Tu-Kila-Kila's eyes, as he
himself had boasted, were literally everywhere. For he had spies of his
own, told off in every direction, who dogged the steps of his victims
unseen. Sometimes, as Felix and Muriel walked unsuspecting through the
jungle paths, closely f