for his
life with the redoubted and redoubtable Tu-Kila-Kila.

As he stepped over the taboo-line, Felix was aware of many native eyes
fixed stonily upon him from the surrounding precinct. Clearly they were
awaiting him. Yet not a soul gave the alarm; that in itself would have
been to break taboo. Every man or woman among the temple attendants
within that charmed circle stood on gaze curiously. Close by, Ula, the
favorite wife of the man-god, crouched low by the hut, with one finger
on her treacherous lips, bending eagerly forward, in silent expectation
of what next might happen. Once, and once only, she glanced at Toko
with a mute sign of triumph; then she fixed her big eyes on Felix in
tremulous anxiety; for to her as to him, life and death now hung
absolutely on the issue of his enterprise. A little farther back the King
of Fire and the King of Water, in full sacrificial robes, stood smiling
sardonically. For them it was merely a question of one master more or
less, one Tu-Kila-Kila in place of another. They had no special interest
in the upshot of the contest, save in so far as they always hated most
the man who for the moment held by his own strong arm the superior
godship over them. Around, Tu-Kila-Kila's Eyes kept watch and ward in
sinister silence. Taboo was stronger than even the commands of the high
god himself. When once a Korong had crossed that fatal line, unbidden and
unwelcomed by Tu-Kila-Kila, he came as Tu-Kila-Kila's foe and would-be
successor; the duty of every guardian of the temple was then to see fair
play between the god that was and the god that might be--the Tu-Kila-Kila
of the hour and the Tu-Kila-Kila who might possibly supplant him.

"Let the great spirit itself choose which body it will inhabit," the King
of Fire murmured in a soft, low voice, glancing toward a dark spot at the
foot of the big tree. The moonlight fell dim through the branches on the
place where he looked. The glibbering bones of dead victims rattled
lightly in the wind. Felix's eyes followed the King of Fire's, and saw,
lying asleep upon the ground, Tu-Kila-Kila himself, with his spear and
tomahawk.

He lay there, huddled up by the very roots of the tree, breathing deep
and regularly. Right over his head projected the branch, in one part of
whose boughs grew the fateful parasite. By the dim light of the moon,
straggling through the dense foliage, Felix could see its yellow leaves
distinctly. Beneath it hung a skeleton, sus