t down the heavy stone hammer point blank
upon the centre of his crashing skull. The weapon drove home. It cleft a
great red gash in the cannibal's head. Tu-Kila-Kila reeled and fell.
There was an infinitesimal pause of silence and suspense. Then a great
shout went up from all round to heaven, "He has killed him! He has
killed him! We have a new-made god! Tu-Kila-Kila is dead! Long live
Tu-Kila-Kila!"

Felix drew back for a moment, panting and breathless, and wiped his wet
brow with his sleeve, his brain all whirling. At his feet, the savage lay
stretched, like a log. Felix gazed at the blood-bespattered face
remorsefully. It is an awful thing, even in a just quarrel, to feel that
you have really taken a human life! The responsibility is enough to
appall the bravest of us. He stooped down and examined the prostrate body
with solemn reverence. Blood was flowing in torrents from the wounded
head. But Tu-Kila-Kila was dead--stone-dead forever.

Hot tears of relief welled up into Felix's eyes. He touched the body
cautiously with a reverent hand. No life. No motion.

Just as he did so, the woman Ula came forward, bare-limbed and beautiful,
all triumph in her walk, a proud, insensitive savage. One second she
gazed at the great corpse disdainfully. Then she lifted her dainty foot,
and gave it a contemptuous kick. "The body of Lavita, the son of Sami,"
she said, with a gesture of hatred. "He had a bad heart. We will cook it
and eat it." Next turning to Felix, "Oh, Tu-Kila-Kila," she cried,
clapping her hands three times and bowing low to the ground, "you are a
very great god. We will serve you and salute you. Am not I, Ula, one of
your wives, your meat? Do with me as you will. Toko, you are henceforth
the great god's Shadow!"

Felix gazed at the beautiful, heartless creature, all horrified. Even on
Boupari, that cannibal island, he was hardly prepared for quite so low a
depth of savage insensibility. But all the people around, now a hundred
or more, standing naked before their new god, took up the shout in
concert. "The body of Lavita, the son of Sami," they cried. "A carrion
corpse! The god has deserted it. The great soul of the world has entered
the heart of the white-faced stranger from the disk of the sun; the King
of the Rain; the great Tu-Kila-Kila. We will cook and eat the body of
Lavita, the son of Sami. He was a bad man. He is a worn-out shell.
Nothing remains of him now. The great god has left him."

They clapped