e bull-roarer had ceased to bellow among the rocks. The
King of Fire stood forth. In his hands he held a length of bamboo-stick
with a lighted coal in it. "Bring wood and palm-leaves," he said, in a
tone of command. "Let me light myself up, that I may blaze before
Tu-Kila-Kila."

He turned and bowed thrice very low before Felix. "The accepted of
Heaven," he cried, holding his hands above him. "The very high god! The
King of all Things! He sends down his showers upon our crops and our
fields. He causes his sun to shine brightly over us. He makes our pigs
and our slaves bring forth their increase. All we are but his meat. We,
his people, praise him."

And all the men of Boupari, naked and bleeding, bent low in response.
"Tu-Kila-Kila is great," they chanted, as they clapped their hands. "We
thank him that he has chosen a fresh incarnation. The sun will not fade
in the heavens overhead, nor the bread-fruits wither and cease to bear
fruit on earth. Tu-Kila-Kila, our god, is great. He springs ever young
and fresh, like the herbs of the field. He is a most high god. We, his
people, praise him."

Four temple attendants brought sticks and leaves, while Felix stood
still, half dazed with the newness of these strange preparations. The
King of Fire, with his torch, set light to the pile. It blazed merrily on
high. "I, Fire, salute you," he cried, bending over it toward Felix.

"Now cut up the body of Lavita, the son of Sami," he went on, turning
toward it contemptuously. "I will cook it in my flame, that Tu-Kila-Kila
the great may eat of it."

Felix drew back with a face all aglow with horror and disgust. "Don't
touch that body!" he cried, authoritatively, putting his foot down firm.
"Leave it alone at once. I refuse to allow you." Then he turned to
M. Peyron. "The King of the Birds and I," he said, with calm resolve, "we
two will bury it."

The King of Fire drew back at these strange words, nonplussed. This
was, indeed, an ill-omened break in the ceremony of initiation of a new
Tu-Kila-Kila, to which he had never before in his life been accustomed.
He hardly knew how to comport himself under such singular circumstances.
It was as though the sovereign of England, on coronation-day, should
refuse to be crowned, and intimate to the archbishop, in his full
canonicals, a confirmed preference for the republican form of Government.
It was a contingency that law and custom in Boupari had neither, in their
wisdom, foreseen nor prov