el; he is
powerful. There was never any storm in my time--and I am an old man--so
great in Boupari as the storm that rose when the King of the Rain ate the
storm-apple. Our yams and our taros even now are suffering from it. He is
a mighty strong god. Beware how you tamper with him!"

He sat down, trembling. A younger chief rose from a nearer rank, and
said his say in turn. "I do not agree with our father," he cried,
pointing to the chief who had just spoken. "His word is evil; he is much
mistaken. I have another thought. My thought is this. Let us kill and eat
the white-faced stranger at once, by wager of battle; and let whosoever
fights and overcomes him receive his honors, and take to wife the fair
woman, the Queen of the Clouds, the sun-faced Korong, whom he brought
from the sun with him."

"But who will then be Tu-Kila-Kila?" Felix asked, turning round upon him
quickly. Habituation to danger had made him unnaturally alert in such
utmost extremities.

"Why, the man who slays you," the young chief answered, pointedly,
grasping his heavy tomahawk with profound expression.

"I think not," Felix answered. "Your reasoning is bad. For if I am not
Tu-Kila-Kila, how can any man become Tu-Kila-Kila by killing me? And if I
am Tu-Kila-Kila, how dare you, not being yourself Korong, and not having
broken off the sacred bough, as I did, venture to attack me? You wish to
set aside all the customs of Boupari. Are you not ashamed of such gross
impiety?"

"Tu-Kila-Kila speaks well," the King of Fire put in, for he had no cause
to love the aggressive young chief, and he thought better of his chances
in life as Felix's minister. "Besides, now I think of it, he _must_ be
Tu-Kila-Kila, because he has taken the life of the last great god, whom
he slew with his hands; and therefore the life is now his--he holds it."

Felix was emboldened by this favorable opinion to strike out a fresh line
in a further direction. He stood forward once more, and beckoned again
for silence. "Yes, my people," he said calmly, with slow articulation,
"by the custom of your race and the creed you profess I am now indeed,
and in every truth, the abode of your great god, Tu-Kila-Kila. But,
furthermore, I have a new revelation to make to you. I am going to
instruct you in a fresh way. This creed that you hold is full of errors.
As Tu-Kila-Kila, I mean to take my own course, no islander hindering me.
If you try to depose me, what great gods have you now got lef