hard, and M. Peyron was bowing a polite Parisian reception.

Forthwith, the sailors crowded round them in a hollow square. Muriel and
Felix, half faint with relief from their long and anxious suspense,
staggered slowly down the seaward path between them. But there was no
need now for further show of defence. The islanders, pressing near and
flinging away their weapons, followed the procession close, with tears
and lamentations. As they went on, the women, rushing out of their huts
while the fugitives passed, tore their hair on their heads, and beat
their breasts in terror. The warriors who had come from the shore
recounted, with their own exaggerative additions, the miracle of the
six-shooter and the dynamite cartridge. Gradually they approached the
landing-place on the beach. There the third officer sat waiting in the
gig to receive them. The lamentations of the islanders now became
positively poignant. "Oh, my father," they cried aloud, "my brother, my
revered one, you are indeed the true Tu-Kila-Kila. Do not go away like
this and desert us! Oh, our mother, great queen, mighty goddess, stop
with us! Take not away your sun from the heavens, nor your rain from the
crops. We acknowledge we have sinned; we have done very wrong; but the
chief sinner is dead; the wrong-doer has paid; spare us who remain; spare
us, great deity; do not make the bright lights of heaven become dark over
us. Stay with your worshippers, and we will give you choice young girls
to eat every day, we will sacrifice the tenderest of our children to feed
you."

It is an awful thing for any race or nation when its taboos fail all at
once, and die out entirely. To the men of Boupari, the Tu-Kila-Kila of
the moment represented both the Moral Order and the regular sequence of
the physical universe. Anarchy and chaos might rule when he was gone. The
sun might be quenched, and the people run riot. No wonder they shrank
from the fearful consequence that might next ensue. King and priest, god
and religion, all at one fell blow were to be taken away from them!

Felix turned round on the shore and spoke to them again. "My people," he
said, in a kindly tone--for, after all, he pitied them--"you need have no
fear. When I am gone, the sun will still shine and the trees will still
bear fruit every year as formerly. I will send the messengers I promised
from my own land to teach you. Until they come, I leave you this as a
great Taboo. Tu-Kila-Kila enjoins it. Shed