The Great Taboo

Excerpt: ...looked at him with a doubtful look. "Monsieur," he said, after a pause, "I hardly know how to break the truth to you properly. You are new to the island, and do not yet understand these savages. It is so terrible a fate. So deadly. So certain. Compose your mind to hear the worst. And remember that the worst is very terrible." Felix's blood froze within him; but he answered bravely all the same, "I think I have guessed it myself already. The Korong are offered as human sacrifices to Tu-Kila-Kila." "That is nearly so," his new friend replied, with a solemn nod of his head. "Every Korong is bound to die when his time comes. Your time will depend on the particular date when you were admitted to Heaven." Felix reflected a moment. "It was on the 26th of last month," he answered, shortly. "Very well," M. Peyron replied, after a brief calculation. "You have just six months in all to live from that date. They will offer you up by Tu-Kila-Kila's hut the day the sun reaches the summer solstice." "But why did they make us gods then?" Felix interposed, with tremulous lips. "Why treat us with such honors meanwhile, if they mean in the end to kill us?" He received his sentence of death with greater calmness than the Frenchman had expected. "Monsieur," the older arrival answered, with a reflective air, "there comes in the mystery. If we could solve that, we could find out also the way of escape for you. For there is a way of escape for every Korong: I know it well; I gather it from all the natives say; it is a part of their mysteries; but what it may be, I have hitherto, in spite of all my efforts, failed to discover. All I do know is this: Tu-Kila-Kila hates and dreads in his heart every Korong that is elevated to Heaven, and would do anything, if he dared, to get rid of him quietly. But he doesn't dare, because he is bound hand and foot himself, too, by taboos innumerable. Taboo is the real god and king of Boupari. All the island alike bows down to it and...