By this time the breakers had subsided2 greatly. Not, indeed, that the sea itself was really going down. On the contrary, a brisk wind was rising sharper from the east, and the waves on the open Pacific were growing each moment higher and loppier. But the huge mountain of water that washed Muriel Ellis overboard was not a regular ordinary wave; it was that far more powerful and dangerous mass, a shoal-water breaker. The Australasian had passed at that instant over a submerged coral-bar, quite deep enough, indeed, to let her cross its top without the slightest danger of grazing, but still raised so high toward the surface as to produce a considerable constant ground-swell, which broke in windy weather into huge sheets of surf, like the one that had just struck and washed over the Australasian, carrying Muriel with it. The very same cause that produced the breakers, however, bore Felix on their summit rapidly landward; and once he had got well beyond the region of the bar that begot3 them, he found himself soon, to his intense relief, in comparatively calm shoal water.
Muriel Ellis, for her part, was faint with terror and with the buffeting4 of the waves; but she still floated by his side, upheld by the life-belts. He had been able, by immense efforts, to keep unseparated from her amid the rending5 surf of the breakers. Now that they found themselves in easier waters for a while, Felix began to strike out vigorously through the darkness for the shore. Holding up his companion with one hand, and swimming with all his might in the direction where a vague white line of surf, lit up by the red glare-of some fire far inland, made him suspect the nearest land to lie, he almost thought he had succeeded at last, after a long hour of struggle, in feeling his feet, after all, on a firm coral bottom.
At the very moment he did so, and touched the ground underneath6, another great wave, curling resistlessly behind him, caught him up on its crest7, whirled him heavenward like a cork8, and then dashed him down once more, a passive burden, on some soft and yielding substance, which he conjectured9 at once to be a beach of finely powdered coral fragments. As he touched this beach for an instant, the undertow of that vast dashing breaker sucked him back with its ebb10 again, a helpless, breathless creature; and then the succeeding wave rolled him over like a ball, upon the beach as before, in quick succession. Four times the back-current sucked him under with its wild pull in the self-same way, and four times the return wave flung him up upon the beach again like a fragment of sea-weed. With frantic11 efforts Felix tried at first to cling still to Muriel—to save her from the irresistible12 force of that roaring surf—to snatch her from the open jaws13 of death by sheer struggling dint14 of thews and muscle. He might as well have tried to stem Niagara. The great waves, curling irresistibly15 in huge curves landward, caught either of them up by turns on their arched summits, and twisted them about remorselessly, raising them now aloft on their foaming16 crest, beating them back now prone17 in their hollow trough, and flinging them fiercely at last with pitiless energy against the soft beach of coral. If the beach had been hard, they must infallibly have been ground to powder or beaten to jelly by the colossal18 force of those gigantic blows. Fortunately it was yielding, smooth, and clay-like, and received them almost as a layer of moist plaster of Paris might have done, or they would have stood no chance at all for their lives in that desperate battle with the blind and frantic forces of unrelenting nature.
No man who has not himself seen the surf break on one of these far-southern coral shores can form any idea in his own mind of the terror and horror of the situation. The water, as it reaches the beach, rears itself aloft for a second into a huge upright wall, which, advancing slowly, curls over at last in a hollow circle, and pounds down upon the sand or reef with all the crushing force of some enormous sledge-hammer. But after the fourth assault, Felix felt himself flung up high and dry by the wave, as one may sometimes see a bit of light reed or pith flung up some distance ahead by an advancing tide on the beach in England. In an instant he steadied himself and staggered to his feet. Torn and bruised19 as he was by the pummelling of the billows, he looked eagerly into the water in search of his companion. The next wave flung up Muriel, as the last had flung himself. He bent20 over her with a panting heart as she lay there, insensible, on the long white shore. Alive or dead? that was now the question.
Raising her hastily in his arms, with her clothes all clinging wet and close about her, Felix carried her over the narrow strip of tidal beach, above high-water level, and laid her gently down on a soft green bank of short tropical herbage, close to the edge of the coral. Then he bent over her once more, and listened eagerly at her heart. It still beat with faint pulses—beat—beat—beat. Felix throbbed21 with joy. She was alive! alive! He was not quite alone, then, on that unknown island!
And strange as it seemed, it was only a little more than two short hours since they had stood and looked out across the open sea over the bulwarks22 of the Australasian together!
But Felix had no time to moralize just then. The moment was clearly one for action. Fortunately, he happened to carry three useful things in his pocket when he jumped overboard after Muriel. The first was a pocket-knife; the second was a flask23 with a little whiskey in it; and the third, perhaps the most important of all, a small metal box of wax vesta matches. Pouring a little whiskey into the cup of the flask, he held it eagerly to Muriel’s lips. The fainting girl swallowed it automatically. Then Felix, stooping down, tried the matches against the box. They were unfortunately wet, but half an hour’s exposure, he knew, on sun-warmed stones, in that hot, tropical air, would soon restore them again. So he opened the box and laid them carefully out on a flat white slab24 of coral. After that, he had time to consider exactly where they were, and what their chances in life, if any, might now amount to.
Pitch dark as it was, he had no difficulty in deciding at once by the general look of things that they had reached a fringing reef, such as he was already familiar with in the Marquesas and elsewhere. The reef was no doubt circular, and it enclosed within itself a second or central island, divided from it by a shallow lagoon25 of calm, still water. He walked some yards inland. From where he now stood, on the summit of the ridge26, he could look either way, and by the faint reflected light of the stars, or the glare of the great pyre that burned on the central island, he could see down on one side to the ocean, with its fierce white pounding surf, and on the other to the lagoon, reflecting the stars overhead, and motionless as a mill-pond. Between them lay the low raised ridge of coral, covered with tall stems of cocoanut palms, and interspersed27 here and there, as far as his eye could judge, with little rectangular clumps28 of plantain and taro29.
But what alarmed Felix most was the fire that blazed so brightly to heaven on the central island; for he knew too well that meant—there were men on the place; the land was inhabited.
The cocoanuts and taro told the same doubtful tale. From the way they grew, even in that dim starlight, Felix recognized at once they had all been planted.
Still, he didn’t hesitate to do what he thought best for Muriel’s relief for all that. Collecting a few sticks and fragments of palm-branches from the jungle about, he piled them into a heap, and waited patiently for his matches to dry. As soon as they were ready—and the warmth of the stone made them quickly inflammable—he struck a match on the box, and proceeded to light his fire by Muriel’s side. As her clothes grew warmer, the poor girl opened her eyes at last, and, gazing around her, exclaimed, in blank terror, “Oh, Mr. Thurstan, where are we? What does all this mean? Where have we got to? On a desert island?”
“No, not on a desert island,” Felix answered, shortly; “I’m afraid it’s a great deal worse than that. To tell you the truth, I’m afraid it’s inhabited.”
At that moment, by the hot embers of the great sacrificial pyre on the central hill, two of the savage30 temple-attendants, calling their god’s attention to a sudden blaze of flame upon the fringing reef, pointed31 with their dark forefingers32 and called out in surprise, “See, see, a fire on the barrier! A fire! A fire! What can it mean? There are no men of our people over there to-night. Have war-canoes arrived? Has some enemy landed?”
Tu-Kila-Kila leaned back, drained his cocoanut cup of intoxicating33 kava, and surveyed the unwonted apparition34 on the reef long and carefully. “It is nothing,” he said at last, in his most deliberate manner, stroking his cheeks and chin contentedly35 with that plump round hand of his. “It is only the victims; the new victims I promised you. Korong! Korong! They have come ashore36 with their light from my home in the sun. They have brought fire afresh—holy fire to Boupari.”
Three or four of the savages37 leaped up in fierce joy, and bowed before him as he spoke38, with eager faces. “Oh, Tu-Kila-Kila!” the eldest39 among them said, making a profound reverence40, “shall we swim across to the reef and fetch them home to your house? Shall we take over our canoes and bring back your victims!”
The god motioned them back with one outstretched palm. His eyes were flushed and his look lazy. “Not to-night, my people,” he said; readjusting the garland of flowers round his neck, and giving a careless glance at the well-picked bones that a few hours before had been two trembling fellow creatures. “Tu-Kila-Kila has feasted his fill for this evening. Your god is full; his heart is happy. I have eaten human flesh; I have drunk of the juice of the kava. Am I not a great deity41? Can I not do as I will? I frown, and the heavens thunder; I gnash my teeth, and the earth trembles. What is it to me if fresh victims come, or if they come not? Can I not make with a nod as many as I will of them?” He took up two fresh finger-bones, clean gnawed42 of their flesh, and knocked them together in a wild tune44, carelessly. “If Tu-Kila-Kila chooses,” he went on, tapping his chest with conscious pride, “he can knock these bones together—so—and bid them live again. Is it not I who cause women and beasts to bring forth45 their young? Is it not I who give the turtles their increase? And is it not a small thing to me, therefore, whether the sea tosses up my victims from my home in the sun, or whether it does not? Let us leave them alone on the reef for to-night; to-morrow we will send over our canoes to fetch them.”
It was all pure brag46, all pure guesswork; and yet, Tu-Kila-Kila himself profoundly believed it.
As he spoke, the light from Felix’s fire blazed out against the dark sky, stronger and clearer still; and through that cloudless tropical air the figure of a man, standing47 for one moment between the flames and the lagoon, became distinctly visible to the keen and practised eyes of the savages. “I see them? I see them; I see the victims!” the foremost worshipper exclaimed, rushing forward a little at the sight, and beside himself with superstitious48 awe43 and surprise at Tu-Kila-Kila’s presence. “Surely our god is great! He knows all things! He brings us meat from the setting sun, in ships of fire, in blazing canoes, across the golden road of the sun-bathed ocean!”
As for Tu-Kila-Kila himself, leaning on his elbow at ease, he gazed across at the unexpected sight with very languid interest. He was a god, and he liked to see things conducted with proper decorum. This crowing and crying over a couple of spirits—mere ordinary spirits come ashore from the sun in a fiery49 boat—struck his godship as little short of childish. “Let them be,” he answered, petulantly50, crushing a blossom in his hand. “Let no man disturb them. They shall rest where they are till to-morrow morning. We have eaten; we have drunk; our soul is happy. The kava within us has made us like a god indeed. I shall give my ministers charge that no harm happen to them.”
He drew a whistle from his side and whistled once. There was a moment’s pause. Then Tu-Kila-Kila spoke in a loud voice again. “The King of Fire!” he exclaimed, in tones of princely authority.
From within the hut there came forth slowly a second stalwart savage, big built and burly as the great god himself, clad in a long robe or cloak of yellow feathers, which shone bright with a strange metallic51 gleam in the ruddy light of the huge pile of li-wood.
“The King of Fire is here, Tu-Kila-Kila,” the lesser52 god made answer, bending his head slightly.
“Fire,” Tu-Kila-Kila said, like a monarch53 giving orders to his attendant minister, “if any man touch the newcomers on the reef before I cause my sun to rise to-morrow morning, scorch54 up his flesh with your flame, and consume his bones to ash and cinder55. If any woman go near them before Tu-Kila-Kila bids, let her be rolled in palm-leaves, and smeared56 with oil, and light her up for a torch on a dark night to lighten our temple.”
The King of Fire bent his head in assent57. “It is as Tu-Kila-Kila wills,” he answered, submissively.
Tu-Kila-Kila whistled again, this time twice. “The King of Water!” he exclaimed, in the same loud tone of command as before.
At the words, a man of about forty, tall and sinewy58, clad in a short cape59 of white albatross feathers, and with a girdle of nautilus shells interspersed with red coral tied around his waist, came forth to the summons.
“The King of Water is here,” he said, bending his head, but not his knee, before the greater deity.
“Water,” Tu-Kila-Kila said, with half-tipsy solemnity, “you are a god too. Your power is very great. But less than mine. Do, then, as I bid you. If any man touch my spirits, whom I have brought from my home in the sun in a fiery ship, before I bid him to-morrow, overturn his canoe, and drown him in lagoon or spring or ocean. If any woman go near them without Tu-Kila-Kila’s leave, bind60 her hand and foot with ropes of porpoise61 hide, and cast her out into the surf, and dash her with your waves, and pummel her to pieces.”
The King of Water bent his head a second time. “I am a great god,” he answered, “before all others save you: but for you, Tu-Kila-Kila, I haste to do your bidding. If any man disobey you, my billows shall rise and overwhelm him in the sea. I am a great god. I claim each year many drowned victims.”
“But not so many as me,” Tu-Kila-Kila interposed, his hand playing on his knife with a faint air of impatience62.
“But not so many as you,” the minor63 god added, in haste, as if to appease64 his rising anger. “Fire and Water ever speed to do your bidding.”
Tu-Kila-Kila stood up, turned toward the distant flame, and waved his hands round and round three times before him. “Let this be for you all a great taboo65,” he said, glancing once more toward his awe-struck followers66. “Now the mysteries are over. Tu-Kila-Kila will sleep. He has eaten of human flesh. He has drunk of cocoanut rum and of new kava. He has brought back his sun on its way in the heavens. He has sent it messengers of fire to reinforce its strength. He has fetched from it messengers in turn with fresh fire to Boupari, fire not lighted from any earthly flame; fire new, divine, scorching67, unspeakable. To-morrow we will talk with the spirits he has brought. To-night we will sleep. Now all go to your homes; and tell your women of this great taboo, lest they speak to the spirits, and fall into the hands of Fire or of Water.”
The savages dropped on their faces before the eye of their god and lay quite still. They made a path as it were from the pyre to the temple door with their prostrate68 bodies. Tu-Kila-Kila, walking with unsteady steps over their half-naked forms, turned to his hut in a drunken booze. He walked over them with no more compunction or feeling than over so many logs. Why should he not, indeed? For he was a god, and they were his meat, his servants, his worshippers.
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1
glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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2
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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3
begot
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去式 )；产生，引起 | |
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buffeting
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| 振动 | |
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5
rending
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| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
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6
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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8
cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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11
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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12
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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13
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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14
dint
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| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
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15
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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16
foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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18
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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19
bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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20
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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21
throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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22
bulwarks
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| n.堡垒( bulwark的名词复数 )；保障；支柱；舷墙 | |
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23
flask
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| n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱 | |
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24
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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lagoon
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| n.泻湖，咸水湖 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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28
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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29
taro
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| n.芋，芋头 | |
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30
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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31
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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32
forefingers
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| n.食指( forefinger的名词复数 ) | |
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33
intoxicating
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| a. 醉人的,使人兴奋的 | |
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34
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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38
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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39
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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40
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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41
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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42
gnawed
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| 咬( gnaw的过去式和过去分词 )； （长时间） 折磨某人； （使）苦恼； （长时间）危害某事物 | |
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43
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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44
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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45
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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46
brag
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| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
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47
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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48
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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49
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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50
petulantly
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51
metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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52
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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53
monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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54
scorch
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| v.烧焦，烤焦；高速疾驶；n.烧焦处，焦痕 | |
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55
cinder
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| n.余烬，矿渣 | |
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56
smeared
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| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
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57
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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58
sinewy
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| adj.多腱的，强壮有力的 | |
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59
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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60
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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61
porpoise
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| n.鼠海豚 | |
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62
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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63
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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64
appease
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| v.安抚，缓和，平息，满足 | |
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65
taboo
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| n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止 | |
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66
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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67
scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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68
prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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