Tu-Kila-Kila smiled a hateful and ominous smile.  “I am a great god,” he said, calmly, striking an attitude as was his wont.  “Hear how my people clap their hands in my honor!  I order all things.  I dispose the course of nature in heaven and earth.  If I look at a cocoa-nut tree, it dies; if I glance at a bread-fruit, it withers away.  We will see before long whether or not you are afraid of me.  Meanwhile, O Korong, I have come to claim my dues at your hands.  Prepare for your fate.  To-morrow the Queen of the Clouds must be sealed my bride.  Fetch her out, that I may speak with her.  I have come to tell her so.”

It was a thunderbolt from a clear sky, and it fell with terrible effect on Felix.  For a moment the knife trembled in his grasp with an almost irresistible impulse.  He could hardly restrain himself, as he heard those horrible, incredible words, and saw the loathsome smirk on the speaker’s face by which they were accompanied, from leaping then and there at the savage’s throat, and plunging his blade to the haft into the vile creature’s body.  But by a violent effort he mastered his indignation and wrath for the present.  Planting himself full in front of Tu-Kila-Kila, and blocking the way to the door of that sacred English girl’s hut—­oh, how horrible it was to him even to think of her purity being contaminated by the vile neighborhood, for one minute, of that loathsome monster!  He looked full into the wretch’s face, and answered very distinctly, in low, slow tones, “If you dare to take one step toward the place where that lady now rests, if you dare to move your foot one inch nearer, if you dare to ask to see her face again, I will plunge the knife hilt-deep into your vile heart, and kill you where you stand without one second’s deliberation.  Now you hear my words and you know what I mean.  My weapon is keener and fiercer than any you Polynesians ever saw.  Repeat those words once more, and by all that’s true and holy, before they’re out of your mouth I leap upon you and stab you.”

Tu-Kila-Kila drew back in sudden surprise.  He was unaccustomed to be so bearded in his own sacred island.  “Well, I shall claim her to-morrow,” he faltered out, taken aback by Felix’s unexpected energy.  He paused for a second, then he went on more slowly:  “To-morrow I will come with all my people to claim my bride.  This afternoon they will bring her mats of grass and necklets of nautilus shell to deck her for her wedding, as becomes Tu-Kila-Kila’s chosen one.  The young maids of Boupari will adorn her for her lord, in the accustomed dress of Tu-Kila-Kila’s wives.  They will clap their hands; they will sing the marriage song.  Then early in the morning I will come to fetch her—­and woe to him who strives to prevent me!”

Felix looked at him long, with a fixed and dogged look.

“What has made you think of this devilry?” he asked at last, still grasping his knife hard, and half undecided whether or not to use it.  “You have invented all these ideas.  You have no claim, even in the horrid customs of your savage country, to demand such a sacrifice.”