Tu-Kila-Kila laughed loud, a laugh of triumphant and discordant merriment.  “Ha, ha!” he cried, “you do not understand our customs, and will you teach me, the very high god, the guardian of the laws and practices of Boupari?  You know nothing; you are as a little child.  I am absolute wisdom.  With every Korong, this is always our rule.  Till the moon is full, on the last month before we offer up the sacrifice, the Queen of the Clouds dwells apart with her Shadow in her own new temple.  So our fathers decreed it.  But at the full of the moon, when the day has come, the usage is that Tu-Kila-Kila, the very high god, confers upon her the honor of making her his bride.  It is a mighty honor.  The feast is great.  Blood flows like water.  For seven days and nights, then, she lives with Tu-Kila-Kila in his sacred abode, the threshold of Heaven; she eats of human flesh; she tastes human blood; she drinks abundantly of the divine kava.  At the end of that time, in accordance with the custom of our fathers, those great dead gods, Tu-Kila-Kila performs the high act of sacrifice.  He puts on his mask of the face of a shark, for he is holy and cruel; he brings forth the Queen of the Clouds before the eyes of all his people, attired in her wedding robes, and made drunk with kava.  Then he gashes her with knives; he offers her up to Heaven that accepted her; and the King of the Rain he offers after her; and all the people eat of their flesh, Korong! and drink of their blood, so that the body of gods and goddesses may dwell within all of them.  And when all is done, the high god chooses a new king and queen at his will (for he is a mighty god), who rule for six moons more, and then are offered up, at the end, in like fashion.”

As he spoke, the ferocious light that gleamed in the savage’s eye made Felix positively mad with anger.  But he answered nothing directly.  “Is this so?” he asked, turning for confirmation to Fire and Water.  “Is it the custom of Boupari that Tu-Kila-Kila should wed the Queen of the Clouds seven days before the date appointed for her sacrifice?”

The King of Fire and the King of Water, tried guardians of the etiquette of Tu-Kila-Kila’s court, made answer at once with one accord, “It is so, O King of the Rain.  Your lips have said it.  Tu-Kila-Kila speaks the solemn truth.  He is a very great god.  Such is the custom of Boupari.”

Tu-Kila-Kila laughed his triumph in harsh, savage outbursts.

But Felix drew back for a second, irresolute.  At last he stood face to face with the absolute need for immediate action.  Now was almost the moment when he must redeem his terrible promise to Muriel.  And yet, even so, there was still one chance of life, one respite left.  The mystic yellow bough on the sacred banyan! the Great Taboo! the wager of battle with Tu-Kila-Kila!  Quick as lightning it all came up in his excited brain.  Time after time, since he heard Methuselah’s strange message from the grave, had he passed Tu-Kila-Kila’s temple enclosure and looked up with vague awe at that sacred parasite that grew so conspicuously in a fork of the branches.  It was easy to secure it, if no man guarded.  There still remained one night.  In that one short night he must do his best—­and worst.  If all then failed, he must die himself with Muriel!