Tu-Kila-Kila lifted himself up in his thrasonic mood.  “If he did,” he cried, swelling himself, “I would shrivel him to ashes with one flash of my eyes.  I would scorch him to a cinder with one stroke of my lightning.”

Ula smiled again, a well-satisfied smile.  She was working her man up.  “Tu-Kila-Kila is great,” she repeated, slowly.  “All earth obeys him.  All heaven fears him.”

The savage took her hand with a doubtful air.  “And yet,” he said, toying with it, half irresolute, “when I went to the white-faced stranger’s hut this morning, he did not speak fair; he answered me insolently.  His words were bold.  He talked to me as one talks to a man, not to a great god.  Ula, I wonder if he knows my secret?”

Ula started back in well-affected horror.  “A white-faced stranger from the sun know your secret, O great king!” she cried, hiding her face in a square of cloth.  “See me beat my breast!  Impossible!  Impossible!  No one of your subjects would dare to tell him so great a taboo.  It would be rank blasphemy.  If they did, your anger would utterly consume them!”

“That is true,” Tu-Kila-Kila said, practically, “but I might not discover it.  I am a very great god.  My Eyes are everywhere.  No corner of the world is hid from my gaze.  All the concerns of heaven and earth are my care, And, therefore; sometimes, I overlook some detail.”

“No man alive would dare to tell the Great Taboo!” Ula repeated, confidently.  “Why, even I myself, who am the most favored of your wives, and who am permitted to bask in the light of your presence—­even I, Ula—­I do not know it.  How much less, then, the spirit from the sun, the sailing god, the white-faced stranger!”

Tu-Kila-Kila pursed up his brow and looked preternaturally wise, as the savage loves to do.  “But the parrot,” he cried, “the Soul of all dead parrots! He knew the secret, they say:—­I taught it him myself in an ancient day, many, many years ago—­when no man now living was born, save only I—­in another incarnation—­and he may have told it.  For the strangers, they say, speak the language of birds; and in the language of birds did I tell the Great Taboo to him.”

Ula pooh-poohed the mighty man-god’s fears.  “No, no,” she cried, with confidence; “he can never have told them.  If he had, would not your Eyes that watch ever for all that happens on heaven or earth, have straightway reported it to you?  The parrot died without yielding up the tale.  Were it otherwise, Toko, who loves and worships you, would surely have told me.”

The man-god puckered his brows slightly, as if he liked not the security.  “Well, somehow, Ula,” he said, feeling her soft brown arms with his divine hand, slowly, “I have always had my doubts since that day the Soul of all dead parrots bit me.  A vicious bird!  What did he mean by his bite?” He lowered his voice and looked at her fixedly.  “Did not his spilling my blood portend,” he asked, with a shudder of fear, “that through that ill-omened bird I, who was once Lavita, should cease to be Tu-Kila-Kila?”