Ula smiled contentedly again.  To say the truth, that was precisely the interpretation she herself had put on that terrific omen.  The parrot had spilled Tu-Kila-Kila’s sacred blood upon the soil of earth.  According to her simple natural philosophy, that was a certain sign that through the parrot’s instrumentality Tu-Kila-Kila’s life would be forfeited to the great eternal earth-spirit.  Or, rather, the earth-spirit would claim the blood of the man Lavita, in whose body it dwelt, and would itself migrate to some new earthly tabernacle.

But for all that, she dissembled.  “Great god,” she cried, smiling, a benign smile, “you are tired!  You are thirsty!  Care for heaven and earth has wearied you out.  You feel the fatigue of upholding the sun in heaven.  Your arms must ache.  Your thews must give under you.  Drink of the soul-inspiring juice of the kava!  My hands have prepared the divine cup.  For Tu-Kila-Kila did I make it—­fresh, pure, invigorating!”

She held the bowl to his lips with an enticing smile.  Tu-Kila-Kila hesitated and glanced around him suspiciously.  “What if the white-faced stranger should come to-night?” he whispered, hoarsely.  “He may have discovered the Great Taboo, after all.  Who can tell the ways of the world, how they come about?  My people are so treacherous.  Some traitor may have betrayed it to him.”

“Impossible,” the beautiful, snake-like woman answered, with a strong gesture of natural dissent.  “And even if he came, would not kava, the divine, inspiriting drink of the gods, in which dwell the embodied souls of our fathers—­would not kava make you more vigorous, strong for the fight?  Would it not course through your limbs like fire?  Would it not pour into your soul the divine, abiding strength of your mighty mother, the eternal earth-spirit?”

“A little,” Tu-Kila-Kila said, yielding, “but not too much.  Too much would stupefy me.  When the spirits, that the kava-tree sucks up from the earth, are too strong within us, they overpower our own strength, so that even I, the high god—­even I can do nothing.”

Ula held the bowl to his lips, and enticed him to drink with her beautiful eyes.  “A deep draught, O supporter of the sun in heaven,” she cried, pressing his arm tenderly.  “Am I not Ula?  Did I not brew it for you?  Am I not the chief and most favored among your women?  I will sit at the door.  I will watch all night.  I will not close an eye.  Not a footfall on the ground but my ear shall hear it.”

“Do.”  Tu-Kila-Kila said, laconically.  “I fear Fire and Water.  Those gods love me not.  Fain would they make me migrate into some other body.  But I myself like it not.  This one suits me admirably.  Ula, that kava is stronger than you are used to make it.”

“No, no,” Ula cried, pressing it to his lips a second time, passionately.  “You are a very great god.  You are tired; it overcomes you.  And if you sleep, I will watch.  Fire and Water dare not disobey your commands.  Are you not great?  Your Eyes are everywhere.  And I, even I, will be as one of them.”