Sick and desperate at the accident, Felix, in turn, clinging hard to his bough with one hand, gazed wildly about him to look for the parasite.  But it had gone as if by magic.  He glanced around in despair, vaguely conscious that nothing was left for it now but to drop to the ground and let himself be killed at leisure by that frantic savage.  Yet even as he did so, he was aware of that great cry—­a cry as of triumph—­still rending the air.  Fire and Water had rushed forward, and were holding back Tu-Kila-Kila, now black in the face from rage, with all their might.  Ula was smiling a malicious joy.  The Eyes were all agog with interest and excitement.  And from one and all that wild scream rose unanimous to the startled sky:  “He has it!  He has it!  The Soul of the Tree!  The Spirit of the World!  The great god’s abode.  Hold off your hands, Lavita, son of Sami!  Your trial has come.  He has it!  He has it!”

Felix looked about him with a whirling brain.  His eye fell suddenly.  There, in his own hand, lay the fateful bough.  In his efforts to steady himself, he had clutched at it by pure accident, and broken it off unawares with the force of his clutching.  As fortune would have it, he grasped it still.  His senses reeled.  He was almost dead with excitement, suspense, and uncertainty, mingled with pain of his wrenched wrist.  But for Muriel’s sake he pulled himself together.  Gazing down and trying hard to take it all in—­that strange savage scene—­he saw that Tu-Kila-Kila was making frantic attempts to lunge at him with the spear, while the King of Fire and the King of Water, stern and relentless, were holding him off by main force, and striving their best to appease and quiet him.

There was an awful pause.  Then a voice broke the stillness from beyond the taboo-line: 

“The Shadow of the King of the Rain speaks,” it said, in very solemn, conventional accents.  “Korong!  Korong!  The Great Taboo is broken.  Fire and Water, hold him in whom dwells the god till my master comes.  He has the Soul of all the spirits of the wood in his hands.  He will fight for his right.  Taboo!  Taboo!  I, Toko, have said it.”

He clapped his hands thrice.

Tu-Kila-Kila made a wild effort to break away once more.  But the King of Fire, standing opposite him, spoke still louder and clearer.  “If you touch the Korong before the line is drawn,” he said, with a voice of authority, “you are no Tu-Kila-Kila, but an outcast and a criminal.  All the people will hold you with forked sticks, while the Korong burns you alive slowly, limb by limb, with me, who am Fire, the fierce, the consuming.  I will scorch you and bake you till you are as a bamboo in the flame.  Taboo!  Taboo!  Taboo!  I, Fire, have said it.”