“No, not on a desert island,” Felix answered, shortly; “I’m afraid it’s a great deal worse than that.  To tell you the truth, I’m afraid it’s inhabited.”

At that moment, by the hot embers of the great sacrificial pyre on the central hill, two of the savage temple-attendants, calling their god’s attention to a sudden blaze of flame upon the fringing reef, pointed with their dark forefingers and called out in surprise, “See, see, a fire on the barrier!  A fire!  A fire!  What can it mean?  There are no men of our people over there to-night.  Have war-canoes arrived?  Has some enemy landed?”

Tu-Kila-Kila leaned back, drained his cocoanut cup of intoxicating kava, and surveyed the unwonted apparition on the reef long and carefully.  “It is nothing,” he said at last, in his most deliberate manner, stroking his cheeks and chin contentedly with that plump round hand of his.  “It is only the victims; the new victims I promised you.  Korong!  Korong!  They have come ashore with their light from my home in the sun.  They have brought fire afresh—­holy fire to Boupari.”

Three or four of the savages leaped up in fierce joy, and bowed before him as he spoke, with eager faces.  “Oh, Tu-Kila-Kila!” the eldest among them said, making a profound reverence, “shall we swim across to the reef and fetch them home to your house?  Shall we take over our canoes and bring back your victims!”

The god motioned them back with one outstretched palm.  His eyes were flushed and his look lazy.  “Not to-night, my people,” he said; readjusting the garland of flowers round his neck, and giving a careless glance at the well-picked bones that a few hours before had been two trembling fellow creatures.  “Tu-Kila-Kila has feasted his fill for this evening.  Your god is full; his heart is happy.  I have eaten human flesh; I have drunk of the juice of the kava.  Am I not a great deity?  Can I not do as I will?  I frown, and the heavens thunder; I gnash my teeth, and the earth trembles.  What is it to me if fresh victims come, or if they come not?  Can I not make with a nod as many as I will of them?” He took up two fresh finger-bones, clean gnawed of their flesh, and knocked them together in a wild tune, carelessly.  “If Tu-Kila-Kila chooses,” he went on, tapping his chest with conscious pride, “he can knock these bones together—­so—­and bid them live again.  Is it not I who cause women and beasts to bring forth their young?  Is it not I who give the turtles their increase?  And is it not a small thing to me, therefore, whether the sea tosses up my victims from my home in the sun, or whether it does not?  Let us leave them alone on the reef for to-night; to-morrow we will send over our canoes to fetch them.”

It was all pure brag, all pure guesswork; and yet, Tu-Kila-Kila himself profoundly believed it.