The man who had headed the first canoe turned round to Felix and motioned him forward.  “This is Heaven,” he said glibly, in his own tongue.  “Spirits, ascend it!”

Felix, much wondering what the ceremony could mean, mounted the platform without a word, in obedience to the chief’s command, closely followed by Muriel, who dared not leave him for a second.

“Bring water!” the chief said, shortly, in a voice of authority to one of his followers.

The man handed up a calabash with a little water in it.  The chief took the rude vessel from his hands in a reverential manner, and poured a few drops of the contents on Felix’s head; the water trickled down over his hair and forehead.  Involuntarily, Felix shook his head a little at the unexpected wetting, and scattered the drops right and left on his neck and shoulders.  The chief watched this performance attentively with profound satisfaction.  Then he turned to his attendants.

“The spirit shakes his head,” he said, with a deeply convinced air.  “All is well.  Heaven has chosen him.  Korong!  Korong!  He is accepted for his purpose.  It is well!  It is well!  Let us try the other one.”

He raised the calabash once more, and poured a few drops in like manner on Muriel’s dark hair.  The poor girl, trembling in every limb, shook her head also in the same unintentional fashion.  The chief regarded her with still more complacent eyes.

“It is well,” he observed once more to his companions, smiling.  “She, too, gives the sign of acceptance.  Korong!  Korong!  Heaven is well pleased with both.  See how her body trembles!”

At that moment a girl came forward with a little basket of fruits.  The chief chose a banana with care from the basket, peeled it with his dusky hands, broke it slowly in two, and handed one half very solemnly to Felix.

“Eat, King of the Rain,” he said, as he presented it.  “The offering of Heaven.”

Felix ate it at once, thinking it best under the circumstances not to demur at all to anything his strange hosts might choose to impose upon him.

The chief handed the other half just as solemnly to Muriel.  “Eat, Queen of the Clouds,” he said, as he placed it in her fingers.  “The offering of Heaven.”

Muriel hesitated.  She didn’t know what his words meant, and it seemed to her rather the offering of a very dirty and unwashed savage.  The chief eyed her hard.  “For God’s sake eat it, my child; he tells you to eat it!” Felix exclaimed in haste.  Muriel lifted it to her lips and swallowed it down with difficulty.  The man’s dusky hands didn’t inspire confidence.

But the chief seemed relieved when he had seen her swallow it.  “All is well done,” he said, turning again to his followers.  “We have obeyed the words of Tu-Kila-Kila, and his orders that he gave us.  We have offered the strangers, the spirits from the sun, as a free gift to Heaven, and Heaven has accepted them.  We have given them fruits, the fruits of the earth, and they have duly eaten them.  Korong!  Korong!  The King of the Rain and the Queen of the Clouds have indeed come among us.  They are truly gods.  We will take them now, as he bid us, to Tu-Kila-Kila.”