The rest of that wonderful eventful day was wholly occupied with practical details.  Before long, two adjacent huts were found for them, near the shore of the lagoon; and Felix noticed with pleasure, not only that the huts themselves were new and clean, but also that the chief took great care to place round both of them a single circular line of white coral-sand, like the one he had noticed at Tu-Kila-Kila’s palace-temple.  He felt sure this white line made the space within taboo.  No native would dare without leave to cross it.

When the line was well marked out round the two huts together, the chief went away for a while, leaving the Europeans within their broad white circle, guarded by an angry-looking band of natives with long spears at rest, all pointed inward.  The natives themselves stood well without the ring, but the points of their spears almost reached the line, and it was clear they would not for the present permit the Europeans to leave the charmed circle.

Presently, the chief returned again, followed by two other natives in official costumes.  One of them was a tall and handsome young man, dressed in a long robe or cloak of yellow feathers.  The other was stouter, and perhaps forty or thereabouts; he wore a short cape of white albatross plumes, with a girdle of shells at his waist, interspersed with red coral.

“The King of Fire will make Taboo,” the chief said, solemnly.

The young man with the cloak of yellow feathers stepped forward and spoke, toeing the line with his left foot, and brandishing a lighted stick in his right hand.  “Taboo!  Taboo!  Taboo!” he cried aloud, with emphasis.  “If any man dare to transgress this line without leave, I burn him to ashes.  If any woman, I scorch her to a cinder.  Taboo to the King of the Rain and the Queen of the Clouds.  Taboo!  Taboo!  Taboo!  Korong!  I say it.”

He stepped back into the ranks with an air of duty performed.  The chief looked about him curiously a moment.  “The King of Water will make Taboo,” he repeated after a pause, in the same deep tone of profound conviction.

The stouter man in the short white cape stepped forward in his turn.  He toed the line with his naked left foot; in his brown right hand he carried a calabash of water.  “Taboo!  Taboo!  Taboo!” he exclaimed aloud, pouring out the water upon the ground symbolically.  “If any man dare to transgress this line without leave, I drown him in his canoe.  If any woman, I drag her alive into the spring as she fetches water.  Taboo to the King of the Rain and the Queen of the Clouds.  Taboo!  Taboo!  Taboo!  Korong!  I say it.”

“What does it all mean?” Muriel whispered, terrified.

Felix explained to her, as far as he could, in a few hurried sentences.  “There’s only one word in it I don’t understand,” he added, hastily, “and that’s Korong.  It doesn’t occur in Fiji.  They keep saying we’re Korong, whatever that may mean; and evidently they attach some very great importance to it.”