He received his sentence of death with greater calmness than the Frenchman had expected.  “Monsieur,” the older arrival answered, with a reflective air, “there comes in the mystery.  If we could solve that, we could find out also the way of escape for you.  For there is a way of escape for every Korong:  I know it well; I gather it from all the natives say; it is a part of their mysteries; but what it may be, I have hitherto, in spite of all my efforts, failed to discover.  All I do know is this:  Tu-Kila-Kila hates and dreads in his heart every Korong that is elevated to Heaven, and would do anything, if he dared, to get rid of him quietly.  But he doesn’t dare, because he is bound hand and foot himself, too, by taboos innumerable.  Taboo is the real god and king of Boupari.  All the island alike bows down to it and worships it.”

“Have you ever known Korongs killed?” Felix asked once more, trembling.

“Yes, monsieur.  Many of them, alas!  And this is what happens.  When the Korong’s time is come, as these creatures say, either on the summer or winter solstice, he is bound with native ropes, and carried up so pinioned to Tu-Kila-Kila’s temple.  In the time before this man was Tu-Kila-Kila, I remember—­”

“Stop,” Felix cried.  “I don’t understand.  Has there then been more than one Tu-Kila-Kila?”

“Why, yes,” the Frenchman answered.  “Certainly, many.  And there the mystery comes in again.  We have always among us one Tu-Kila-Kila or another.  He is a sort of pope, or grand lama, voyez-vous? No sooner is the last god dead than another god succeeds him and takes his name, or rather his title.  This young man who now holds the place was known originally as Lavita, the son of Sami.  But what is more curious still, the islanders always treat the new god as if he were precisely the self-same person as the old one.  So far as I have been able to understand their theology, they believe in a sort of transmigration of souls.  The soul of the Tu-Kila-Kila who is just dead passes into and animates the body of the Tu-Kila-Kila who succeeds to the office.  Thus they speak as though Tu-Kila-Kila were a continuous existence; and the god of the moment, himself, will even often refer to events which occurred to him, as he says, a hundred years ago or more, but which he really knows, of course, only by the persistent tradition of the islanders.  They are a very curious people, these Bouparese.  But what would you have?  Among savages, one expects things to be as among savages.”

Felix drew a quiet sigh.  It was certain that on the island of Boupari that expectation, at least, was never doomed to disappointment.  “And when a Korong is taken to Tu-Kila-Kila’s temple,” he asked, continuing the subject of most immediate interest, “what happens next to him?”