These things are a great deal too high and too deep for you.  You could not comprehend them.  But men know well why.  They are wise; they have been initiated.  Much more, then, do I, who am the very high god—­who eat human flesh and drink blood like water—­who cause the sun to shine and the fruits to grow—­without whom the day in heaven would fade and die out, and the foundations of the earth would be shaken like a plantain leaf.”

Ula laid her soft brown hand soothingly on the great god’s arm just above the elbow.  “Tell me,” she said, leaning forward toward him, and looking deep into his eyes with those great speaking gray orbs of hers; “tell me, O Sustainer of the Equipoise of Heaven; I know you are great; I know you are mighty; I know you are holy and wise and cruel; but why must you let these sailing gods who come from unknown lands beyond the place where the sun rises or sets—­why must you let them so trouble and annoy you?  Why do you not at once eat them up and be done with them?  Is not their flesh sweet?  Is not their blood red?  Are they not a dainty well fit for the banquet of Tu-Kila-Kila?”

The savage looked at her for a moment and hesitated.  A very beautiful woman this Ula, certainly.  Not one of all his wives had larger brown limbs, or whiter teeth, or a deeper respect for his divine nature.  He had almost a mind—­it was only Ula?  Why not break the silence enjoined upon gods toward women, and explain this matter to her?  Not the great secret itself, of course—­the secret on which hung the Death and Transmigration of Tu-Kila-Kila—­oh, no; not that one.  The savage was far too cunning in his generation to intrust that final terrible Taboo to the ears of a woman.  But the reason why he made all strangers Korong.  A woman might surely be trusted with that—­especially Ula.  She was so very handsome.  And she was always so respectful to him.

“Well, the fact of it is,” he answered, laying his hand on her neck, that plump brown neck of hers, under the garland of dracaena leaves, and stroking it voluptuously, “the sailing gods who happen upon this island from time to time are made Korong—­but hush! it is taboo.”  He gazed around the hut suspiciously.  “Are all the others away?” he asked, in a frightened tone.  “Fire and Water would denounce me to all my people if once they found I had told a taboo to a woman.  And as for you, they would take you, because you knew it, and would pull your flesh from your bones with hot stone pincers!”

Ula rose and looked about her at the door of the tent.  She nodded thrice; then she glided back, serpentine, and threw herself gracefully, in a statuesque pose, on the native mat beside him.  “Here, drink some more kava,” she cried, holding a bowl to his lips, and wheedling him with her eyes.  “Kava is good; it is fit for gods.  It makes them royally drunk, as becomes great deities.  The spirits of our ancestors dwell in the bowl; when you drink of the kava they mount by degrees into your heart and head.  They inspire brave words.  They give you thoughts of heaven.  Drink, my master, drink.  The Ruler of the Sun in Heaven is thirsty.”