The Great Taboo | Page 3

yourself the horrible bloodthirsty
rites that may this very minute be taking place upon that idyllic-looking
island, under the soft waving branches of those whispering palm-trees.
Why, I knew a man in the Marquesas myself--a hideous old native, as
ugly as you can fancy him--who was supposed to be a god, an incarnate
god, and was worshipped accordingly with profound devotion by all
the other islanders. You can't picture to yourself how awful their
worship was. I daren't even repeat it to you; it was too, too horrible. He

lived in a hut by himself among the deepest forest, and human victims
used to be brought--well, there, it's too loathsome! Why, see; there's a
great light on the island now; a big bonfire or something; don't you
make it out? You can tell it by the red glare in the sky overhead." He
paused a moment; then he added more slowly, "I shouldn't be surprised
if at this very moment, while we're standing here in such perfect
security on the deck of a Christian English vessel, some unspeakable
and unthinkable heathen orgy mayn't be going on over there beside that
sacrificial fire; and if some poor trembling native girl isn't being led
just now, with blows and curses and awful savage ceremonies, her
hands bound behind her back--Oh, look out, Miss Ellis!"
He was only just in time to utter the warning words. He was only just in
time to put one hand on each side of her slender waist, and hold her
tight so, when the big wave which he saw coming struck full tilt against
the vessel's flank, and broke in one white drenching sheet of foam
against her stern and quarter-deck.
The suddenness of the assault took Felix's breath away. For the first
few seconds he was only aware that a heavy sea had been shipped, and
had wet him through and through with its unexpected deluge. A
moment later, he was dimly conscious that his companion had slipped
from his grasp, and was nowhere visible. The violence of the shock,
and the slimy nature of the sea water, had made him relax his hold
without knowing it, in the tumult of the moment, and had at the same
time caused Muriel to glide imperceptibly through his fingers, as he
had often known an ill-caught cricket-ball do in his school-days. Then
he saw he was on his hands and knees on the deck. The wave had
knocked him down, and dashed him against the bulwark on the leeward
side. As he picked himself up, wet, bruised, and shaken, he looked
about for Muriel. A terrible dread seized upon his soul at once.
Impossible! Impossible! she couldn't have been washed overboard!
And even as he gazed about, and held his bruised elbow in his hand,
and wondered to himself what it could all mean, that sudden loud cry
arose beside him from the quarter-deck, "Man overboard! Man
overboard!" followed a moment later by the answering cry, from the

men who were smoking under the lee of the companion, "A lady! a
lady! It's Miss Ellis! Miss Ellis!"
He didn't take it all in. He didn't reflect. He didn't even know he was
actually doing it. But he did it, all the same, with the simple,
straightforward, instinctive sense of duty which makes civilized man
act aright, all unconsciously, in any moment of supreme danger and
difficulty. Leaping on to the taffrail without one instant's delay, and
steadying himself for an indivisible fraction of time with his hand on
the rope ladder, he peered out into the darkness with keen eyes for a
glimpse of Muriel Ellis's head above the fierce black water; and
espying it for one second, as she came up on a white crest, he plunged
in before the vessel had time to roll back to windward, and struck
boldly out in the direction where he saw that helpless object dashed
about like a cork on the surface of the ocean.
Only those who have known such accidents at sea can possibly picture
to themselves the instantaneous haste with which all that followed took
place upon that bustling quarter-deck. Almost at the first cry of "Man
overboard!" the captain's bell rang sharp and quick, as if by magic, with
three peremptory little calls in the engine-room below. The
Australasian was going at full speed, but in a marvellously short time,
as it seemed to all on board, the great ship had slowed down to a
perfect standstill, and then had reversed her engines, so that she lay,
just nose to the wind, awaiting further orders. In the meantime, almost
as soon as the words were out of the bo'sun's lips, a sailor amidships
had rushed to the safety belts hung up by the companion ladder, and
had flung