ir bare backs and shoulders. But the savages, as if entranced, seemed
to take no heed of all these earthly things. They lay grovelling in the
mud before some unseen power; and beating their tom-toms in unison, with
barbaric concord, they cried aloud once more as Felix appeared, in a
weird litany that overtopped the tumultuous noise of the tempest, "Oh,
Storm-God, hear us! Oh, great spirit, deliver us! King of the Rain and
Queen of the Clouds, befriend us! Be angry no more! Hide your wrath from
your people! Take away your hurricane, and we will bring you many gifts.
Eat no longer of the storm-apple--the seed of the wind--and we will feed
you with yam and turtle, and much choice bread-fruit. Great king, we are
yours; you shall choose which you will of our children for your meat and
drink; you shall sup on our blood. But take your storm away; do not
utterly drown and submerge our island!"

As they spoke they crawled nearer and nearer, with gliding serpentine
motion, till their heads almost touched the white line of coral. But not
a man of them all went one inch beyond it. They stopped there and gazed
at him. Felix signed to them with his hand, and pointed vaguely to the
sky, as much as to say _he_ was not responsible. At the gesture the whole
assembly burst into one loud shout of gratitude. "He has heard us, he has
heard us!" they exclaimed, with a perfect wail of joy. "He will not
utterly destroy us. He will take away his storm. He will bring the sun
and the moon back to us."

Felix returned into the hut, somewhat reassured so far as the attitude of
the savages went. "Don't be afraid of them, Muriel," he cried, taking her
passionately once more in a tender embrace. "They daren't cross the
taboo. They won't come near; they're too frightened themselves to dream
of hurting us."

CHAPTER XI.

AFTER THE STORM.

Next morning the day broke bright and calm, as if the tempest had been
but an evil dream of the night, now past forever. The birds sang loud;
the lizards came forth from their holes in the wall, and basked, green
and gold, in the warm, dry sunshine. But though the sky overhead was blue
and the air clear, as usually happen after these alarming tropical
cyclones and rainstorms, the memorials of the great wind that had raged
all night long among the forests of the island were neither few nor far
between. Everywhere the ground was strewn with leaves and branches and
huge stems of cocoa-palms. All nature was dra