e, with eager faces. "Oh, Tu-Kila-Kila!" the eldest among
them said, making a profound reverence, "shall we swim across to the reef
and fetch them home to your house? Shall we take over our canoes and
bring back your victims!"

The god motioned them back with one outstretched palm. His eyes were
flushed and his look lazy. "Not to-night, my people," he said;
readjusting the garland of flowers round his neck, and giving a careless
glance at the well-picked bones that a few hours before had been two
trembling fellow creatures. "Tu-Kila-Kila has feasted his fill for this
evening. Your god is full; his heart is happy. I have eaten human flesh;
I have drunk of the juice of the kava. Am I not a great deity? Can I not
do as I will? I frown, and the heavens thunder; I gnash my teeth, and the
earth trembles. What is it to me if fresh victims come, or if they come
not? Can I not make with a nod as many as I will of them?" He took up two
fresh finger-bones, clean gnawed of their flesh, and knocked them
together in a wild tune, carelessly. "If Tu-Kila-Kila chooses," he went
on, tapping his chest with conscious pride, "he can knock these bones
together--so--and bid them live again. Is it not I who cause women and
beasts to bring forth their young? Is it not I who give the turtles their
increase? And is it not a small thing to me, therefore, whether the sea
tosses up my victims from my home in the sun, or whether it does not? Let
us leave them alone on the reef for to-night; to-morrow we will send over
our canoes to fetch them."

It was all pure brag, all pure guesswork; and yet, Tu-Kila-Kila himself
profoundly believed it.

As he spoke, the light from Felix's fire blazed out against the dark sky,
stronger and clearer still; and through that cloudless tropical air the
figure of a man, standing for one moment between the flames and the
lagoon, became distinctly visible to the keen and practised eyes of the
savages. "I see them? I see them; I see the victims!" the foremost
worshipper exclaimed, rushing forward a little at the sight, and beside
himself with superstitious awe and surprise at Tu-Kila-Kila's presence.
"Surely our god is great! He knows all things! He brings us meat from
the setting sun, in ships of fire, in blazing canoes, across the golden
road of the sun-bathed ocean!"

As for Tu-Kila-Kila himself, leaning on his elbow at ease, he gazed
across at the unexpected sight with very languid interest. He was a god,
and he li