AN UNFINISHED TALE.
For a minute or two Methuselah mumbled inarticulately to himself. Then,
to their intense discomfiture, he began once more: "In the nineteenth
year of the reign of his most gracious majesty, King Charles the Second,
I, Nathaniel Cross--"
"Oh, this will never do," Felix cried. "We haven't got yet to the secret
at all. Muriel, do try to set him right. He must waste no breath. We
can't afford now to let him go all over it."
Muriel stretched out her hand and soothed the bird gently as before.
"Having slain, therefore, my predecessor in the high godship," she
suggested, in the same singsong voice as the parrot's.
To her immense relief, Methuselah took the hint with charming docility.
"In the high godship," he went on, mechanically, where he had stopped.
"And this here is the manner whereby I obtained it. The Too-Keela-Keela
from time to time doth generally appoint any castaway stranger that comes
to the island to the post of Korong--that is to say, an annual god or
victim. For, as the year doth renew itself at each change of seasons, so
do these carribals in their gentilisme believe and hold that the gods of
the seasons--to wit, the King of the Rain, the Queen of the Clouds, the
Lord of Green Leaves, the King of Fruits, and others--must needs be
sleain and renewed at the diverse solstices. Now, it so happened that I,
on my arrival in the island, was appointed Korong, and promoted to the
post of King of the Rain, having a native woman assigned me as Queen of
the Clouds, with whom I might keep company. This woman being, after her
kind, enamored of me, and anxious to escape her own fate, to be sleain by
my side, did betray to me that secret which they call in their tongue the
Great Taboo, and which had been betrayed to herself in turn by a native
man, her former lover. For the men are instructed in these things in the
mysteries when they coom of age, but not the women.
"And the Great Taboo is this: No man can becoom a Too-Keela-Keela unless
he first sleay the man in whom the high god is incarnate for the moment.
But in order that he may sleay him, he must also himself be a full
Korong, only those persons who are already gods being capable for the
highest post in their hierarchy; even as with ourselves, none but he that
is a deacon may become a priest, and none but he that is a priest may be
made a bishop. For this reason, then, the Too-Keela-Keela prefers to
advance a stranger to the post of Korong, seeing that such a person will
not have been initiated in the mysteries of the island, and therefore
will not be aware of those sundry steps which must needs be taken of him
that would inherit the godship.
"Furthermore, even a Korong can only obtain the highest rank of
Too-Keela-Keela if he order all things according to the forms and
ceremonies of the Taboo parfectly. For these gentiles are very careful of
the levitical parts of their religion, deriving the same, as it seems to
me, from the polity of the Hebrews, the fame of whose tabernacle must
sure have gone forth through the ends of the woorld, and the knowledge of
whose temple must have been yet more wide dispersed by Solomon, his
ships, when they came into these parts to fetch gold from Ophir. And the
ceremony is, that before any man may sleay the 'arthly tenement of
Too-Keela-Keela and inherit his soul, which is in very truth, as they do
think the god himself, he must needs fight with the person in whom
Too-Keela-Keela doth then dwell, and for this reason: If the holder of
the soul can defend himself in fight, then it is clear that his strength
is not one whit decayed, nor is his vigor feailing; nor yet has his
assailant been able to take his soul from him. But if the Korong in open
fight do sleay the person in whom Too-Keela-Keela dwells, he becometh at
once a Too-Keela-Keela himself--that is to say, in their tongue, the Lord
of Lords, because he hath taken the life of him that preceded him.
"Yet so intricate is the theology and practice of these loathsome
savages, that not even now have I explained it in full to you, O
shipwrecked mariner, for your aid and protection. For a Korong, though it
be a part of his privilege to contend, if he will, with Too-Keela-Keela
for the high godship and princedom of this isle, may only do so at
certain appointed times, places, and seasons. Above all things, it is
necessary that he should first find out the hiding-place of the soul of
Too-Keela-Keela. For though the Too-Keela-Keela for the time that is, be
animated by the god, yet, for greater security, he doth not keep his soul
in his own body, but, being above all things the god of fruitfulness and
generation, who causes women to bear children, and the plant called taro
to bring forth its increase, he keepeth his soul in the great sacred tree
behind his temple, which is thus the Father of All Trees, and the
chiefest abode of the great god Too-Keela-Keela.
"Nor does Too-Keela-Keela's soul abide equally in every part of this
aforesaid tree; but in a certain bough of it, resembling a mistletoe,
which hath yellow leaves, and, being broken off, groweth ever green and
yellow afresh; which is the central mystery of all their Sathanic
religion. For in this very bough--easy to be discerned by the eye among
the green leaves of the tree--" the bird paused and faltered.
Muriel leaned forward in an agony of excitement. "Among the green leaves
of the tree--" she went on soothing him.
Her voice seemed to give the parrot a fresh impulse to speak. "--Is
contained, as it were," he continued, feebly, "the divine essence itself,
the soul and life of Too-Keela-Keela. Whoever, then, being a full Korong,
breaks this off, hath thus possessed himself of the very god in person.
This, however, he must do by exceeding stealth; for Too-Keela-Keela,
or rather the man that bears that name, being the guardian and defender
of the great god, walks ever up and down, by day and by night, in
exceeding great cunning, armed with a spear and with a hatchet of stone,
around the root of the tree, watching jealously over the branch which is,
as he believes, his own soul and being. I, therefore, being warned of the
Taboo by the woman that was my consort, did craftily, near the appointed
time for my own death, creep out of my hut, and my consort, having
induced one of the wives of Too-Keela-Keela to make him drunken with too
much of that intoxicating drink which they do call kava, did proceed--did
proceed--did proceed--In the nineteenth year of the reign of his most
gracious majesty, King Charles the Second--"
Muriel bent forward once more in an agony of suspense. "Oh, go on, good
Poll!" she cried. "Go on. Remember it. Did proceed to--"
The single syllable helped Methuselah's memory. "--Did proceed to
stealthily pluck the bough, and, having shown the same to Fire and Water,
the guardians of the Taboo, did boldly challenge to single combat the
bodily tenement of the god, with spear and hatchet, provided for me in
accordance with ancient custom by Fire and Water. In which combat,
Heaven mercifully befriending me against my enemy, I did coom out
conqueror; and was thereupon proclaimed Too-Keela-Keela myself, with
ceremonies too many and barbarous to mention, lest I raise your gorge at
them. But that which is most important to tell you for your own guidance
and safety, O mariner, is this--that being the sole and only end I have
in imparting this history to so strange a messenger--that after you have
by craft plucked the sacred branch, and by force of arms over-cootn
Too-Keela-Keela, it is by all means needful, whether you will or not,
that submitting to the hateful and gentile custom of this people--of this
people--Pretty Poll! Pretty Poll! God save--God save the king! Death
to the nineteenth year of the reign of all arrant knaves and roundheads."
He dropped his head on his breast, and blinked his white eyelids more
feebly than ever. His strength was failing him fast. The Soul of all dead
parrots was wearing out. M. Peyron, who had stood by all this time, not
knowing in any way what might be the value of the bird's disclosures,
came forward and stroked poor Methuselah with his caressing hand. But
Methuselah was incapable now of any further effort. He opened his blind
eyes sleepily for the last, last time, and stared around him with a blank
stare at the fading universe. "God save the king!" he screamed aloud with
a terrible gasp, true to his colors still. "God save the king, and to
hell with all papists!"
Then he fell off his perch, stone dead, on the ground. They were never to
hear the conclusion of that strange, quaint message from a forgotten age
to our more sceptical century.
Felix looked at Muriel, and Muriel looked at Felix. They could hardly
contain themselves with awe and surprise. The parrot's words were so
human, its speech was so real to them, that they felt as though the
English Tu-Kila-Kila of two hundred years back had really and truly
been speaking to them from that perch; it was a human creature indeed
that lay dead before them. Felix raised the warm body from the ground
with positive reverence. "We will bury it decently," he said in French,
turning to M. Peyron. "He was a plucky bird, indeed, and he has carried
out his master's intentions nobly."
As they spoke, a little rustling in the jungle hard by attracted their
attention. Felix turned to look. A stealthy brown figure glided away in
silence through the tangled brushwood. M. Peyron started. "We are
observed, monsieur," he said. "We must look out for squalls! It is one
of the Eyes of Tu-Kila-Kila!"
"Let him do his worst!" Felix answered. "We know his secret now, and can
protect ourselves against him. Let us return to the shade, monsieur, and
talk this all over. Methuselah has indeed given us something to-day very
serious to think about."