“You have lived here long?” Felix asked, with tremulous interest, as he took a seat on the bench under the big tree, toward which his new host politely motioned him. “You know the people well, and all their superstitions?”

“Hélas, yes, monsieur,” the Frenchman answered, with a sigh of regret. “Eighteen years have I spent altogether in this beast of a Pacific; nine as a convict in New Caledonia, and nine more as a god here; and, believe me, I hardly know which is the harder post. Yours is the first White face I have ever seen since my arrival in this cursed island.”

“And how did you come here?” Felix asked, half breathless, for the very magnitude of the stake at issue—no less a stake than Muriel’s life—made him hesitate to put point-blank the question he had most at heart for the moment.

“Monsieur,” the Frenchman answered, trying to cover his rags with his native cape, “that explains itself easily. I was a medical student in Paris in the days of the Commune. Ah! that beloved Paris—how far away it seems now from Boupari! Like all other students I was advanced—Republican, Socialist—what you will—a political enthusiast. When the events took place—the events of ‘70—I espoused with all my heart the cause of the people. You know the rest. The bourgeoisie conquered. I was taken red-handed, as the Versaillais said—my pistol in my grasp—an open revolutionist. They tried me by court-martial—br’r’r—no delay—guilty, M. le President—hard labor to perpetuity. They sent me with that brave Louise Michel and so many other good comrades of the cause to New Caledonia. There, nine years of convict life was more than enough for me. One day I found a canoe on the shore—a little Kanaka canoe—you know the type—a mere shapeless dug-out. Hastily I loaded it with food—yam, taro, bread-fruit—I pushed it off into the sea—I embarked alone—I intrusted myself and all my fortunes to the Bon Dieu and the wide Pacific. The Bon Dieu did not wholly justify my confidence. It is a way he has—that inscrutable one. Six weeks I floated hither and thither before varying winds. At last one evening I reached this island. I floated ashore. And, enfin, me voilà!”

“Then you were a political prisoner only?” Felix said, politely.

M. Jules Peyron drew himself up with much dignity in his tattered costume. “Do I look like a card-sharper, monsieur?” he asked simply, with offended honor.

Felix hastened to reassure him of his perfect confidence. “On the contrary, monsieur,” he said, “the moment I heard you were a convict from New Caledonia, I felt certain in my heart you could be nothing less than one of those unfortunate and ill-treated Communards.”

“Monsieur,” the Frenchman said, seizing his hand a second time, “I perceive that I have to do with a man of honor and a man of feeling. Well, I landed on this island, and they made me a god. From that day to this I have been anxious only to shuffle off my unwelcome divinity, and return as a mere man to the shores of Europe. Better be a valet in Paris, say I, than a deity of the best in Polynesia. It is a monotonous existence here—no society, no life—and the cuisine—bah, execrable! But till the other day, when your steamer passed, I have scarcely even sighted a European ship. A boat came here once, worse luck, to put off two girls (who didn’t belong to Boupari), returned indentured laborers from Queensland; but, unhappily, it was during my taboo—the Month of Birds, as my jailers call it—and though I tried to go down to it or to make signals of distress, the natives stood round my hut with their spears in line, and prevented me by main force from signalling to them or communicating with them. Even the other day, I never heard of your arrival till a fortnight had elapsed, for I had been sick with fever, the fever of the country, and as soon as my Shadow told me of your advent it was my taboo again, and I was obliged to defer for myself the honor of calling upon my new acquaintances. I am a god, of course, and can do what I like; but while my taboo is on, ma foi, monsieur, I can hardly call my life my own, I assure you.”

“But your taboo is up to-day,” Felix said, “so my Shadow tells me.”

“Your Shadow is a well-informed young man,” M. Peyron answered, with easy French sprightliness. “As for my donkey of a valet, he never by any chance knows or tells me anything. I had just sent him out—the pig—to learn, if possible, your nationality and name, and what hours you preferred, as I proposed later in the day to pay my respects to mademoiselle, your friend, if she would deign to receive me.”

“Miss Ellis would be charmed, I’m sure,” Felix replied, smiling in spite of himself at so much Parisian courtliness under so ragged an exterior. “It is a great pleasure to us to find we are not really alone on this barbarous island. But you were going to explain to me, I believe, the exact nature of this peril in which we both stand—the precise distinction between Korong and Tula?”

“Alas, monsieur,” the Frenchman replied, drawing circles in the dust with his stick with much discomposure, “I can only tell you I have been trying to make out the secret of this distinction myself ever since the first day I came to the island; but so reticent are all the natives about it, and so deep is the taboo by which the mystery is guarded, that even now I, who am myself Tula, can tell you but very little with certainty on the subject. All I can say for sure is this—that gods called Tula retain their godship in permanency for a very long time, although at the end some violent fate, which I do not clearly understand, is destined to befall them. That is my condition as King of the Birds—for no doubt they have told you that I, Jules Peyron—Republican, Socialist, Communist—have been elevated against my will to the honors of royalty. That is my condition, and it matters but little to me, for I know not when the end may come; and we can but die once; how or where, what matters? Meanwhile, I have my distractions, my little agréments—my gardens, my music, my birds, my native friends, my coquetries, my aviary. As King of the Birds, I keep a small collection of my subjects in the living form, not unworthy of a scientific eye. Monsieur is no ornithologist? Ah, no, I thought not. Well, for me, it matters little; my time is long. But for you and Mademoiselle, who are both Korong—” He paused significantly.

“What happens, then, to those who are Korong?” Felix asked, with a lump in his throat—not for himself, but for Muriel.

The Frenchman looked at him with a doubtful look. “Monsieur,&rdq............