CHAPTER XVI.
A VERY FAINT CLUE.
"But you hinted at some hope, some chance of escape," Felix cried at last, looking up from the ground and mastering his emotion.

"What now is that hope?
Conceal nothing from me." "Monsieur," the Frenchman answered, shrugging his shoulders with an expression of utter impotence, "I have as good reasons for wishing to find out all that as even you can have.

_Your_ secret is _my_ secret; but with all my pains and astuteness I have been unable to discover it.

The natives are reticent, very reticent indeed, about all these matters.

They fear taboo; and they fear Tu-Kila-Kila.