"In an island where we find ourselves so girt round by mystery within mystery, and taboo within taboo, as this, every key is worth trying.

It is well for us at least to learn everything we can about the ideas of the natives.

Who knows what clue may supply us at last with the missing link, which will enable us to break through this intolerable servitude ?" "Well, the story they tell us is this," the Frenchman replied, "though I have gathered it only a hint at a time, from very old men, who declared at the same moment that some religious fear--of which they have many--prevented them from telling me any further about it.

It seems that a long time ago--how many years ago nobody knows, only that it was in the time of the thirty-ninth Tu-Kila-Kila, before the reign of Lavita, the son of Sami--a strange Korong was cast up upon this island by the waves of the sea, much as you and I have been in the present generation.

By accident, says the story, or else, as others aver, through the indiscretion of a native woman who fell in love with him, and who worried the taboo out of her husband, the stranger became acquainted with the secret of Tu-Kila-Kila.